Month: July 2020

Repair the World

“Sometime in the early life of the world, something happened to shatter the light of the universe into countless pieces. They lodged as sparks inside every part of creation. The highest human calling is to look for this original light from where we sit, to point to it and gather it up and in so doing to repair the world.”

That’s how Krista Tippett tells the Jewish legend behind the idea of “Tikkun Olam,” or “repair the world.”

Tippett goes on to talk about how Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen sees this legend not as just some far off fantasy, but as hopeful and empowering: “It insists that each one of us, flawed and inadequate as we may feel, has exactly what’s needed to help repair the part of the world that we can see and touch.”

Living in a clearly broken world, as clearly broken people and individuals, what is more hopeful than realizing that despite the darkness around us, that there are sparks of light lodged everywhere. And that we can find those sparks, help point others towards them, and gather the light to help diminish the darkness.

For the last eight weeks, we’ve had a small group through Christ Church Easton reading Tippett’s book, “Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It.”

This week we looked at Tippett’s calling to “Expose Virtue,” which is a wonderful way to think about the ability and power of conversation, journalism, communication–to show the goodness in the world, one story, one life, one conversation at a time.

Tippett talks about kindness:

“Kindness–an everyday by-product of all the great virtues–is at once the simplest and most weighty discipline human beings can practice. But it is the stuff of moments. It cannot be captured in declarative sentences or conveyed by factual account. It can only be found by looking at ordinary, unsung, endlessly redemptive experience.”

Krista Tippett

Kindness can’t be abstract. It has to be seen, practiced, experienced in the world. It’s not a stretch to connect kindness with repairing the world–it is one of the most needed tools at our disposal.

Tippett talks about “ubuntu,” an African word that points to humanity. “It says, I am through you and you are through me. To the extent that I am estranged from another person, I am less than human.” We can look at this as connected to Jesus telling us to love our neighbors as our selves and/or the Buddhist way of thinking about interdependence.

Something that becomes clear to Tippett as she talks to people is that any notion of kindness, of ubuntu, only start to mean something through telling stories.

“Stories of children changed by adults who care, of groups of colleagues making a difference in a particular corporate culture; of role models and teachers and friendships that altered perspectives and lives. Human relationship–which begins with seeing an “other” as human–is the context in which virtue happens, the context in which character is formed.”

“Speaking of Faith,” as a book is filled with these stories. “On Being,” Tippett’s radio show and podcast is all about sharing these conversations, telling these stories.

Studying the book as a group has made me want to seek out, listen to, and tell the stories that are around me. Our community, and every community is full of people, stories, and kindness, if we shine the light on them. Four Sisters Kabob and Curry and their generosity is a recent one that comes to mind.

But it also makes me want to be a part of more stories, connected to more moments and experiences. Like not missing the opportunity to come together to socially-distanced serenade, with accordion, one of the kindest, most giving, light shiners I have ever encountered, for his 80th birthday.

Tippett talks about a “clear-eyed faith” that–

“asks me to confront my failings and the world’s horrors. It also demands that I search, within all wreckage, for the seeds of creativity, wisdom, and strength. It frees me to see the contours of virtue come alive in the world–of ‘thick’ religion, grounded and refined in practice and thought, text and tradition, and responding in differentiated ways to human reality.”

Despite our failings, we have a chance. Despite my failings, I have a chance.

Especially when it is so easy to be overwhelmed by darkness, our highest calling is to look for light where we sit, where we live, where we work, and share it with others. And in so doing, repair the world.

Here to Wonder

Do you ever get to wondering? I seem to spend a lot of time that way, wondering. There is a conversation towards the end of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple,” where Albert gets to wondering:

“You ast yourself one question, it lead to fifteen. I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women… It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don’t mean nothing if you don’t ast why you here, period.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Our lives are often defined by the questions we ask. So let’s ask the big ones, the juicy ones. And the right ones. So why does Albert think we’re here?

“I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering about the big things and asting about the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”

Albert, via Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”

The more I wonder, the more I love. Yes to that, and so much more of it.

I wanted to read “The Color Purple” because of a quote; a quote I read and loved immediately; a quote that spoke directly to my soul and I have thought and used and felt so many times since, that I knew I needed to read the book where it came from.

And when I read it in context of the story, it was even better and deeper. Two of the main characters, Celie and Shug Avery are talking about God. And about how God is not an old white man in robes sitting on a throne. And how “God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for.” Shug talking. And what a wonderful way to describe the Holy Spirit.

And Celie asks what God looks like, if not an old white man. And Shug says:

“Don’t look like nothing, she say. It’ ain’t a picture show. It ain’t something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe that God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found It.”

Shug says people “come to church to share God, not find God.” And I love that thought and thinking that sharing God is what church is for.

But none of those are the quote that made me want to read the book. Here’s the conversation:

Shug: God love everything you love–and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God vain?
Shug: Naw. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

And there it is. “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” That quote has been a part of me since I first read it years ago. It describes how I go through life. God made a flower, a field, a planet, a universe for us to wonder at. To ask about. And the more we wonder, the more we ask, the more we love.

And God made us for each other. He made each of us, to love each other and to love Him. And I don’t and won’t ever claim to speak for God, but it seems in the same way, it pisses Him off when we don’t love each other; when we spew hate and not kindness; when we divide, point fingers, and blame, instead of helping each other up, lifting each other’s spirits, using our gifts and His gifts to connect us to each other and to God.

Celie and Shug keep talking (Celie writing) –

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think that pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when we least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved.

Everything wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be loved. God is giving us opportunities–what are we doing with them?

What if we try to notice the color purple? What if we try to see, to really see, and get to know each other? What if we wonder? What if we ask? What if the more we wonder, the more we love.