Golden Calves

Beginning where God begins with us in the moment where two holy cells join together in God's infinite genius creating a human being.  Well, that process actually creates a lot of creatures, and there are many creaturely ways in which humans are in the world.  Not how we aspire to be, not how we organize ourselves into a thought, or a goal, or an aim, but just how we are.

If we are honest with ourselves about our inherent creature-ness, we just know - in the depths of our being - that we are capable of so very much and so very little.  And we would know that God is a continual invitation to be our best and highest selves, to be in the place of so very much.  When we inhabit the place of so very little, and stay there, we live what William Sloane Coffin said is hell: truth seen too late.

What is the truth of the so much and the so little from inside of the immigration firestorm?  The so very little is the moment at which we can look another human being in the eye and say that, because of the color of your skin, or because of who your parents are, or because of the soil of the earth on which you were born, you do not belong here.  We slink even further away from God's invitation when, in all self righteousness, we justify ourselves in saying, not only do you not belong here, we will inflict violence upon you in order to convince you of that "fact."

This week, a religious institution once again surrendered its place in the possibility of so very much to wallow in the place of so very little.  See the story of Jose Gutierrez Guzman to know the depth of our capacity for so very little.  In this case, it's not even possible to look this man in the eye and disabuse him of any human dignity whatsoever.  Which is what tortures my sense of who we are as creatures and the place of so very little that we inhabit.

Back to Rev Coffin: "What is intolerable is for differences to become idolatrous.... Human beings are fully human only when they find the universal in the particular."  Jose's case is symptomatic of what idol worshippers we have become.  We worship the idol of Violence in the name of You Don't Belong Here.

Can you see the truth yet?