THE DANGER IN CHANGING OUR MINDS

All of us have strong opinions on a variety of subjects. We hold them dearly and we hold them tight. We sometimes get into serious arguments when we come up against another who totally disagrees with what we believe. Sometimes those arguments lead to some kind of violence as what happened during the run up to and, sadly and tragically after, the recent presidential election.  Sometimes they lead to division in that we no longer speak to the other or have anything to do with the other.

I suspect we’ve all been there or have at least been in the position of almost being there, again, as in the election process. We find it hard to believe the other does not believe to be true what we believe to be true, but the other does. And, if we think about it, vice versa. The reason we get into those arguments in the first place is that we come into contact with someone who doesn’t believe as we do and who cannot understand why we believe what we do. Really? Well, yes. The solution is to hear each other out and agree to disagree and then avoid the subject in the future.

We can deal with that and we have because we have no other choice if we want to live at peace with one another. No one has a lock on the truth. The really hard part comes when we have to admit that we may be wrong. We have listened to the other and have now changed on minds on something we were convinced was right and now come to be convinced that we were wrong.

That is a dangerous step to take because it might very well mean that we have to change the way we are living and acting. We may have been saying and doing things we once thought were right and have now come to understand that we were in the wrong and that those who thought and acted otherwise were, in fact, in the right. That is a very humbling reality and a very difficult move to make.

It is dangerous because it is difficult. And it is difficult because it is dangerous. We never know what the outcome will be when we encounter a dangerous situation that we cannot avoid. Yes, when that happens, we can refuse to admit that we are wrong. That may seem the easy part. But then we have to live with constantly knowing we are living a lie. That is a dangerous way to live because our lies eventually come back to get us.

We live this life based on our convictions and even assumptions. We have learned to accept that things we assumed to be true were not. We acknowledge that reality and move on. But when something we are convinced is true turns out to be false and when we have been living under those false beliefs, we have a choice to make and, again, a difficult and dangerous one.

Thankfully, that does not happen very often. But when it does, do we really have a choice about what to do as difficult and even dangerous as it might and will be?

WHEN NOT TOO BAD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Poor English notwithstanding, whenever someone asks us how the meal was or how we did on an exam or how we are feeling, we inevitably reply (or at least I do), “Not too bad.” It should be “badly,” adverbs grammatically modifying verbs. “Not too bad” (or “badly”) has come to be a synonym for “good enough” That is fine, perhaps, when it comes to meals (when some anonymous person has prepared it, of course) or exams (if our passing the course is not in jeopardy) or our own well-being (because the questioner can’t do anything about it anyway).

But “not too bad” is not good enough when it comes to our spiritual life and how we live out that life. If asked about that life, most of us would reply that it could be better, but, all in all, it’s not too bad. We could pray more, read the Bible more, do more in the way of sharing our time and talent and treasure. We know that. Granted, we are not perfect, but, when we think about it, we’re not doing too badly.

Then we run up against Jesus’ command that we be perfect as he is and are forced to face the truth that not too badly is not good enough. When perfection is demanded, anything less is not good enough even if the life we are living is truly not too bad. Not too bad never, ever, leads to perfection because it settles for something less. It never leads to a transformed life because life as it is seems not too bad.

Granted, we will never be perfect, not in this life anyway. We will never come close to being perfect. Sin gets too much in the way every single day of our lives. Perhaps that is why we can so easily accept a spiritual life that is not too bad. It certainly could be worse, much, much worse and it will never be perfect. In this life, it seems, a spiritual life that is not too bad certainly seems to be good enough.

In order to transform our lives from not too bad towards perfection, we have to work on them and work on them daily. We have to remove practices that hinder growth and replace them with practices and disciplines that enable spiritual growth. A transformed life is the result of a spiritually disciplined life and is only the result of such a life. Transformation does not happen accidentally or by osmosis. It happens because we do what has to be done to make it happen.

Lent is upon us and is an opportune time to begin to do what needs to be done to transform our lives into the lives Jesus call us to live. Even if what we are doing is good, it is not good enough, perfection being a ways off, a long way off. Lent is a time to practice disciples of prayer, fasting, self-denial, reading and reflecting on God’s word, giving of our time to serve others. It is a time to learn more about different ways to become more disciplined and transformed. Lent is the time to begin to make a spiritual life that is not too bad but is truly not good enough into something even better.

We know that, do we not? But it is not enough to know what we should be doing. That’s the easy part. The hard part is actually doing something. The very personal question is, “What am I going to do this Lent to make myself a better person?”

 

LET ME BE LIGHT

For all of my life for as long back as I can remember, except for a few weeks back in sixth grade when I was laid up back-to-back with swollen glands and pleurisy, I have fought the battle of the bulge, sometimes winning, mostly losing as any photo of me over the years attests. I have always wanted to be light, or at least lighter than I am/was at any time in my life.

It is not good, of course, to be overweight, not good for your very well-being. I am fully aware of the dangers in being so and do not need my PCP to remind me of that truth. So I battle on, day after day, year after year, failing and succeeding, presently, thanks to my wife, more succeeding than failing. Be that as it may, while being lighter, or at least lighter than I am, is good for my physical well-being, it should have a more important reason behind it.

That reason? That I may be light as Jesus was light, certainly not to the degree he was and is, but in the way he was when he walked this earth: by his very presence. Wherever Jesus went, he was like a light coming into the lives of those he encountered. He opened their eyes and ears and hearts to see what they had not seen or heard or loved, for whatever reason they had been closed up or at least not opened as far as they could and should have been.

As Christians we are to be the light to others to see and hear and love in the manner we were created to be. Sometimes we overlook that truth. Sometimes we want to deny it because it seems too difficult. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget and misunderstand how those lives of ours impact others as they do. And the truth is that being that light is not easy.

It’s like going on a diet to become lighter. It takes work. It takes dedication. It takes being aware of everything that we eat and everything we do or not do, like exercise. Jesus was constantly aware of the message he was sending every step of the way in everything he said or did or did not say or do. That was a tremendous burden for him to bear and in no way is it less a burden for you and me to bear.

But we are called to bear it. Be we do not bear it alone. Just as I need my wife to support me with my eating and exercising, and vice versa, so, too, in being that light to others do we need the love and support of others. Jesus didn’t go it alone. He had a loyal group of followers who somehow understood at least a little of what he was about and what he was calling them to be about. And there was always the Holy Spirit to lend support when even his closest friends abandoned him. His light never went out.

Neither does ours. It flickers at times, grows dim, even struggles to keep lit. But with God’s help and the love and support of others our light will continue to shine.

IT’S A SIN TO TELL A LIE

It’s right there in the Bible (Exodus 20:16): “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In other words, it’s a sin to tell a lie. Why? Because lying destroys community. God gave Moses – and us – the Ten Commandments as reminders of what is necessary to build up and support a community rather than tear it down. When we lie, steal, kill, refuse to respect one another, we tear down.

Deep in our hearts and minds we know that. And yet we still lie. We lie to others and we lie to ourselves. So often we do so because it is the easy way out of a situation we would rather not be in. We lie to get what we want rather than to face the truth. Anne Perry in Seven Dials makes this observation: “A man who would lie to serve his own needs will eventually lie for anything.”

What is worse is when we will then act upon those lies, lies we somehow have come to believe as true even though they are just that: lies. We saw that happened on January 6. What was and is so frightening is that many of the rioters prayed to God to bless what they were about to do, all because they believed the lie that the election was stolen. What is even worse is that a goodly segment of our elected leaders knowingly and willingly propagated that lie. Why? As Anne Perry said, “to serve their own needs.” Obviously they do not believe what they were, and many still are, professing to be true is, in fact, a sin, is wrong. That is on their consciences.

Now don’t get me wrong: my little white lies are just as sinful as the Big Lie that is being told about the election. Perhaps my lies don’t have the consequences of what happened on January 6, but they have consequences for which I must own up and for which I need to attempt to atone, if possible.

More often than not we don’t foresee the consequences of our lies because, for the most part, they are minor. But we should have seen this coming. We had a President who lied all the time, over 30,000 times. If he didn’t like something he called it fake or an alternate fact. In other words, he lied. We all put up with the lies, especially those who had power to stand up and denounce them but did not because it served their own needs not to.

The consequences of our sins eventually catch up to us and they usually are not pretty. In fact, the pain caused by our sins once they catch up with us overrides any pleasure we received from them. We know that. We’ve been there. Sometimes we learn that harsh lesson and sometimes, sadly and to our later pain and chagrin, and, what is worse, the pain we have caused others, we don’t.

We as a nation, as a community, will recover from the events of January 6. That is part of our resilience as a people. But what took place that day must remain as a harsh reminder that it is a sin to tell a lie and what can happen when we do.