There is a great verse in the hymn Amazing Grace that says:
When we’ve been there
ten thousand years/bright shining as the sun;
We’ve
no less days to sing God’s praise/than when we’d first begun.
That
to me is an excellent way to describe the relationship that we have with our
God and this world. We all grow up, grow
older and live out our lives doing what we can with our faith. Sometimes we don’t do very well with our
loving. We neglect people who are in
need and marginalize others. There is a
constant argument going on in our society about how those who are in categories
that we have created ought to live. If
you are African American, gay, female, Muslim, Latino or Native American you
will certainly encounter barriers that might prevent you from living your life
in full. Periodically, we come up with
ways to bridge these barriers, but the rhetoric that emerges from the argument
is always hurtful and demonstrates how hard it is for us to love one another as
our God has loved us.
That commandment to love, is
the foundation of all scripture. When
Jesus was asked what is the most important commandment, this is the one that he
offers to the Pharisees who have asked him the question. He offers it in good faith because it is true
and is the basis for all of the rest of Holy Scripture. If we can’t love one another, not much else
is really possible.
What gets in the way is our
narcissism, our ego centered attitude toward others that comes from our desire
to get our own way in most things. When
we can put this aside and care for others and their needs, love has an honest
chance to work.
We live in a time when hate has
erupted in almost incredible ways. A man
shoots a large number of people in a crowd watching a country music festival in
Las Vegas and we can’t find any reason why he would do this. The social media platform called Twitter is increasing being used to call
people names and pump out false information to the country. The label fake
news is used over and over again to deflect claims of real truth in some of
the reporting that is going on in this country.
It is harder and harder to know what is true and what is false in what
we are reading and hearing every day in our media reporting and the political
response that we receive to it. There is
a design to this. The deflection of reporting on real
events by those in charge is a way to make us all pay attention to other things
rather than what is being said.
Deflection is a great strategy to keep us from looking deeper into the
events that are being reported.
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