Passover and the Holy Fool Every once in a while, as it does this year, Easter falls during the week of Passover. Significantly more unusual is that Easter also falls this year on April Fool’s Day. Last time that happened was in 1956. It won’t happen again until 2029. [1] Getting into the spirit of the day, the Devon News, a British paper, informs us that Pope Francis has canceled April Fools because it clashes with Easter. To make up for any disappointment, April Fools will be celebrated twice in 2019. [2] Instead of canceling this day of revelry, Methodist minister Jeanne Torrence Finley suggests we take advantage of the…
-
-
Wisdom to Know the Difference
Wisdom and Peace We were at the prison, leading the Recovery Church circle, when the question came up, “What do you want in life?” The young man to my right had shown himself to be inquisitive, seeking information and knowledge, asking questions, eager for education, appreciating debate. I wondered aloud if he wanted wisdom. “No,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m wise enough.” But of course. Wisdom is too often hard won. He had been through a violent childhood, betrayals and loneliness, a chronic illness, and years of incarceration. Through it all, he had come to understand much about himself, the world, and that which sustains us and tears us apart.…
-
Trying Again and Again to Change
The Tragedy of Addiction When you’re around drug addicts, whether because your family members struggle with addiction, you’re an addict yourself, or you work with addicts professionally, you will eventually see people die from their addiction. Young people mostly die from accidents, such as car crashes, overdoses, or violence. A heroin addict still using in her fifties or sixties generally succumbs to years of neglect, infections, and the effects of homelessness. Drugs, especially substances like meth or alcohol, damage our brains, making rational thought difficult. It’s hard enough for someone to admit he needs to stop drinking when his mind still functions reasonably well. Years of alcohol abuse can damage a…
-
Money, Money, Money
A Disease of the Heart In the 1500s, a lust for gold and silver drove the Spanish Conquistadors to feats of horror that would appall any normal human being, or at least one not caught up in the frenzy of a powerful addiction. Not unlike many for whom their drug means more than life itself, Francisco Pizarro [1] was said to be modest, gentle, and affable with his countrymen or with those who won his favor, but ruthless with any Peruvian who interfered with his passion for wealth, power, and control. [2] His compatriot and cousin, Hernándo Cortés [3] was just as obsessed. As historian Inga Clendinnentells us, he mockingly justified the theft of precious…
-
Lent, Passion, and Repentance
Lent: A Time of Preparation for Easter As Easter approaches, some Christian communities celebrate Lent, a time of waiting and preparing for the triumphant return of Christ. According to a blog on the website of the Tullamore Parish, a Catholic community in Ireland, the most important way we can prepare for Easter is to do penance. What is penance? The Tullamore website calls it “self denial” and suggests we fast, give alms, and pray. [1] I think of penance as a kind of punishment, like the repeated prayers one speaks after confession or the self flagellation some sects practice in an effort to rid themselves of sin. Punishing Ourselves in Hope of…
-
Changing What We Can
God Grant Me This is the second installment of our exploration of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer,” part of which is recited in many twelve-step groups: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Today we will explore the courage to change. Before we can change things, whether they exist within us or in the world around us, we must be brave enough to acknowledge the problem. Only then can we something about it. Yet is it so hard to accept that change is necessary? As I glance at the morning newspaper and…
-
Emotions, Healing, and Gun Violence
Understanding Emotions This column is about emotions. It’s about the importance of feeling and of knowing what we feel. When we don’t recognize our emotions, we become vulnerable to the manipulation of tyrants. When we refuse to look within ourselves at our own emotional storm, we project our evil onto women, men, and binary individuals; onto people of color, immigrants, the poor; and onto the vulnerable and the broken in general. A few days ago, seventeen more children died from gunfire, this time in a Florida high school on Valentine’s Day. So much hatred spilling out on a day of love. Such violence occurs, in part, because we refuse to…
-
We Are Nothing But Love
The Illusion of Beings in Need According to A Course in Miracles, God is love and only love, and since we are the same essence as God, we, too, are only love. Anything we experience that is not love – pain, evil, ugliness, judgment, hatred – is an illusion. Only love is real and true; everything else, we imagine. Such a theology can be twisted to blame those of us whose illusions are filled with misery. From a New Age perspective, we might say that we are not enlightened enough. We need to deepen our practice, pray, purify ourselves. In a similar way, Jesus’s teachings have been twisted to condemn the poor and…
-
How We Heal
Healing in the Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is full of miraculous healings. According to Tony Cauchi in “Healing in the Gospels,” [1] forty-one separate healing stories are scattered throughout the four gospels, and Mark tells eighteen of them. In each story, Jesus uses a touch or a word or even a bit of saliva to transform the broken and injured, the possessed and the infirm, even the very dead, into whole, vibrant, alive, and faithful individuals. The complete faith that fills those whose bodies and minds have been healed of disease is perhaps the most important part of each tale. Mark contrasts that faith with the ignorance…
-
The Serenity to Accept What Is
The Serenity Prayer In the “Serenity Prayer,” theologian Reinhold Niebuhr asks for the serenity to accept what cannot be changed. [1] Many of us have a hard time with such acceptance. When we feel powerless, we often struggle to regain our footing, hoping to set things right, at least by our definition of “right.” In my work as a hospital chaplain, for instance, I often meet with people whose bodies are falling apart. All the interventions at the medical team’s disposal cannot stop the disintegration of their lives. Patients and family feel angry, sad, and afraid. Sometimes, they lash out at staff, blaming doctors for their illness or chastising nurses…