Theology Of Love 39

 It is always an uphill climb but that is how we get stronger. I am sometimes appalled at my own lack of courtesy towards others, as if the rest of you aren't already bad enough.  For example, in the café this morning, I finally actually said hi to a young woman who is often there with her laptop (she works from home, even if home is a coffee shop).  I am generally a bit shyer with women than men, but mostly out of courtesy.  Women put up with so much crap from men, that I am sure a lot of young women simply are not comfortable with some random older guy giving them the time of day.  And for good reason.

But I'm not exactly some random guy.  Last summer I traded tables with her because she needed an outlet nearby for her laptop.  We exchanged a couple of friendly words, and on occasion we would say hi in the coffee shop.  I have already made another friend in this café, who is also a tech worker who is often there with his laptop.  No more details are needed, since I do want to protect people's privacy, unless I don't happen to like them, as with the archbishop for this Anglican diocese when she sicked her lawyer on me last spring because I wouldn't shut up about my need at the time for pastoral support and she steadfastly ignored me (so sue me, Melissa!)

And I don't hate the archbishop.  But she really defaulted on her pastoral responsibilities, as did my parish priest, who also steadfastly stonewalled me.  It was only when I was threatening to go public, and starting to, about what they were pulling off when the cowards actually backed off.   And Anglicans, as well as being the most outrageous hypocrites in Christendom, are also unbelievable cowards.  It's middle class privilege you know.  

Have I forgiven those people?  Well, several times in as may months I have emailed her nibs about reconciling, and the old coward won't face up.  She keeps ignoring me.  And these are Christians.  Ministers.  Representing the same denomination that has been publicly wearing the hair shirt, publicly beating their breast and thumping their tub in the most shameless public virtue signalling as they crow and bleat so loudly like manic roosters and sheep about how sorry they are for how they treated First Nations and all about reconciliation.  Yet the old bag can't even bring herself to reconcile with a low income blogger whose only sin was refusing to shut up when I was being refused help and support.  

Forgiveness is a process.  And I will not stop reminding those people that as Christians we have a responsibility to reconcile.  No excuses.

Back to my friends in the coffee shop.  This morning, my friend and the young woman were sharing a table, but not interacting, and I said hi to both of them, and we all had fun visiting and chatting together.  Sometimes it was like a little party, it was so much fun.  

I am not going to stop reaching out.  And I am not going to shut up.

Theology Of Love 38

 Here is another effort for describing and deconstructing some rather complex interdynamics as a way of further defining love, or where love is lacking  I will focus here on my experience of living here in Candela Place, my apartment building. This all came up today when I was on the phone with the building manager, a really lovely and very supportive individual.  We were talking about the details for getting ready for the delivery of my new fridge today.  I was particularly asking that they not arrive ahead of the scheduled time, this time, because I had some things to do, shopping and going for a long walk.  My building manager, understandably, suggested that I might want to do those things after, but I said that I was not going to wait in my apartment all morning, and for some rather basic reasons.  First, even though this is my day off, I do have a discipline, to help maintain good health, of getting out in the fresh air and walking at least six miles a day.  This is important for a number of reasons.  The exercise, which is also easy on my aging joints, the prayerful and meditative aspect, especially walking in the forest of Stanley Park, or in the forest anywhere.  It also helps me maintain a healthy body weight.

The shopping is also a bit problematic.  There is a bit of a problem with where our building is situated.  It is in the middle of downtown, on a busy main street, Granville, and there are a lot of major social problems in the area.  Also, there is no affordable grocery shopping anywhere within walking distance.  All the local supermarkets are expensive and cater to a niche market.  For this reason, we have to travel around Vancouver for affordable food, since in this building we are all on low incomes.  

But it isn't just that we want to get cheap groceries.  Even though we are all on low incomes here, we all have our individual dietary needs, preferences and food tastes.  I really don't think that the folks who manage this building have really worked that hard to factor this in.  In my case, I am vegetarian,.  I also like to eat food that is healthy, whole, fresh and natural.  In the local supermarkets it is very difficult to source a lot of these foods when living on a low or limited income.  For example, I was wanting to buy peanut butter, jam and cheese.  So, one could easily imagine that, well, I can get all these things at Shoppers Drug Mart down the street.  But the food prices there are very high, as they are in Choices nearby and Fresh Street Market and Nester's, all within walking distance.  And the peanut butter I was wanting isn't just any old peanut butter.  Most commercial brands are full of sugar and additives. Out of deference to my health needs, especially now that I am in my sixties i like to eat well and healthy.  But the natural peanut butter in all the local yuppie markets, and is prohibitively expensive. I can get the best deals for natural peanut butter and other foods at No Frills and Safeway, but they are all distant from this neighbourhood.  Likewise with buying affordable produce, which is even hard to find in No Frills but more available in small markets in other neighbourhoods.  I could go on, but the people who administer, staff and run this building don't really seem to have much of a clue of what we have to live with every day, as tenants, just in order to source decent, healthy, tasty, interesting and affordable food.

I think part of the problem is the administration of More Than a Roof, many of whom are conservative Christians from the Fraser Valley, who usually vote for conservative politicians and really seem stuck in a mentality of meritocracy.  In other words, you earn what you get and otherwise it's charity,.  Beggars can't be choosers.  I don't believe this to be the actual mentality of our current management team, but this is still a kind of system and unconscious bigotry against the poor that is built into some aspects of the culture that administers More Than a Roof.

I really used to run into difficulties about these kinds of details with a lot of previous managers, who really just wanted me to put up and shut up, and when I didn´t, they wrote me up in my file as being prone to causing conflict, and that is perjury.  

But this unconscious bias against poor people is even made evident in the poor kitchen design, as well as the small size of the apartments in general.  Beggars can't be choosers.   Who knew that some of us actually do know how to cook, enjoy cooking, and happen to be very good at it.   But we are almost not allowed to be competent, or gifted, or well-educated, above average intelligent, and otherwise high-functioning adults.  Why would we need to live in subsidized housing then?  Except, and I think it is rather a cruel irony because the politicians that our administrators usually vote into office, have also been responsible enacting some very regressive and poor bashing polices that helped create our current crisis of street homelessness.  Which has also made Vancouver one of the world's most unaffordable cities, so that if you do luck into subsidized housing, if you don't want to end up sleeping on the sidewalk or in a low barrier shelter, you are going to want to stay where you are.  I am not sure if any of them have really explored this irony and inconsistency of theirs, but I really think they ought to.

Theology Of Love 37

 Today, I fired my physician.  I simply phoned the clinic this morning and cancelled our next appointment, and I explained to the receptionist my reasons for cancelling.  It was easier than I thought, though I did feel sort of mean and bad and ugly afterward, since I hate rejecting others, having been greatly victimized myself by the rejection of others.   I was also wondering how that could be fit into the Theology of Love, and I think it can.  First of all, even if I rather dislike this doctor, I only dislike his behaviour towards me.  I don't really know him as a person away from his work, and I do not know anything at all about his life, if he is married, has kids, pets, is single, straight, queer or other, or if he collects stamps or tortures small animals when no one's around.

As a doctor, I find him impersonal, immature, cold, officious, negative and arrogant.  I have seen him only twice, the first time in 2019, the second time just two weeks ago.  I at first thought that he would be okay after all, then later, in retrospect, realized that this was going to be a very uncomfortable and likely comflict-ridden, patient-doctor relationship.  Knowing that I am both assertive and combative, especially when others try to wield power over me (I prefer to go after big game), I also really have to pick my battles.  Conflict in a doctor-patient relationship is always ill-advised.  If there is anyone you should feel safe and comfortable with then that ought to be with your health care provider.  No-brainer.

I could see right away with this individual that assertiveness would go nowhere.  He is the doctor, which makes him god.  With a small g, of course.  I knew by our first conversation, which was about the Monteverde region of Costa Rica, were I now try to visit every year in order to see my friends there, as well as enjoy the incredible nature and biodiversity there.  So, this young upper middle class twit of a doctor, who had also visited Monteverde, just once for maybe two days the previous year, what was his take-away of that incredible and most beautiful part of the world, this place where the people are so warm and generous and the birds and butterflies unmatched in beauty? This is all my good doctor could remember or say about Monteverde, and it's world famous cloud forest.   Bungee jumping.   That's right, Gentle Reader.  what he erroneously insisted to be the highest point in Latin America.  My health care provider only remembered the bungee jumping.  I asked him about the cloud forest, the incredible birds and butterflies and wildlife, the poeple, and drew only one blank after another.  And he repeated, bungee jumping.  From the highest point in Latin America.  That´s right, ducks, an incurable twit.

I tried several times to change doctors, but without success.  He was away on a lengthy leave of absence so I saw other doctors there (they are still monitoring my health because of difficulties I was having with my thyroid and pituitary).  But I also asked for a different doctor, No luck.  I was reassigned to him.  Now we are monitoring my blood pressure.

The nurse I saw twice before him was wonderful, warm, professional, friendly, compassionate and competent.  When I saw my doctor just a week later, showing that my blood pressure had fallen from 165 to 148, just from reducing my caffeine, he could only sneer that it was not very much progress and was going to put me on medication.  I refused.  So, since they are playing deaf at my request for a different physician, I will simply go on cancelling appointments until they comply.

Now how does this all fit in with a theology of love?  I think this has something to do with acting on principal, and even if it isn't warm and fuzzy, it is still maintaining a focus on doing the right thing instead of letting a bad situation fester into something even worse.  nd it is for love for the other players qas well as myself tht this needs to get done.

Theology Of Love 36

 One of the huge, probably the greatest challenge in living out a theology of love is just that: living it out.  But I am not thinking here of those moments of inspired heroism where you have just saved a life or even an entire village in time of disaster through your benevolent and courageous intervention.  I am thinking here of  much subtler and more challenging heroism.  That's right, Gentle Reader, I am talking about the every day.   In order to learn how to love others (and simultaneously learn how much we need to learn about loving others), all we have to do is get out of  bed in the morning. The rest will take care of itself.  If you listen to the radio news and talk programs on CBC every morning as I do, then you are going to be hearing quite a wide variety of viewpoints and opinions, and they are not going to be all to our liking.  It can be indeed very tempting to get worked into a lather about how horrible people are on the right, if you happen to be on the left, or how awful they are on the left, if you happen to be on the right.  Or you want to kick the backside of the radio host for any number of reasons de jour.  All the while you will be reveling in a festering rage and hatred of them and all their ilk and all their spawn.  And before you know it, you are going out the door miserable and hostile and ready to take out the first loser that gets in your way.

On your morning commute, depending on where it is taking you, you will be confronted by other people, every bit as oblivious, in a hurry, and simply too selfish to care, as you are.  Road rage anyone?  Or how about sidewalk rage?  Every day we are going to be annoyed and inconvenienced by others whom we will deem as self-absorbed idiots and resenting them for it, and here is the real challenge of love.  To first acknowledge that our angry reactions are just that, anger.  And by letting ourselves get carried away by anger we are simply not heeding the first important step of walking in love: which is to say, the humility of admitting that we don't really know anything.  We do not know the person who is inconveniencing us.  We have no insight into their character, or into what kind of day they might be having, or of what kind of sorrow or tragedy they might be having to cope with.  Neither are we going to be able to see them through the eyes of people who actually love them, and chances are that, no matter how annoying we might find them, we are only annoyed at them because we feel they have somehow got in our way,  We cannot see them through the eyes of someone who might think they are the most wonderful persons on earth.

Neither are we going to get much perspective on how others are impacted by us.  And people are going to notice, and sometimes they might even get very angry.  Not necessarily that we have deserved it. But simply by not caring or bothering to be aware of the people around us.  That is the first important step in practical love.  Awareness of others through humility.

Theology Of Love 35

 I am grateful for the power of tears.  I have long found it interesting how preoccupied we often are in appearing strong and in complete control of ourselves, especially in such situations in which any display of strong emotion would be not only perfectly justified, but also appropriate.  In almost any Middle Eastern country, if a loved one is killed or murdered, all stops are out.  Women and men wail and scream like exorcised demons at the funerals of their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters.  There is no sense of shame or embarrassment about letting go, letting it all out, no fear of being perceived as weak.  Expressing grief over the death of a loved one is not viewed in some cultures as weakness, but as strength.

It`s rather different here in restrained Canada.  If anyone cries at a funeral, it is done only in the most tasteful way.  A little silent sniffling, a couple of tears, or absolute granite silence and faces to match.  No emotion, please, we are Canadian.  If you are faced with a terminal illness and you do it stoically, then you are lauded for your courage.  You are battling cancer.  Never a victim.  And what they don't tell you is how relieved everyone is that you`re not showing emotion, since most Canadians are absolutely inept at handling genuine expressions of grief and loss.

When I was a child anger was the only acceptable emotion in my family.  No one cried.  Tears were a sign of weakness.  Being weak, or seen as weak, was the cardinal sin.  My parents were raised during the great Depression and Second World War.  No one had time for the luxury of emotion.  Life was hard and weakness was not tolerated.  Only small children and women were allowed to cry.  In the case of boys the "weakness" was shamed and beaten out of them.  You had to be strong, a fighter, not a wimp, not a sissy.  Life was a jungle, a battlefield and only the strong survived.

This must be very similar to the kind of thinking that drove the Spaniards and the Aztecs during the conquest of Mexico.  Both nations were proud military powers fighting (so they believed) for their very existence.  Always fighting, always killing, always snuffing out the tears until they were finally too battle hardened to feel any emotion outside of anger, rage, hate and wrath.  Did Spanish conquistadores cry while falling from their horses in battle and waited for the spear, sword or axe to finish the job?  Did sacrificial victims weep and plead for their lives as they climbed their longest march ever up the steep temple stairs?  Did they weep as they were forced to lay on the altar?  As the knife did its work and they felt their beating heart torn out?

We have no way of knowing.  I find it interesting that here in emotionally restrained Canada, if a spouse or family member shows little or no emotion over the murder of a loved one they are considered immediately under suspicion.  But many people, here in Canada anyway, have been trained from the cradle to restrain their emotions.  We are not allowed to openly express the hurt and grief we are feeling.  The cool, unemotional reaction is otherwise seen as an indication of strength.

The cultures of earlier times were formed often in harsh and unforgiving conditions.  Only the strong survived.  Violence as the way of reckoning with the opposition was never questioned, almost always celebrated.  People still wept as allowed but I think that a general staunching of tears before they can flow does something to also staunch our humanity.  Tears invite empathy, which can be difficult.  I have sometimes heard standup comedians (always men!) joke that crying men never elicit empathy in other men, only scorn and contempt.  That is a learned behaviour.

We need to unlearn our fear of tears.  God gave us, men and women and others, tear ducts for a reason.  If we can accept crying as a necessary, often important catharsis, then so much the better.  We shed tears in order to rebalance ourselves.  And sometimes, some of us need to weep harder and longer than others, without shame.  I think that this learning to accept as valid the full venting and expression of emotions of grief, fear and loss, can do much to help us to unlearn the ways of violence.  I have long believed that violence is often the result of refusing to cry.

I remember still the much weeping that I experienced during the eighties and nineties while I was coping with the hundreds of deaths around me during my work with people with AIDS, my mother's death, and many others.  This was a particularly dark chapter, I think, for many of us.  Even if this prolonged agony of grief and much weeping contributed to my experience of trauma, in a way it also eased things, and I believe has helped make me into a more complete and more compassionate human being.

Many people believe that violence is an essential component of human nature.  I suppose this could be true and, despite evidence to the contrary, I often would prefer to not believe this.  Whether or not this is the case, I think that human beings have a particular advantage over other animals.  We have an advanced capacity for changing ourselves through education.  Even if violence is a part of our broken and fallen human nature will it really have to always be so?  Can we see ourselves as slowly lurching forward by a slow and agonizing process of evolution?

I will conclude here with the words of Jesus Christ:  "Love one another."

Theology Of Love 34

 I had an interesting chat with one of my bosses the other day.  We were having coffee together, rather under the guise of having a meeting. The truth is, this boss and I have become good friends, and yes, we meet together every two weeks, usually on a Thursday.  He is quite extraordinary, as far as bosses go, which also helps facilitate the friendship.   Our particular organization is divided into five teams.  Currently, I work with three of these teams.  My boss is in charge of number one.  However, both my supervisors, two women young enough to be my daughters, are associated with team number five.  Wednesday, I was on the phone for a meeting with one of my supervisors and another peer support worker.  We are developing an art project for our clients.  I am an artist.  Neither my supervisor, nor the other peer support worker are artists.  So, they have a lot of other ideas, but this also makes the focus a little bit too broad, since the original idea was art, as in, drawing, painting, sketching, colouring, collage and that sort of thing.  The other peer support worker is also, should I say, a bit on the strong side.  Pushy, I find her.  So, I am having to push back, which I don't enjoy, but sometimes becomes inevitable.

I do not want to combine what we are doing, since for me the idea is being able to keep enough of an oxygen supply for what I want to do with clients, which is art, while also respecting my coworker's strengths.  But we really cannot combine too closely what we are doing, because art is one thing, and other creative and crafty activities move rather in another direction.  So, when I created some posters for advertising the art group, it was simply that.  The art group.  My two colleagues were wanting to put extra text on my posters for the other things they wanted to do.  But I do not want to combine what we are doing, for the simple reason that I don't want to spread myself too thin.  I also want boundaries to be clear and respected.  I think I have finally persuaded them, but it wasn't easy.  I finally told them both the saying, that a camel is a horse that was assembled by committee.  Oh, but there was silence on their end of the phone!

Here is a link to my posters, ducks, if you want to have a look.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=050c35849c&attid=0.3&permmsgid=msg-f:1683746247833376632&th=175dde4aa2015778&view=att&disp=inline

As I reviewed the scenario with my boss, he gave me a dear little smile and said, well, no one has sent me an email yet, so I guess it's okay.  We do have a common understanding here summed up in my following remark, "I do tend to be a learning curve for others (thinking particularly of supervisors)".  then I suggested the reason why.  It is because I always think outside of the box.  Actually I have always thought outside of the box.  For me the box has never really existed.  And this has at times been particularly problematic.  When I was seeing an employment counsellor for a few years, she had to basically teach me about the various boxes that most people tend to think and live inside.  Necessary knowledge for someone like me, if I am to cope reasonably well in the workplace, where probably ninty-nine percent of my coworkers, including supervisors and bosses, are going to be usually living and thinking within said boxes.  At times, I even tried to find myself a new home within the boxes, with very limited success, and now I don't really even try.  It is enough to simply have a good idea of how others are living.

As I mentioned to my boss, it is because of the way my life as a Christian has so predicated and defined the way I live.  Not as a morally flabby but progressive Anglican who says one thing and does another, nor as a mouth breathing fundamentalist.  My experience of the Christian life has been focussed around an intimate and innate experience of the presence of God, the living presence of God, and that presence is love.  But we live in a world where not love, but an entire death culture of fear, greed and selfishness set the dominant tone.  So, my life expression is often going to be at work addressing and challenging this very death culute that defines the way most of us live.  Which is where my communications in my work can often get particularly difficult. 

For example, I am being particularly stubborn about my focus on fine art, because I want my clients to share and enjoy this focus, without getting confused or distracted by other activities, unless they are actually interested in the other activities, and then I will refer them to my coworker.

In the coffee shop yesterday, I told a friend about this, which he found rather entertaining, I'm sure.   Then a young Muslim woman came in with her toddler in a baby buggy.  We weren't able to sit together, since there was someone else in the other chair, so I was at the table across.  Both tables are in the front of the coffee shop, with comfy chairs and lots of space, so it is not unusual for strangers to share either of these tables.   The Muslim woman went to a table in the back, where there was not a lot of room, so she had to obstruct the bathroom.  When I went to use the washroom, I invited her to trade tables with me.  When she came over, we saw there was room for all of us, so we shared the table and even chatted a little.  

I am writing this, Gentle Reader, as an illustration of how love is not contained within boxes, but transcends and crosses all the lovely boundaries that we impose to try to keep love out..

Theology of Love 33

 When we say "God is Love," what are we really saying?  When we hear the words, "God is Love," what are we really hearing?  God is Love.  What do we mean when we say love?  What do we think of, visualize?  What kinds of yearnings are being expressed?  Many of us have rather limited, or cut and dried understandings of love.  I think the first thing that comes to mind for many is romantic love, with of course an element, often a very strong and dominant element, of sexuality.  Erotic love.  Or we could call it cherry cheesecake love (maybe chocolate, or how about New York?  Pumpkin spice cheesecake, anyone?)  Of course the idea is, something from which we derive intense pleasure.  The love of gratification.  But when that last mouthful has been swallowed, and all we are left is an empty plate and a dirty fork, then what do we do?  We are going to feel over-satiated at first, and later, empty again.

Then there is the love of a mother for her child.  We could call this Mother Bear Love.   We all know what happens when we step between, however unknowingly, a mother bear and her cub.  That's right, we become dinner.   Nothing is more precious to mother, be she bear or human, than her precious little mouth breather,  made and sourced from her own precious body.   I am not sure if any mother ever completely loses that primal link to her kids, that instinctual sense that her children are part of her body, therefore extensions of her.   Of course mom is going to protect and defend to the death her darling offspring.  Even when he grows up and becomes a criminal, or when she grows up and becomes a doctor, my progeny right or wrong.  Such unconditional love.  And everyone else is excluded.  This is a members only love.

Rather like, what could be called collegiate love.  Which is the love of our personal friends, our team members, our comrades in arms.  As long as we remain on the same side there is nothing we won't do for one another.  But just cross that line to the other side...Well, we see the worst examples of this in religious cults, when anyone who dares associate with folks outside of their darling little sect, or just questions and challenges their tenets and precepts, will be tossed out on their ear and never heard from again.  This is what I call conditional love.  

There is also the love of reciprocity.  You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.  You cover my heinie and I'll cover yours.  There is also the love of gratitude, which is a little bit better than the others, though it also falls short of unconditional love.  But the love of gratitude can also be a starting point, or even a launching pad for the unconditional variety.

I think we are really starting to get warm when we start to think of the love of interconnectedness.  This is the recognition that we are all connected to one another.  This is a cosmic, transcendent form of love.  And this is where the love that God is really begins.  I am thinking also of where Jesus says that if we love only those who love us, what will be our reward, since even the tax collectors can do this.  

We are called by God, who is the higher love, to love with that very higher love.  The love that recognizes no distinctions or barriers.  The love that welcomes, cherishes, protects and nurtures all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, socioeconomic status, political or religious affiliation, or pick any one.  When we really start to move towards unconditional love, each person becomes a mirror reflecting back to us our true and natural face.  Each one of us draws forth to perfection the best that is in all of us.  …But the challenge is in getting there, and even the greater challenge is learning how to live there.  

Theology Of Love 32

 

Love is the living fire that consumes, purges, cleanses, renews and warms and comforts.

Love is the creative force that flows like water through the entire weave and texture of the universe.  

Love is the tears that we shed in silent weeping.

Love is the shrieking cry in the night that shatters our dreams and shocks us to wakefulness.

Love is the healing and consoling touch that renews and breathes life into the dry bones scattered on the ground.

Love is the song of the universe that sang all the worlds, stars and cosmos into being.

Love is the blood that flows from our hearts and throughout our veins and arteries.

Love is the music and dance that moves us in rhythm to the universe.

Love is the laughter of joy, the laughter of humour, the laughter of mirth and the laughter of irony.

Love is the peace that we establish between nations and persons, not because of fear, but the joy that is taken in one another's existence.

Love is the tender leaf and delicate flower unfurling in spring, as love is the harvest burgeoning from trees and in fields, as love is the coming winter frost and snow of the earth's rest from her labours of life.

Love is the truth that is spoken unto power.

Love is the breath of life that flows from our lips as we acknowledge the stranger and reach towards one another a hand of friendship and help. 

Love is the very spirit and presence that made us and that sustains and renews us.

and

Love hangs nailed to a cross, bleeding out onto the ground the very red and living presence of love, thus blotting out the sins of the world.

Theology Of Love 31

 Si ustedes amen solamente a quienes les amen, que recompensa recibirán? Acaso no hacen eso hasta los recaudadores de impuestos?  Y si saluden solo a sus hermanos, demás que hacen?  acaso no hacen esto hasta los gentiles?

In English: If you love only those who love you, then what will be your reward?  Don't even the tax collectors do this?  And if you greet only your brothers, then what have you achieved?  Don't even the heathen do this?

Wednesday, Remembrance Day, I was shopping in my friendly neighbourhood Safeway. just as it was almost 11 am, a voice came on the loudspeaker, telling all customers as well as staff that exactly at 11, a one or two minute silence was to be observed by everyone to honour the soldiers killed in our wars.   I chose not to participate.  Not because I'm a jerk though I'm sure that some of you would think that this could be argued, but for other reasons.

For one thing, I do not like feeling press-ganged.  To do anything.  Even if it's something I like or heartily agree with, something really changes, is ruined, when suddenly it is something that I am told that I have to do, because someone told me to do it.   And if I am being pressganged to do something I don't like, then good luck!

Another thing.  Safeway is a grocery store.  Itis a place where we go to buy food, then take it home and eat it.  It is not a facility for services, religious or patriotic.  Even if it was Remembrance Day, even if an apparent majority of Canadians may have swallowed the kool aid about war and soldiers, what they were doing that day was enforcing or imposing a particular belief or world view upon all their customers, even if some them , like me, might happen to be pacifists, even if some of them might have lost family or loved ones to the same wars but from the enemy side.  

Still, I might have stopped and observed silence, but on one condition, and that condition was not met.  That the millions of civilians and soldiers on both sides of the war be also remembered.  It isn't just Canadian, or British or American soldiers that died in those wars.  And neither is it only German or Japanese soldiers that were killed.  But there were millions more of innocent civilians systematically butchered, slaughtered or bombed to bits as collateral damage, as well as the millions of innocents that perished in Hitler's death camps.  They died in England, in France, in Holland, and they also died in Germany, Japan and Italy.  People who had nothing to do with wars or soldiers or the decisions of politicians or dictators were snuffed out for the war effort.  Those are the people I remember.  The vulnerable, the strangers, the invisible, the unknown,  

If we simply love those who are like us, who like us, who are on the same side as we are, then our love is deficient and wanting.  I used to listen carefully in the coffeeshops where in the eighties they were playing Steve Winwood's famous song, "Give me a higher love".  Yes, let's honour our soldiers.  let's also honour the people that our soldiers killed.  There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.  

Theology Of Love 30

 There has been in this generation such a huge tsunami of selfishness and fear that has overtaken us.  It is a monumental effort not to get caught and drowned by those toxic waters.  I think this is particularly difficult for younger people, Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z.  I have a friend who is in a potentially dangerous situation.  I mentioned this to another friend, who is Gen  X and my worry about him, and he retorted that I should get over it because there is nothing I can do to help.  A community nurse taking my blood presssure had a different opinion.  She thinks it means that I care.

Neoliberal capitalism has traumatized us.  It has ripped the soul out of our humanity.  It has turned us into psychopathic poor bashers.  Since the 1980´s I have seen with my own eyes how the abundance of iniquity and selfishness has caused the hearts of so many to grow truly cold.  Love has become almost a dirty word.  What's love got to do with it, sang Tina Turner, a pop icon of the eighties and nineties.  What does love have to do with it.

Well, everything.  Love is what created us, love is what sustains the universe, love is what we are called to be and do and how we are called to live.  When we truly love, there are no strangers, no distances, no enemies.  I had a conversation with a friend over coffee this morning.  We politely agreed to disagree about war.  Like many people, my friend dislikes war, cannot help but see war as at times inevitable.  I know so many who carry this view, and I suppose in the most basic, greyest pragmatic sense, that they could be right.

As a pacifist, I have opted for rather a different view.  But this is also because I have long ago dedicated my life to love.  I don't mean the romantic hogswallop of Valentine's Day and romantic getaways.  I mean the very unconditional love that was born to a teenage girl in a stable in Ancient Palestine, I believe in the love whose arrival in the world was announced by angels and heralded by lowly shepherds.  I mean the love that was visited by kings and astrologers from eastern lands bearing costly gifts.  I believe in this love.  I have dedicated myself to this very love whom, as a twelve year old boy, challenged and baffled with his intelligence and insights the wisest and most learned people of his day.  I am referring to the love who humbly asked to be dunked in water by a seeming madman prophet who lived in the wilderness, the same love who overcame evil in the wilderness and rejected the temptations of materialism, self destruction and power.  I mean the love who wandered throughout the land preaching peace, love and liberation to the poor and oppressed, the same love healing the sick and delivering those tormented by devils.  The same love who challenged and exposed and publicly rebuked the powerful religious hypocrites of his day.  The love who challenged the rich and comfortable to abandon their riches and privileged and trappings of power that they might know and proclaim and incorporate in their lives the true message of love.

This is the love who accepted, pardoned and befriended the lowliest and most despised of his community.  The love who declared his flesh and blood as holy bread and holy wine.  The love who was ignominiously whipped, beaten, tortured and nailed to a piece of wood, who died and entered the realm of the dead to liberate souls and then rose again from the dead.  The very love that could not remain dead because love is eternal, immortal and indestructible.  The very love who is the living word born of the immortal creator, the word who was from the very beginning, the word who was with God.  The word who was and is God.  

And yes, this is Jesus, who has called me to follow and walk with him.  The very word of God, the very living message of the very living God.  The message that is love.

Theology Of Love 29

 It's hard not to  think of how things are polarized these days. Or perhaps I could say, balkanized.  This is certainly the case in the US with some 70 million Americans actually wanting Dump to continue festering in the Oval Office.  And I know I am going to catch it from some of you, my Gentle Reader, for writing about love while referring to the Great Deplorable in such unloving terms.  Well, Jesus was no less gentle when he referred to the Pharisees as hypocrites, vipers and coffins and mausoleums full of bones and rotting flesh, so we will give context its due.  And maybe some of you among my Gentle Reader actually like President Dump, and if you do, then shame on you, and go back to reading Fox News where you and your kind belong.

Hardly loving today, am I now?

And then there was that spoiled, privileged rich white girl out jogging today and exhaling her microbes in my face while passing me instad of trying to move from the sidewalk onto the road, where there was no traffic, this being in Shaughnessy Heights.  I asked her to wear a mask, and she retorted, why don't I instead, and then I said she should be wearing the mask because she was the one spewing her germs all over the place, and I reminded her that we are in the second wave of the pandemic with  rising caseloads and that's when she dropped the F bomb and then I let her have it, shouting to her as she kept repeatedly telling me to fuck off and shut up that her behaviour was deplorable, that like so many other joggers she was being a self centred narcissistic too preoccupied with her physical beauty to care a damn about other people.  She swore at me some more and I shouted back that she is self-centred and badly needs to grow a conscience and for swearing at someone old enough to be her father, her mother must be very proud of her right now.

Unfortunately, I did have to shout myself hoarse in order to be heard by her, but that entitled little brat deserved every bit of what I volleyed back at her, and I suspect that I really did hit a nerve or two with her.  Some people only learn from getting their ass kicked and sometimes the kindest thing that we can do is to be kicking their asses for them.  Because nothing else is going to work.  They are just too obtuse and self-involved.  The pretty ones are the very worst!  And yes, giving her shit was the most loving thing to do under the circumstances.  But I really prefer being nicer and much gentler.  But sometimes....

But this is also an example of how balkanized we have all become.  It is like we are all living in our own little universes with precious little to connect us to those that live outside of our bubble.  I have really been thinking a lot about this lately.  For example, the huge divide between progressive and conservative Americans and the havoc this is wreaking on their country.  And our own gentler, watered down version of the same kind of polarization that is occurring here in dear little Canada.  I suppose that  it is too facile to suggest that love is the answer and let's all start singing Kumbaya, together of course, and followed by a stirring rendition of We Shall Overcome.  And sometimes love has to be shouted.

I am also thinking here of the lack of respect on all sides as well as the very broad brushstrokes that we tend to paint everything and everyone in, especially if we don't happen to agree with or like them.  For example, I heard on the radio the other day an interview with an individual who doesn't identify as having gender, and his preference of being addressed by the pronouns they and them. By the way, I am intentionally identifying this person as male, because his voice is decidedly masculine.   In other words, he likely has a penis.  Don't ask me how I know, but let's call it an educated guess.  If he should happen to read this and get offended, then I do hope he gets over it.  

Actually, no one is obligated to use they or them for his exalted self, and what this man is doing, under the cloak of queer rights and fighting homophobia is trying to use emotional blackmail as a way of holding others to his particular ideology.  And if he doesn't like it then he will get upset, traumatised and threaten to kill himself.  Little boy throws tantrum, holds his breath till his face turns blue, because he doesn't get exactly what he wants.

Very much the way an ex friend hissed at me "THEY!"  when I referred by accident to her darling little daughter as "she," since she doesn't identify has having gender.   Well, I also happen to be nonbinary, which is to say, I am gender neutral.  I am still comfortable with the traditional masculine pronouns, but for the simple reason that biologically, I am male, and there is something centring and grounding about it.  In other words, I refuse to make a division between my biological self and the rest of me.  This empowers me to function well as a whole person.

By the same token, if someone wants me to refer to them as them or their, then there is a little protocol to follow.  First, no lecturing, scolding or finger wagging.   And no propaganda.  It is not scientific fact that gender is nonbinary.  Men and women have decidedly different brains.  Androgyny is not the rule, but the exception,  Nothing wrong about that, and as an androgynous person, there is plenty for me to celebrate.  But to your face, I am not going to refer to you as them or their, for the same simple reason that while talking to you personally I will not be referring to you as him, her, his or hers.  Simply that would be bad manners.  If I were to be writing about you or speaking publicly about you, using your name, then I would refer to you by them and their, for the simple reason that this is good manners.  While speaking about you privately, or thinking about you, I will call you by whatever the hell I want.

Happy now?  No?  Well, I'm sure you'll get over it.

Theology Of Love 28

 Love is the source of the living waters that flow through the universe and that flow into us making us truly human.  Love is what makes  us kind, what makes us brave, what makes us creative, beautiful, joyful, hopeful,  Love is what makes us merciful and just.  Love makes us generous, patient and meek.  Love is the force that meets us in our imperfect and broken condition, and love is what heals and restores us.  Love flows from our eyes in tears of repentance, contrition and compassion, and love renews and empowers us.

Love teaches us to forgive and reconcile.  Love teaches us to listen.  Love enables us to teach and to learn.  Love fills us with both wonder and dread before the beautiful mysteries of the universe, life and death.  It is love that enables us to care, not only about the people in our lives, our circle, our bubble, but about those who live in our neighbourhood, our city, our province, our country and the world.  There are no strangers where there is love.  There are no distances where there is love.

It is love that connects us and reminds us constantly that we are connected.  It is love that enables us to reach out to others in their need and brokenness, in dark and dangerous places.  It is love that dares and challenges us to move and reach beyond our comfort zone.  It is love that makes us recognize and accept our own broken condition.  It is love that empowers us to laugh at ourselves.  It is love that empowers us to make one another laugh.

Love sees persons and addresses humanity.  Love seeks to connect the isolated, love seeks to heal the addicted, love seeks to heal the brokenhearted.  

Love empowers us to be vectors of love.  And love fills us with reverence and respect and tenderness towards all other living things, this very earth that sustains us, this very air that we breath, this very water that cleanses and refreshes us, this very fire that consumes all the refuse, purifies us and empowers us to move forward.

Love is our beginning and love is our end.  And love is our journey towards our eternal destination, which is Love.

Theology Of Love 27

 I have come to believe that the church badly needs to redefine heresy.  It has long been thought to mean straying from or violating key doctrines and teachings of the Christian faith, always depending on the flavour of pope in charge, of course.   At its worst extreme, thousands, likely millions of innocent lives were sacrificed to the bonfires of the Inquisition and the Crusades.   But no one has ever been branded with the charge of heresy for not loving.  But any careful reading of the Gospels will reveal that this is the message of love.  Any real understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus, even for those who don't happen to believe in him, will reveal that he not only is the messenger of love but that Jesus Christ himself is the message of love.  And that anyone who loves from their hearts is a messenger of Christ.

I have really strayed from the church.  But not from Jesus.  This isn't to say that I don't need other Christians in my life, and fortunately I have friends who are walking the same path as I am and we do much to support and encourage and pray with one another.  And it would be nice to again be part of a formal faith community, and that could always happen again in the future.  I don't know.  But I would prefer this to be in a situation where simony isn't practiced, unlike in the Anglican Church.  There, you are recommended to get a spiritual director, and they always charge money for their services.  Not in the spirit of the Gospels.  

It would also have to in a place where the archbishop is not going to send her lawyer after me just because I was trying to get her and one of miserable priests to respond when I was sincerely and legitimately in need of pastoral support.  So that rules out the Anglican Church.  Have I forgiven them?  Yes.  But I am not giving them a chance to hurt me again.  Neither am I not letting them off the hook because that kind of abuse of authority they should never be allowed to get away with, given how many others could, and probably already have, been hurt by them.  And who knows how many suicides and suicide attempts can be realistically traced to priests, clergy and archbishops abusing their authority and treating like crap and garbage the most vulnerable who come to them for help.

The church that I seek to be part of is not a perfect church.  But there will have to be strong and underlying foundations of love in place in order for me to be able to participate.  What else am I looking for?  A place where people become authentic friends to one another, opening our hearts, our lives and our homes to one another.  But it would also have to be  place where the stranger is not only welcome, but made to be as though they have found their home among us.  It would have to be a place where we really do walk beside one another, no price tags, no contemptuous indifference, but people really striving to live out the blessed reality of unconditional love.  It will be a place where mistakes are made, but because we have the courage to make our mistakes, but also where we are prepared to learn from and make reparation for our errors in acts of true reconciliation, not simply with First Nations, or any other form of tasteless public tub thumping or virtue signalling.

I think we could be people who are receptive and open, and prepared to reflect Christ in our lives, which means that we are open to the redemptive work of love in our lives.  I have no idea how that would look.  It is so hard to set something like this in motion, without a major work of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And I don't think we are ever going to really get it right.  I certainly am not ever going to get it right.  But we can at least try.  Without excluding people just because we are threatened by their vulnerability.

Theology Of Love, 26

 When you live downtown as I do, Gentle Reader, you are every day getting exposed to all kinds of dumb, selfish and irrational behaviour from others.  And sometimes others are going to be  tolerating the same bad behaviour from you, or me.  I felt strongly aware of this as I was making my way through downtown this afternoon, running some errands. I was being bombarded with other people's irritating behaviour. And all because of one unpleasant little fact.  We human beings, even more than our capacity for being nasty and cruel and selfish, are incredibly stupid.  Every last one of us.  Whether you are driving around like a maniac in a sports car with the most godawful rap music thundering from your stereo, or if you're blowing cigarette smoke in people's faces, or walking with your dog off leash and unprotected, or pick any one, we are for the most part incredibly and unforgivably dumb.  

Which has today brought me to the conclusion of the importance of forgiving others for being stupid. And myself as well.  It is mentioned in the Gospels how heavy was the heart of Jesus for all the lost and confused people that surrounded him, like sheep without a shepherd.  And now it is finally dawning on me that this is really why I get so irritated with other people.  Because I have never thought of forgiving them for being stupid.  But that is what we are.  We are idiots.  Might as well forgive, accept, laugh about it and then  move on.

Except for one salient and very uncomfortable little detail.  Who is going to clean up the mess that is always going to be the natural fallout of our individual and collective stupidity.  Love is forgiveness, yes.  Love is also acceptance.  True enough.  And love is also not judging.  Amen, brother (sister, too!, or better, amen, sibling!)  But there also comes a time when forgiveness has to give way to confrontation.  I am thinking of a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with one of my clients.  The idea was that we all have a right to our different opinions.  Fair enough.  For example, if I happen to believe that the earth is flat.  And maybe I do, but you are going to have to wait a while, Gentle Reader, for my Flat Earth series of blog posts.   On the other hand, I might also believe that it is cruel to leash or muzzle a pit pull dog and that they should always be allowed to run free.  My opinion about the earth being flat, if it is indeed flat, is simply a harmless eccentricity.  No one gets harmed or hurt by believing that the earth is flat, except maybe those foolish enough to sail off the end of the earth and get eaten by dragons!

But if I also happen to believe also in the divine right of pit bulls and by extension, their owners, well then we are headed for trouble.  Because if I decide to get a pit bull, and let him run free downtown or in a park, and should my darling puppy-dog be badly trained, poorly socialized, and should my little poochie have a taste for child flesh, well, you know what I can do with my opinion.

We are living in dangerous and challenging times.  We need everyone to pull together, and only one selfish and irresponsible dumbass in denial can end up making life difficult and miserable for all the rest of us.  Yes, Lord, forgive them their stupidity, and forgive me for my stupidity, but sometimes in the name of love we have to act in ways that are not necessarily kind and gentle.  And then what...?

Theology Of Love 25

 I am often reminded that I am very much an outsider.  For example, when I listen to different programs on CBC Radio One, it is easy to get sucked into thinking that I am one of those middle class, presumably white, Canadians, university educated, with a lovely profession that pays over 80,000 a year, a four bedroom house with a yard and a garden, a family of my own, lovely neighbours, two cars, investments, and social status.  Those are the target audience of the CBC, after all.  So when I hear anything that is being addressed to the invisible audience I have to filtre out almost everything, and this is not easy, becase it is too easy to assume that they are talking directly to me.

We are also going to be assumed to all be, if not atheists, then nonbelievers anyway, or nonattenders of any faith community or house of worship.  So it is going to be assumed that we are not going to believe in anything except ourselves and we are not going to live for any cause other than ourselves, our family, our nation, and ourselves again.

This afternoon, while listening to an interview with a famous British novelist, likely an atheist, just like the host of the program, who said quite innocently that there is nothing better in life than living for one's self, no spouse, no family, no faith concerns to tie up your life and get in the way.  Uh-huh.  That I suppose is what makes me and many other Christians so ludicrous.  We acknowledge that we are not put on this earth to live for ourselves.  And we do try to live lives of service and care for others, even if we are often not very good at it.

Here is an example today.  This is for me a day off, which doesn't seem as important as it used to, since now I only work part time, maybe around 25 hours or less a week.   Following my quiet and solitary walk in Stanley Park today, I did a little grocery shopping, then stopped for a coffee (decaf right now) and to do some artwork in my sketchbook in a café that I happen to like.  Just as I was beginning to settle in, one of my new clients arrived and sat with me to chat and unburden himself.   My client and I live just a kitty corner from each other  It is inevitable that we are going to run into each other.   He can also be rather hard to engage with, so I have to be very flexible in our arrangements if I am going to work well with him.  Now, today is Sunday, and I am not allowed to work on Sundays.  And really, even though he is my client, I also like this man, and think of him as a friend, but of course within professional boundaries.   

I am not going to try to set up appointments with him on Sundays, for the simple reason that professionally I am not allowed to.  Neither am I going to snarl at him go away, can't you see it's my day off!  Especially not with someone who already feels isolated and unwanted by others.  Did my day off get ruined?  Hell no, it was nice for me to have someone to talk to.  Unless I was just here to live for myself.  Then I would be pretty darn miserable.