Gifts From Judaism

I've started teaching Judaism in my Religion 101 class. The impact of Judaism on world history and thought is nothing short of remarkable. It birthed the two most populous world religions: Christianity and Islam. Arguably, it was the first thoroughly monotheistic faith. And, the Torah (especially the Ten Commandments) is the basis for Western law.

However, I believe the greatest gift of Judaism is the portrayal of God in intensely personal terms. The God of the Hebrew scriptures is powerful and transcendent, and the Creator of all that exists. Yet, this same God is described as walking in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden, having conversation with humans, and caring deeply about the fate of his creation, especially humans.

As Huston Smith puts, "The God of Judaism is more like a person than a thing (my italics)." This is a God we can relate to and have a relationship with. This is a God who cares, loves, forgives and is with us in times of need.

Contrast the God of Judaism with the gods of the Romans and Greeks. The gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus were basically indifferent to humanity because they were so self-absorbed. Contrast the God of Judaism with Brahmin, the chief god of Hinduism, who is an impersonal universal spirit.

I prefer to think of God in personal, rather than impersonal, terms because I can have a relationship of love and trust with a personal God. As a Christian, this personal God is most powerfully manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. Yet, the God in Jesus Christ is the same God whom the Jews have worshiped and praised throughout the centuries.

"Waken In Me a Sense of Joy"

The leaves are beginning to change in our part of Connecticut. Right now, gold is the predominant color but reds and oranges are starting to emerge. What a glorious season autumn is! Visually, I find it to be the most compelling of the seasons. The photo on the right is from freefoto.com.

In his book, Guerrillas of Grace, Ted Loder offers a beautiful autumn prayer:

O extravagant God,
in this ripening, red-tinged autumn,
waken in me a sense of joy
in just being alive.
joy for nothing in general
except everything in particular;
joy in the sun and rain
mating with earth to birth a harvest;
joy in soft light
through shyly disrobing trees;
joy in the acolyte moon
setting halos around processing clouds;
joy in the beating of a thousand wings
mysteriously knowing which way is warm;
joy in the taste of bread and wine,
the smell of dawn,
a touch,
a song,
a presence;
joy in having what I cannot live without--
other people to hold and cry and laugh with;
joy in love,
in you;
and that all at first and last
is grace.

Capitalism: A Love Story?

Last night I saw Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. As you might expect, it touched on typical Moore themes: fairness, the gap between rich and poor, corruption, greed and injustice.

Although I liked some of his earlier movies ("Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine") more, I felt that "Capitalism" was well done and provided Moore with a bully pulpit on some important issues.

Much of the movie focused on the misery of job losses and home foreclosures as a result of the recent economic collapse. You couldn't help but be moved by the heart wrenching interviews with families evicted from homes. This was contrasted with those who were profiting from this dire situation.

The spiritual message I took from the movie was "be compassionate." Compassion is probably the highest spiritual value in the major religions. Compassion is called by many names-- charity, love, alms giving, justice for widows and orphans-- but the common thread is empathy and the willingness to act to relieve suffering.

The word compassion comes from two Latin words that mean "to suffer with." When we are compassionate, we feel the pain of the other and enter into it for the purpose of helping alleviate it.

Because of the huge volume of pain created by the Great Recession, I find myself experiencing "compassion fatigue." The needs of those suffering seem so overwhelming, it's hard to know where to begin. I believe that we're not called to solve all problems, but to do what we can where we are. Compassion provides both the empathy to see the need and the motivation to act.

"Chores" Rhymes With "Bores"

When you think about it, much of our non-work time is taken up with various chores: cooking, cleaning, gardening, shopping, doing laundry and the like. Chores rhymes with bores. For many of us, boring is an accurate description of our attitude toward taking care of the minutia of daily life.

As a teenager, I had two chores that were exclusively mine to do: taking out the trash and mowing the lawn. Taking out the trash only took a few minutes each day, but I would invariably forget to do this until my mother reminded me. My response to her reminders was, “I’ll do it in a minute.” Often, many minutes would pass with the trash still sitting there and I would need multiple reminders. When I got into my later teen years, I realized that I had a mental block to doing this simple chore. As I look back on my procrastination, I think part of it was a rebellion against authority and part was being easily distracted from doing something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

My attitude toward doing chores changed when I lived on my own for the last two years of seminary. When you live alone, all the daily chores fall on you. There is nobody else to blame if they’re not done. When the dishes weren’t washed, the kitchen got messy. When the trash wasn’t taken out, it would eventually stink. When the bathroom wasn’t cleaned at least weekly, it would become gross. I came to see chores as one of life’s necessities and developed a tolerance of them.

What changed my attitude further was having children. I was woefully unprepared for the amount of work a parent must do for their children. I had never changed a diaper in my life, but now did so several times a day. I had never fed a baby, but now I was preparing bottles, feeding and burping babies. There was so much to do, it was overwhelming at first. With twins, the amount of work was doubled!

Doing the many extra chores that children necessitated helped me connect these tasks with the love I had for them. This made doing chores, if not enjoyable, at least meaningful. Purpose and passion are keys to discovering the soulful dimension of work. This is so very true of the vocation of parenting.

The concept of meaningful chores is relevant even if you don’t have children or live alone. Connecting chores with how they make life better for a life partner or with how they make life better for yourself is a way of seeing how they are an expression of love. Even if chores are unlovable, they can be concrete demonstrations of love.

On Winning 8th Place...

Yesterday, I rowed in a Men's eight at the Riverfront Recapture Regatta in Hartford, CT on the lovely Connecticut River. This is now the 3rd largest one-day regatta in the U.S. with over 1,500 rowers. The photo on the left is of a Norwalk River Rowing Assn. men's eight from a previous year (I'm second from the top).

We had a beautiful, clear day with temps in the 60's and little wind-- perfect conditions for rowing. The 3.2 mile course was upriver against the current. Our Norwalk River Rowing Association eight rowed the course in little over 24 minutes, good for 8th place out of 10 men's eights.

Because we're used to finishing higher in the pecking order, some of us were disappointed with our finish position. However, upon reflection I realized that we all rowed as hard as we could, as well as we could, and were exhausted by the end. In rowing lingo, "we gave it 100%, leaving nothing on the water."

So why the disappointment? I think it had to do with our expectations. In the past, we had finished nearer the top rather than the bottom. Therefore, we expected to finish higher. Our expectations went unfulfilled.

A rowing race is a good metaphor for life. Sometimes, even though we work hard and do our best, we come in 8th place. While we should be content to have done our best, it turns out that others' bests are better than ours. This is no reason to feel disappointed or discouraged. This is life.

It is difficult to not evaluate ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. Yet, if we are to enjoy life and thrive, we need to stop living by comparing ourselves to others. The only comparison that matters is self-comparison. And when we've done our best, it's good and right to affirm that our best is good enough.

Religion in the Workplace?

Yesterday, one of my Religion 101 classes had a vigorous discussion of whether or not religion has a place in the workplace. About half the class of 40 students felt strongly that the separation of church and state should extend to one's work. They felt that meditating, praying or doing any other religious action that coworkers might see should be verboten.

The other half of the class felt that, within limits, religious expression in the workplace was OK. The litmus test to be applied was whether one's religious expression was offensive to coworkers. For example, it would OK to wear a cross, star of David, or other religious symbol, but not to talk about your religion (unless you were specifically asked).

My view is that we can't take out the religious part of us and leave it at the office door. Our religion is too deeply a part of who we are to be able to totally suppress it. However, we shouldn't impose our religious views on others uninvited. We should respect the religious diversity of where we work and not express our religion in ways that make others uncomfortable.

What I thought was interesting about the class discussion is how strongly the students defended their viewpoints. The discussion became pretty heated at some points. This shows that religious feelings are often deeply held and vigorously defended. What is your view on religion in the workplace?

In The Blink Of An Eye

Things happen fast in our world. Through the Internet, communication occurs at the speed of light. Email has replaced snail mail. Blogs have replaced newspaper editorials. When something newsworthy happens, word of it spreads instantaneously through cyberspace.

In the wake of daily deaths as a result of war, earthquakes, tsunamis and other destructive events, I’ve become painfully aware of something else that can happen with lightening speed: death. Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can result in instant death.

Several years ago I remember being both amused and irritated with a church council member who said, “We need to plan for the future because Bob could get on the wrong plane and, suddenly, we don’t have a pastor!” I was 32 years old at the time and death seemed in the distant future.

Yet, I know this comment expresses a truth, not just about me but about all of us. Life can end in the blink of an eye.

There are at least three ways we can respond to this truth. One way is to deny it. We can live with the illusion that our life will go on for our allotted four score years and death is far in the distance. Our culture’s obsession with looking youthful, extending life and being healthy is part of this death denial.

Another way is to accept this truth and appreciate how precious and fragile human life is. We can be grateful for each day of life, and for each day of life of those we love. Living with the knowledge that life can have a sudden terminus can free us to live enthusiastically and boldly.

To view this truth through the eyes of faith gives us yet another way of responding. Paul expresses this “third way” in his letter to the Corinthians: “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…”

Paul is pointing to the promise of resurrection and new life. Death is not the final end of life, but a new beginning. God’s ultimate power is to bring new life out of death.

Affirming this isn’t to deny death. Yes, we will all die and some of us will die too soon or too late. Yet, however long or short our life may be, God’s love embraces us eternally. Death is God’s loving embrace.

The hopeful message of Christianity is that God’s love is stronger than death. And nothing, not even sudden death, can separate us or those whom we love from God’s love. Through faith, the blink of an eye is transformed into the twinkling of an eye. Just as death happens in an instant, so does new life.