Forty-Eight Hours of Breath

Forty-Eight Hours
Michelangelo – The Last Judgment

Reverend Dr. William Barber recently asked the question, “If you knew you had only forty-eight hours of breath left, what kind of world would you use that breath to fight for? What kind of world, what kind of nation?” It is the question we should all be asking ourselves everyday of our lives. However, many people will never ask it. They will breathe their last in the same stupor or, worse yet, sin in which they lived their lives.

They will care more about death walking through their locked door, instead of passing over it, than about the fact that while living they did not use their time or their lives well and did not treat others the way they ought to have, the way Jesus taught us. They will not have stopped to examine their lives or their conscience. Perhaps because if they had, they might not have liked what they found.

Forty-Eight Hours – As Carnegie Lay Dying

Approximately 100 years ago, as World War I, which had ravaged the world, was coming to an end, only to lead to the economic consequences of the peace and World War II, Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in the world, who had amassed a fortune by the cruelest possible treatment and exploitation of his fellow Americans, his workers, lay dying.

How did he choose to live his last hours? Standiford in his biography, Meet You in Hell, says that Carnegie sought reconciliation not with God but with someone possibly even more sinful than he, his once friend and partner turned foe and competitor, Henry Clay Frick. What was Frick’s response? Standiford writes, “‘Yes, you can tell Carnegie I’ll meet him,’ Frick said finally, wadding the letter and tossing it back at Bridge [Carnegie’s personal secretary]. ‘Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going.’”

Redemption Cannot Be Bought

In his later years, Carnegie had decided to become a philanthropist. His foundations are numerous, as we all know since they bear his name, and his legacy, Standiford describes as follows: “To this day he is often credited with having established the precedent of corporate philanthropy; as one commentator observed, when Bill Gates makes a gift of some of his hard-earned millions, it is probably the ghost of Andrew Carnegie that guides his outstretched hand.”

I would hope not, for the Gates’s and for the world’s sake. Despite all his philanthropy, Carnegie did not seem to get it even at the end of his life. Perhaps motivated by guilt, fear or legacy, he was determined to remake his image from a brutal plutocrat to a benevolent philanthropist.

One of Jesus’s final acts before his crucifixion was the Last Supper, during which he washed his Apostles’ feet. It is one of the most emotional aspects of Jesus’s life for Christians around the world. It was a profound act of humility and love. I have witnessed many people cry during its reenactment.

By contrast, Carnegie’s final exchange reveals his preoccupation with the world. It hounded him until the end. What do others think of him? Well, he got his answer from Frick. Standiford says, “And all’s well since it is growing better and when I [Carnegie] go for a trial for the things done on earth, I think I’ll get a verdict of ‘not guilty’ through my efforts to make the earth a little better than I found it.”

If Carnegie thought he could buy forgiveness or redemption, Frick disabused him of this notion, and just to turn the sword, confirmed with pleasure that, indeed, Carnegie would end up in hell. Forgiveness is granted by victims and by God. Christians believe that salvation comes through faith and/or works, with their relative measure in debate. The simple and, likely, most honest understanding is that redemption and judgment are God’s purview, and it is best to just live according to the Way, love, trust and surrender to God.

The Last Judgment

I argued that annihilation is the greatest punishment. It is nothingness; it is to be without a soul. Some might have found this surprising. How could nothing be worse than eternal damnation? Well, if hell is an eternal, boiling cauldron of perversity, Frick seemed to relish the continuation of their earthly torments in hell, and better yet, perhaps he hoped that Carnegie, in his final days, would be tortured by yet resigned to this outcome.

This brings us back to the present. The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare many unfortunate truths. One of these is that many of our nation’s people and policies are callous, even cruel, particularly towards the poor and vulnerable. If Carnegie dreaded hell, as he seemed to indicate toward the end of his life, perhaps the larger question is: why did he choose to live a life on earth that he would find miserable in hell? The question for all of us is: if you have forty-eight hours or even forty-eight years to live, what and who are you breathing for?

Who Is a Christian?

Christian
Photo: Josh Applegate on Unsplash

It is a harmless question. Are you a Christian? Yet, it invites responses that are not harmless. They are often judgmental and inappropriate. Christianity started as a Jewish sect, and it retains features of this origin in numerous respects. One of these is related to identity. People often identify themselves as Christian if they come from Christian families. In fact, the concept of religious identity as part of one’s lineage can be found in numerous faith traditions.

When some Evangelicals speak about being born again, they often refer to John 3, and I would argue without actually understanding what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus. The author of this post declares, “No one, however, is ever automatically a Christian by birth.” In case the author is confused, no one person decides these matters. The church, in its entire body, does, and ultimately, God decides.

John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered [Nicodemus], ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’”

Christian – Societal Definition

Children born into Christian families can definitely claim to be Christian. They are Christian by birth. Many of them will have been baptized, i.e. born of water, as infants, and they will often have received Christian names. (In this context, Jesus might mean “born of water” with a double meaning, baptism by water and born of the womb. The latter is supported with “flesh gives birth to flesh.”) Their parents are choosing to carry on their religious tradition, to define them as followers of Christ, as their own parents might have done for them. This is the societal and literal definition of Christian, and it is an entirely valid one.

Christian – Spiritual Definition

Jesus was talking about a spiritual definition when he added “and the Spirit.” He was talking about a transformation that occurs within the person in response to the grace of the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit is a mysterious force, and it is entirely possible that a person goes through his or her life, living piously, without ever having a noticeable or profound experience with the Spirit.

Would Jesus say that this person is not a “true follower”? I will leave that up to him to determine, but some Evangelicals seem to have already decided that for him. They might consider that we do not always recognize the Holy Spirit at work. In which case, how would we be able to ascertain whether one meets this criterion of being a Christian or not? On the other hand, one might have been born again only to fall away again.

The following statement, like many of Jesus’s statements, can be hard to understand: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” I understand it as the nature of the Holy Spirit becomes manifest in the person, and depending on one’s relationship with God, one might be called to take unpredictable paths to fulfill his will. You hear God’s voice. Whether or not you can tell where it is coming from or where it will take you is not important. What is important is that you can hear it.

Becoming Christian

I am a nondenominational Christian and consider myself born again. I have no vested interest in the answer to this question. However, I do care that the Christian faith is protected and that it welcomes others with open arms. To become a Christian in a societally defined sense might involve some steps and some time, which are determined by each denomination. To become spiritually Christian, however, is determined by God and God alone, no matter what others might claim.

For a different interpretation of the last verses quoted: Piper (2009)

Monasteries and the Art of Quieting the Disquieted Mind

quiet
Jacopo Bassano – The Good Samaritan

For those who are struggling with self-isolation, they might consider that this life has been the choice of many deeply spiritual people for millennia, such as Christian (cloistered nuns or) monks, who still live in monasteries around the world. (I highly recommend visiting them, particularly for a retreat.) Granted, a house full of noisy children and/or pets is hardly conducive to quiet reflection. However, one can adopt many of the monks’ daily habits. From what I could tell, their days are quite structured and oriented around prayer and productivity.

Quieting with Prayer

Praying is centering. If there is one thing I highly recommend practicing, and it does require practice, it is prayer. For those who struggle with it, as I did and still do, just to a lesser extent, I suggest having a prayer that you like, memorize it, and start praying regularly by reciting it. My “go-to” is The Lord’s Prayer. I have known it by heart since I was a child, and it is like the “comfort food” of prayers for me, deeply familiar, complete, and I can linger on each word as if Jesus were saying them with me. The Hail Mary is another familiar prayer.

Praying a rosary, which includes both of these prayers and some others, is another way to pray by recitation. Since the structure is laid out, one does not need to think about it. One might need to get used to moving through the rosary’s beads without looking, but it will come with practice.

Our own prayers, “free form” prayers, can be about anything. They are actually just one’s communication with an omniscient God, so there is no point in trying to hide anything. Just speak your heart, mind and soul to the Lord. Praying with scripture, which I would describe as mediating on the Word, is one of my favorite ways to pray. Catholics call it Lectio Divina. I actually made up my own style of it.

Quieting with Art

One of the things I used to do quite often was look at art, and I was reminded of how infrequently I do so now when I read this post. I used to even copy others’ drawings, which creates a certain intimacy between the original creator and the copier – you.

Your hand, temporally removed, tries to trace outlines that originated in their minds, which could be some of the greatest there ever were, before making it onto their canvas or other material. It is not just an artistic exercise but also a spiritual one that connects us to ancient friends and to a past to which we should always try to belong. It is our collective history, our memory of some of the best aspects of being human: the true, the good, and the beautiful.  

As an example, the story of the Good Samaritan can be rendered in a myriad of ways, and whichever way the artist chooses provides insight into the person while also, hopefully, illuminating the Way. Biblical art is really an artistic rendering of the Word without words.

Quiet Unity

I could tell you that the Good Samaritan is a story about prejudice and compassion, or you could gaze upon the image of a man struggling to lift another helpless, vulnerable man and wonder why did he do it. Why did he help someone he was taught to hate and who was taught to hate him? The artist chose to depict the physicality of the moment, which heightens the solitude of both men, the difficulty of a sole man to lift another, and simultaneously their unity.

One could describe the art of quieting a disquieted mind as finding unity in solitude. It is the art of binding our fragmented mind, weary with worry, distracted with stress, with the rest of our being, and bringing our entire being into a quiet state of unity with our creator.

The inspiration for this post: Oakley (2020)

Songs of Trust Spoken by Children

Children
Photo: Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

Our children, meaning all of the children on this planet, are our future and our light. Many children around the world are suffering because man can be evil. Adults are betraying our little angels. As we move through Holy Week, one that is particularly emotionally intense, let us try to be more like the most holy among us; let us cherish their innocent grace and emulate their natural resilience; let us live up to the trust they place in us.

Psalm 23 from the Hebrew Bible has been translated, reworked and interpreted numerous times. The words bring comfort to the reader not necessarily because of the language or the structure of the psalm but because of what it declares – trust in God. A simple message that transcends the song and the original context. Better than a harp, a child’s voice can elevate the psalmist’s trust with its delicate musicality.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Losing Trust

However, David, the psalmist, became sinful and fell from grace. He lost trust; he betrayed God. Like Adam and Eve, he did not dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Societies from time immemorial have feared the gods, which they often regarded as petulant and easily provoked. Contrary to some opinions, the Christian God is not fickle. We are fickle, and Jesus knew this.

John 2:23-25 “Now while he [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.”

Become Like Children

We are called to love God unconditionally and to follow the Way, and if we do so, we will have no fear and no want. God will not betray us. Instead, we sin over and over again. We do not follow God’s commandments. Additionally, we expect and condition our love, mainly on matters related to our earthly existence. Who are we to expect anything of God? God is God, and we are but mere sinful mortals. Jesus taught us complete trust and love, and we have reminders of him everywhere in our children, in God’s children.

Matthew 18:2-4 “He [Jesus] called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”

Becoming like a child is not to abandon the reason, knowledge or wisdom we might have gained over the years, but it is to render our spirit open and accepting to the Lord. It is to give without asking, to pray without expecting, to love without conditioning. It is to be God’s child again.  

As Easter approaches, let us pray for peace and remember that we have a responsibility to our children, the innocents, to protect and to love them because they belong to God. No matter where we may dwell, they still dwell in his house.

https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/extremists-killed-her-mother-but-hearing-this-young-girl-read-psalm-23-inspires-hope

A Great Awakening: ESG Investing Edition?

ESG
Photo: Yuval Levy on Unsplash

This post is part of a broader subject that very much deserves public attention and discussion. Capitalism as it has been practiced since 1776, the year Adam Smith first published his book The Wealth of Nations, coincidentally, the same year as our Declaration of Independence, is failing. It is time to accept this fact and create something different – something better.

Moral capitalism is a term and concept that has been bandied around for a while, and its full realization in all aspects of our economy, including financial markets, is long overdue. A shift to one aspect of moral capitalism has been happening to a certain extent in, of all places, the investment community, driven mainly by the demands of institutional investors.

ESG Investing

Faith-based institutions have played a considerable role in the advancement of Environmental, Social, (Corporate) Governance (ESG) investing, also known as sustainable investing, since they are particularly sensitive to the companies or industries included in their portfolios. For example, with Pope Francis’s release of the environmentally oriented encyclical Laudato Si, the Catholic Church would do well by putting words to action and decarbonizing all of its portfolios.

Although ESG investing has been gaining steam, asset managers, traditional and alternative, have been too slow in truly implementing it. Partly, this is due to a lack of data, although the EU is now leading the data collection effort, but it is also due to the managers’ lack of foresight, knowledge, skill and genuine commitment to sustainable investing.

Some investment managers have their regular funds and similar ESG funds that exclude the companies and industries that would not meet the UN PRI or the manager’s ESG criteria. This could be acceptable in the interim, until the investment community as a whole fully transitions to ESG investing, as long as managers are not simply repurposing an old fund with an ESG label and engaging in “green washing.” (Note, the institutional investors have gotten wise and can tell.) The managers need to change their underlying investment processes and, ideally, their entire culture to a responsible, long-term investment focus.  

The hedge fund industry, active managers with higher fees and often a focus on absolute returns, would be wise to adopt ESG investing, since it would be a real value added, particularly as the industry needs to justify its raison d’être in a time of passive investment.

Also, a good hedge fund manager, like a traditional one, minimizes exposure to systemic risks and acts as a shield against what is often mislabeled as a black swan event. It would be hard to categorize the effects of climate change, which has been documented for at least half a century, as a black swan event.

In fact, the financial crisis was often referred to as such, when truly savvy investors saw it coming. If one was looking at the economy, the proliferation of certain financial instruments, the data, and the historical frequency with which crises have beset capitalist economies, it was hardly a black swan event.

Some might argue that many institutional investors need alpha/pure performance and any potentially “compromising” considerations, such as ESG, should be secondary at best. The premise of this argument would be that alpha and ESG are at odds. Let us consider. If all of the alpha generated over some extended period of time is wiped out as the “black swan” takes over the lagoon, then all those fees paid were effectively a waste of good money, particularly when pensions funds cannot afford to lose any money.

Additionally, the governance factor is low-hanging fruit. There has been inadequate pressure by institutional investors on management and on corporate oversight to lower executive compensation, improve the treatment and compensation of labor, include other stakeholders, such as labor, on the board of directors and to the minimize the short-term focus, including share buybacks, i.e. quarterly capitalism. I would argue that the mismanagement of these companies is often directly related to the investors’ underwhelming returns.

Nonetheless, the ESG trend is positive. Let us keep it moving forward and fix our economy so that it serves everyone. That would be moral capitalism, and that would be a great awakening.

Eternal Truths: Grief, Death and the Cross

Grief
Photo: Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash

I won’t pretend to speak about grief with any real knowledge, as I have never experienced it on a deeply personal level. However, I find Good Friday the saddest time in the liturgical calendar and, for me, it best approximates a feeling of grief. Like the rest of us, I know how the story ends, it ends joyfully with Jesus’s resurrection on Easter Sunday, yet it is so moving and hard every time.

Harrell writes, “the manger is not the central symbol of our faith. The empty tomb isn’t either. Christians decided early on that the sign of their faith would be a cross.” He goes on to say, “We hang on to our crosses, even at Easter, because it is in the hard places of life where Christ’s presence with us proves most holy.”

Grief and the Passion

I agree, but I think that Christians chose the cross to symbolize them and the faith because the crucifixion is the most selfless aspect of Jesus’s life. It is an incomparable sacrifice, and if you have the courage to engage with the Passion fully, it can bring you to your knees, maybe to the ground completely.

During Catholic masses on Good Friday, priests will lie prostrate before the altar, above which often hangs a cross or a crucifix. Just to watch that act of devotion and humility can bring one to tears. Theirs is a gesture of grateful submission that invokes Jesus’s gracefully submission to God the Father’s will.

This is also why Christians around the world literally walk Jesus’s path, the Stations of the Cross, year after year. They want to remember his pain and suffering, his divine grace, his love and compassion at the most difficult moment of his life, at his death.

To remember Jesus’s beauty in death is also a way of vicariously engaging with our suffering and our mortality. When death calls us, will we respond with bitterness, resentfulness, anger, fear, or depression? Or will Jesus’s steps to his Father remind us that we can bear the momentary weight of the cross because each step ultimately brings us closer to another life, one free of everything that burdens us in this one.       

Grief and the Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has not fundamentally changed death’s calculus, as it is always and forever a possibility. Really, what has changed is our awareness of the possibility of death or serious illness and our daily lives. As a thought-exercise, imagine if the probability of death were always at a relatively heightened level, as it is now. Imagine that it were even higher, such as during the Bubonic plague.

If this were “the new normal,” would we alter our lives permanently? Constantly hiding in our homes, practicing social distancing, or would we just resign ourselves to a lower life expectancy and a higher likelihood of death, and simply change psychologically or spiritually instead? Would we make peace with death?

If it is the latter, what would the shape of the peace be? Would it take the shape of the cross? Ultimately, the death that awaits us is unlikely to be anywhere near as hard as Jesus’s. And for many people around the world, they might view death as easier than their present lives.

For all of us, Jesus’s life and death is a source of comfort. In our darkest moments, we can find him there, or we can choose to go to him. To kneel in a quiet church, alone, staring up at the cross with his dead, tortured body hanging from it, and in our gratitude and submission, we can escape everything else because, ultimately, nothing else really matters.

I have no standard words of comfort to offer those in fear of death or those in grief, no angels or other well-meaning but essentially hallow allusions. I have only the truth, Jesus’s truth, and I hope that in his divine truth, one can find the shape of peace. It is the shape that Christians everywhere wear with pride, strength and full knowledge that the way, the truth and the life leads one out of this world and into the next.

On American Freedom and Independence

American Freedom
Photo: Ella Christenson on Unsplash

Some Europeans say that Americans fetishize freedom. I counter that we give it the respect it deserves. Freedom is our God-given right. Our exercise of our American freedom expresses our humanity and is integral to our relationship with each other and with God. God did not create puppets. He created free, independent men and women in his image.

Every single person on our incredible planet is endowed with the right to freedom, and acts such as slavery, indentured servitude, unjustified imprisonment and the like are acts against God himself. Conversely, we glorify God by encouraging each other to indulge in our freedoms while still expecting these choices made of one’s free will to follow the law and to reflect a strong sense of morality, purpose and community.

The nature of these indulgences ought to be related to the limitless range for individual expression. The soldier poet, the ballet dancer hunter, the blue-collar worker writer, the doctor priest, the activist nun, the rock star evangelist, the professor novelist, the artist programmer, there is an endless combination of selves to be claimed by the next bold soul willing to declare to the world, “I define myself; I will not be defined by others.” (See, S.E. Cupp on ballet and hunting and Roman Baca on war and dancing.) That is freedom – American style. I would argue that American freedom is freedom as it ought to be: boundless, surprising, imaginative, rebellious even irreverent.

American Freedom is closely linked to independence. The link between the two might or might not be immediately apparent, but I assure you that they are inextricably intertwined. A country’s citizens who come to depend on their government too much risk both their freedom and independence. One might argue that Americans have too much distrust, dislike and not enough dependence on their government. This might be true. However, one can both strengthen the safety net and governmental institutions so that they work better for the people while, simultaneously, giving them more personal freedom and independence.

American Freedom and Hunting

We have a tradition in this country of hunting and fishing. Although I am opposed to the NRA and trophy hunting, I believe that hunting and fishing are traditional aspects of American life that we should preserve. They are not just sports. They are also practical skills. Hunting and fishing also reflect a fiercely independent American streak, which has characterized the country from the beginning.

Slavery, the genocide of the native people and exploitation of the country’s enviable natural resources was an evil violation of their freedoms and dignities and an abuse of our planet. A respectful relationship with the land, such as Native Americans had and still have, preserves a divine, either Christian or non-Christian, relationship with the earth and with God. It is an explicit understanding that our lives depend on our planet’s life. Any extended contact with nature is rejuvenating for the soul, and when exercised correctly, the act of hunting and fishing is also an acknowledgement of our dependence on God’s creation and each other.

As the beautiful, diverse, complex creatures with whom we share our planet die in a manmade mass extinction, let us use the right to hunt and fish to remind ourselves that all life is precious and interdependent. There are no crops without bees and butterflies. There are no waterfowl without clean bodies of water, and there are no deer without fields and forests. Our planet is not optional. It is absolutely essential to our survival. When we hunt and fish, we assert our freedom, reestablish our independence while simultaneously becoming one with God and the world he created. Defy the stereotypes and labels. Define yourself and with it, American freedom and independence.

Serving Mammon and Selling the Faith Down River

Faith
Photo: Ian Espinosa on Unsplash

It is not about right or left. It is not about socialism or capitalism. It is not about power or money. It is not about politics or culture. It is about the faith – Christianity. If one proclaims to love Jesus, this prioritization would show in various aspects of the person’s life.

When practiced, evangelical Christianity focuses on Scripture, a personal relationship with Jesus who is to be the center of one’s life, accepting Jesus as one’s savior and being born again. The orientation is not supposed to be toward controversial topics, legalism, economics or political positions and persons. It is about one’s relationship with God, in particular the Son of God, plain and simple.

The end of the Constantinian bargain was good for the faith, and the separation of church and state should be respected. In the more recent past, this separation has reverted to an unholy alliance between church, particularly within evangelical Christianity, and state, in this case, the Republican Party.

Huntington (2020) argues that this unfortunate trajectory was triggered by the election of John F. Kennedy, not out of fear of his Catholic faith but of losing influence, power and a hold on the American culture that they thought was veering into a liberal abyss.

The Start of the Faith’s Decline

He writes, “Kennedy’s speech has been cited innumerable times as one of the clearest calls for a separation of church and state, not to mention religious liberty. But, religious conservatives conceived of an America in which Protestant Christianity formed a central, immutable core. Thus, they fought to keep church and state separate while creating their own right-wing blend of religion and politics. They accomplished this by preaching Christian nationalism at the pulpit, organizing campaigns through conservative religious groups, and coordinating their actions with the faith-friendly business community. Eventually, when pressed by broader societal change, Protestant and Catholic conservatives joined forces with the Republican Party, forming a national pan-Christian movement to wage war against political and religious liberalism.”

To state the obvious, it is blatant hypocrisy to practice the very thing one condemns, the intertwining of church and state, and attempting to evangelize the faith while prioritizing power and money will likely be unsuccessful, which the data seem to support. Also, I would argue that this affinity between what is termed the “Christian right” and the Republican Party is now primarily about power and money and less about cultural changes such as the growth of secularism.

Dishonoring the Faith

Balmer (2020) states, “Socialism, they argue, is somehow antithetical to Christianity. Some have even argued that capitalism is sanctioned in the scriptures. Jerry Falwell, one of the founders of the Religious Right, declared that ‘the free-enterprise system is clearly outlined in the Book of Proverbs,’ and his son, Jerry Falwell Jr. recently said, ‘I believe in Jesus’ teachings to do what’s in the best interest of the corporation.’

Clearly, these evangelicals have never read the Acts of the Apostles. ‘All the believers were one in heart and mind,’ Acts 4:32 reads. ‘No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.’”

I would argue that they have heard of and read Acts, but they do not really care about Jesus or Scripture, but themselves. They have become corrupt and power hungry. The serve mammon – not the Lord. They hold their Bibles high not to evangelize the truth and the way but to obfuscate their sins and their self-serving manipulation and exhortation of theology in superficial gestures of piety.

Segal (2015) writes, “But is money more spiritually dangerous than theology? The answer may be trickier than we think, especially within the numbing comfort of a proudly affluent and educated American church. Money is a tangible, countable, often visible god. Theology, on the other hand — if it is cut off from truly knowing and enjoying God himself — can be a soothing, subtle, superficially spiritual god. Both are deadly, but one lulls us into a proud, intellectual, and purely cosmetic confidence and rest before God. Theology will kill you if it does not kindle a deep and abiding love for the God of the Bible, and if it does not inspire a desire for his glory, and not ultimately our own.”

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). The question is: Who do you serve? Honor with your lips and your heart or else it is not honoring but dishonoring the faith.

L’Art de la Politesse

La Politesse
Photo: Robin Benzrihem on Unsplash

As we are rightfully focused on saving lives and on supporting the economy, we have given less attention to the degree to which certain cultural practices have been suppressed in response to the pandemic, no more famous American hugs or French bises, not even a handshake. Humans have a need to express fondness or simple acknowledgement with physical contact. In fact, many of God’s magnificent creatures display these tendencies. As such, I have no concern that these expressions will return once this challenging period is behind us. However, this is a good time to consider the ubiquity of these cultural norms, which seem to defy evolutionary assumptions, and what motivates them.

Once humans learned of the invisible killers, i.e. germs, one would have thought that we would have stopped engaging in these acts since we risk our health every time we engage in physical contact with others. They are not necessary forms of contact. So, why do we still do them? From an evolutionary perspective, one might reasonably argue that strengthening social bonds is also important to survival. However, one could simply use words or gestures to convey these sentiments, which would be more sanitary, instead of engaging physically.

To question more broadly, la politesse, as it is referred to in French, has considerable variation across cultures, but it is arguably uniformly unnecessary. We could simply state each desire as “I want this,” or “I want that.” One could take this line of questioning even further and ask: why we even use such superfluous words as “please” or “thank you?” Further yet, why bother to verbally greet each other, as Americans often forget to do during transactional exchanges in Europe? It is rather inefficient, and it changes nothing substantive about the statements or requests.

On the contrary, humans have developed a delicate art of social interaction that goes well beyond the rational or the necessary. These interactions reflect deeper needs, values and fundamental truths about us. We are physical, emotional and spiritual creatures capable of complex thoughts and emotions, and we express them in a myriad of ways. Our considerations extend beyond what each other might need physically, or even emotionally, for our own or each other’s survival.

Instead, when we engage with each other, it is not just to convey information or even to comfort but to connect on the full range of our beings. I argue that these aspects of our daily lives, which we do almost perfunctorily, recognize our humanity and our divinity. We are not just man and woman born to each other, another creature of God, but we belong to God, and, as such, the art of la politesse is actually the art of the recognition of our inherent divinity as children of God who are made in his image.  

As an aside, please do take the pandemic seriously, if not for yourself, for others. Respect the social distancing and self-isolation rules or recommendations whether or not you agree with them and even though they feel and are unnatural. Also, I had a few masks on hand, and I have been using them when I do essential tasks, such as grocery shopping, which I try to group into a day’s activity. The air in most places is circulated unlike the outdoors. Lastly, there is no need to hoard. Stay safe; be considerate of others and respect their divinity. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

>>https://longinglogos.com/death-in-the-time-of-spring/<<

Annihilation Is the Greatest Punishment

Annihilation
Photo: Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Is life or death the greatest punishment? Is the possibility of hell or the certainty of nonexistence scarier? It depends on who you are and what you believe. Consistent with being a slightly (or more than slightly) strange person, I have been contemplating my mortality since I was a child. I am still less afraid of dying, if I am afraid of it at all, than I am of living. I understand that this might seem backwards to most people, but I find it quite logical.  

I find humans more terrifying than death. They are capable of all manner of evil, and I would feel relieved to not fear them any longer. Contrarily, God is love. If one believes in God, then one is finally returning home.

When I was a child, I did not think of it as returning home to God since I was too unsophisticated to think of it in those terms but as my soul continuing in a different, non-earthly form. This was a comforting thought, not because I was suffering physically, but because I would simply be free of a corporeal existence and everything it entailed. Life is a great gift, but everlasting life, in whatever form, is peace – the greatest gift.  

If one is Christian, one’s worst fear is likely hell (gehenom in the Jewish faith). One might also fear God’s judgment since that would be the determining factor. Perhaps I have too much confidence in gaining entry into heaven or perhaps I just trust God I would argue as one ought, but I do not fear hell nor I do I fear God’s judgment in this sense. I fear disappointing him, which is quite different. It has almost nothing to do with the afterlife and everything to do with fulfilling my purpose while living.

If one does not believe in God, one’s worst fear is likely death. In this enlightening conversation, Vidas (2020) said, “…the utmost punishment in traditional Judaism is not such eternal torments but the complete annihilation of body and soul — the lack of any type of afterlife.” In fact, this is what people who do not believe in God are contemplating – complete annihilation. They are effectively facing what I would argue is the greatest punishment. It is odd that many atheists pray (to whom or to what is unknown), but if one’s worst fear is death, i.e. oblivion, it would paradoxically increase the desire to pray.  

I do not intend to write a comforting post on this topic since I am aware that my particular perspective is most likely not broadly shared. However, I put forth that one has two frameworks to choose from: heaven or hell (setting aside the concept of purgatory) to be determined by God or certain and total annihilation, body and soul, for all.

Given these two options, I think one is better off with the former framework and with the perspective that living is about purpose and death is about peace. Also, these concepts death/life and purpose/peace are really more about states: active versus still. I would also argue that the greatest punishment is in fact annihilation since it possesses neither activeness nor stillness. It is nothingness. 

Yancy (2020) – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/opinion/judaism-life-death.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

>>https://longinglogos.com/the-powerful-and-mysterious-holy-spirit/<<