Weaponizing Goodness

A friend posted this article, which tells a lovely story about the new pope making a point of calling in person to cancel his newspaper subscription, along with a snarky political comment. I also noticed that the article itself is followed by some snarky political comments.

It is a beautiful story about human connection and humility. Why can't we just let a story like this wash over us and inspire us? Why do we have to turn the example he sets into a weapon and use it to condemn others?

A Simple Miracle

I stole the following from an anonymous friend, written in 2010.

"Reflecting on the story of the loaves and fishes, I realized that the miracle of the story might be as simple as Jesus asking for help and finding one boy who was willing to share. Perhaps heaven didn't need to provide the bread and fish. Perhaps other people, who had food but were keeping it for themselves, watched the boy, felt the spirit and had a change of heart. Perhaps when they all shared--when they all took a moment to think about other's needs--there was more than enough food for everyone. Perhaps the lesson Jesus needed to teach was how we can solve our problems if we work together. With the fear and anger in our communities, perhaps the miracle we need most is the miracle of changing hearts."

Eden

The story of Adam and Eve is to me a metaphor for the development of human consciousness, when we shifted from operating on instinct to becoming sentient beings who began to understand our world on a whole new level. We became aware of our actions and the actions of others. We became aware of the impact of all of those actions, for both good and evil. We became children of God.

I think, to our detriment, we've been trying to create the bubble of protection we sense we had in the Garden of Eden ever since. 

It can manifest itself in different ways for different people. We search out and cling to pat answers. We don't face hard things straight on. We create dogmatic systems of rules that lull us into believing we're doing something good when we follow them. We refuse to listen to people who don't see things the way we do. We whitewash history (of our faith, of our nation, of ourselves) because that is more soothing than owning up to and learning from mistakes. We resist commitment (to people, to ideas, to meaningful work). We use what we earn not just to sustain us, but to make ourselves comfortable. We ignore things that make us uncomfortable. We separate ourselves from people we view as sinners. Or who are different from us.

We fear knowledge, the fruit of the tree.

Instead of following the admonition to live IN the world, but not OF the world, we want the safety of living ON the world, but not IN the world. Engaging is painful and messy and dangerous.

We think we are protecting ourselves, enabling us to get through this life unscathed and on to the next. But instead we miss out on true spiritual growth. We miss out on life.