Blessed

Friends,

In spite of the many challenges and hardships of our lives, most of us still feel blessed. I am often aware when I overhear casual conversations in the supermarket or in gatherings of friends, how frequently people include or end a visit with the comment, “I’m so blessed.” The word blessed implies that we are held in some unnamed special favor by some spiritual presence. But in casual conversation, when we say we are blessed we are referring to the pleasure, contentment, and good fortune in our lives for which we are deeply grateful. Sharing with another person that we are blessed is our way of communicating and acknowledging a shared sense of mutual good will and gratitude. And for those like myself who often end a conversation or a written communication with “bless you" my intention is to express a tender assurance that I care about their life and spirit, and they are not alone.

Thinking about what it means to be blessed, I reviewed perhaps the most often quoted use of the word “blessed" in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that culminates in the Beatitudes.(see below)* Instead of the generally accepted methods of vengeance and retaliation (which, of course, continues to tragically apply in today’s political reality), Jesus offers a transformative alternative ethic, a manifesto of nonviolence that in many ways revolutionized ethical thought and practice. And if we are courageous and visionary enough, the ethic of Jesus’ nonviolence is there today for us to follow. And, as we probably know, practicing nonviolence will be difficult because it means we will need to counter the prevailing violence of our militaristic and competitive culture.

The Beatitudes were even more breathtakingly counter intuitive and counter culture during Jesus’ lifetime of brutal Roman occupation that ruled by oppression and torture. And we still consider them a revered ethical standard. For example, Gandhi, it is said, read them every morning, and was reported as saying that it was unfortunate that the Christians failed to follow them. So although the Beatitudes are the heart of Christian teaching they are all too easily dismissed as too idealistic and impossible to follow. The usual interpretation of the list of “blesseds” is that they are actually referring only to saintly people, but not practical for the rest of us in our daily lives. If this interpretation holds, it is easy for them to be ignored or dismissed. So can they be more accessible as visionary and principled ethical guidelines for us today that would powerfully contribute to the preservation of the planet?

Thanks to author Brian McClaren,** I have found another way of considering what it means to be “blessed” that provides a contemporary, feasible way to interpret Jesus’ radical ethic of love from the Beatitudes. 

In common language we can say that if we truly want to live lives of faithful compassion and caring we would shift our ethical focus from a search for wealth, social status, privilege, and self-centered self-reliance. We would examine carefully our attitude that survival is dependent on being able to strike back when we feel harmed or offended among the factors that define our status quo.

As an alternative to following the status quo, what if we defined a life of blessed success and well-being differently as the Beatitudes teach? The proposition is that we would proportionately be more fulfilling lives of love, justice and peace if we identified more closely with the poor and marginalized; with those who mourn; with the nonviolent and gentle; with those who seek the common good and resist being satisfied by the status quo; identifying with the merciful and compassionate and those who work for peace and reconciliation in spite of being misjudged; those who refuse to back down even when they are so misunderstood and judged and endangered. 

I acknowledge that most of you who will read this are already aspire to the ethical vision proposed by the Beatitudes. However, how faithfully you or your community practices the precepts of the Beatitudes, it follows that ultimately you, too, will be blessed.

The more I have contemplated how  profound the ethic of the Beatitudes the more comfortable and committed I am to identifying as a Christian, and I intend to be more outspoken about my commitment. The nonviolent teaching of the Beatitudes provides a vision for a sustainable, compassionate, just and peaceful future, and we would do well to take it seriously and follow it. The question now is, as it has been since Jesus proposed this ethic originally, whether enough of us will find the courage and a supportive community to bring about the Beloved Community it portends.

Peace,
Tom
___________

*Biblical text of the Beatitudes from the book of Matthew 5:2-12
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons[a] of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

**We Make the Road By Walking, Brian McClaren, 2015, pp 127-128.__________________________

Footnote:

Finally, thanks to nearly fifty of you who have already signed up for my "Gyroscope: Reflections on War and Peace” blog. Some of you signed up too late to get the first edition, so I am including it below. And a reminder: if you would like to receive Gyroscope and have not yet signed up, please simply let me know of your interest with a note sent to [email protected].

Peace,
Tom

____________________

GYROSCOPE
February 21, 2024
Copy for SEP on 2/24

Welcome to the inaugural edition of “Gyroscope: Reflections on War and Peace.” Thank you for signing up. I hope I can provide reflections that encourage us to better understand these otherwise vast and complex issues related to war and peace in ways that make the discussion accessible and helpful. I do not intend to be a political activist per se on my blog, although I do intend to occasionally include relevant and timely references for further reflection and possible activism.

A quick note about my choice of “Gyroscope”* for the title of this blog. The most productive thought and action in general is often the result of maintaining a generative tension between competing claims and ideas that can offer a wiser and more tenable “third way” of going forward. Although I clearly have a bias toward peace building, I also respect the reality and power of the Pentagon’s influence in most aspects of our cultural life. I therefore intend to use the metaphor of a gyroscope to steady and balance my efforts at exploring the dynamic relationship between the competing forces of war and peace. Or, similarly, I like the image of a creative tension when we imagine one hand being thrust forward as an expression of resistance (to war/violence) and the other hand pulling back to invite us to explore a viable alternative (i.e., peace/nonviolence.) My intention is to harness the generative energy created by these opposing perspectives to provide us with a growing confidence and commitment to be able to challenge the cultural presumptions about the inevitability of perpetual war. 

The impetus for writing this column is a culmination of my now decades long study and activism related to war and peace. I am not a military veteran, but I have concluded it is important that even as a non-vet I try to articulate a perspective on war. I have personally observed that sharing experiences of war are often quite difficult for those who have actually fought the wars. I admit, of course, it is presumptuous for me to think I am more capable of this task than many veterans, but I am willing to try.

I need to start with a story. 

About ten or so years ago I watched the movie “Amazing Grace” at our local theater. The movie is about the heroic efforts of William Wilberforce to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire beginning in1797. His initial efforts over several years failed miserably because of the united opposition fromf the economic interests and parliament itself who argued that the abolition of slavery would have a grave impact on Britain's extensive slave labor dependency that provided much of the stability and profit for the British economy. Still Wilberforce persisted to the point of a debilitating serious illness. Finally, through, he sufficiently recovered to offer his leadership by emphasizing the cruelty of slavery and appealing to the humanitarian sensibilities of the general public which eventually translated into sufficient legislative leverage for him to be able to succeed. The British parliament voted to abolish state sanctioned slavery forever in 1807. It is indeed a powerful example of faithful persistence in the face of horrendous injustice against all odds.

At the end of the movie I was totally surprised that I burst uncontrollably in tears. I couldn’t leave my seat until the theater had emptied. When I tried to explain to my friends what had happened to me I blurted out that the dramatic abolition of slavery in the British Empire impressed on me that war, too, could be abolished forever, even against what seems like impossible odds. My intuitive emotional response to the movie, erupting as it did from some deep part of my soul, has continued to compel me with a resilient commitment on my life - what we Quakers call a “leading” - that I have pursued in various anti-war and nonviolence advocacy over the years. My “Gyroscope” blog now gives me a chance to try to claim and express that leading through my writing.

I would welcome both your response to today’s blog itself, or perhaps you would like to share a story in your own lives that summoned you in an equally compelling way. Please feel to write me, [email protected].

Peace be with you,
Tom

______________

*Gyroscope: a wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis that is free to turn in various directions. Gyroscopes find applications in the compasses of boats, spacecraft, and aeroplanes. The aeroplane’s orientation and pitch are determined against the steady spin of the gyroscope. In spacecraft, the desired target’s navigation is done with a gyroscope’s help.