Making a difference in the way we live (Part II)
The sermon at the National Cathedral on Jan. 21 was preached by renowned Social Work Researcher, Professor at the University of Houston, and an Episcopalian, Dr. Brene Brown. She and her research team collected over two hundred thousand reliable data during the past 15 years that is disturbing and challenging.
In preparing for the sermon, she reflected on her spiritual journey. She concluded that if she and God were together and her friends nearby, they might say, “Look, she still has that ‘glow’ after all these years.”
However, if she was with Church her friends might say, “Brene you’ve got to decide. In or out it. You are driving us crazy and it’s not good for the kids.”
One of her apprehensions about Church is that we need to clean up our language. For example, when she is asked what she believes about church, she replies I’m not sure what I believe, but I can tell you what I love about church. Every time in church when we say the word “believe” such as I believe God, I substitute the word love, I love God, and I am empowered, and I am moved to action. When I make a list of what I love about church I know this is where I belong.
She wrote, “We all want to belong, and true belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are. It is not about fitting in, pretending, or making the people around us comfortable. It does not require us to sacrifice what we value.”
Her research however uncovered that “loneliness” has become a world-wide epidemic. The English Parliament recently appointed a Minister for Loneliness.
What has happened, is that people, including those in the Church, have become strangers and no longer sense an inextricable God-given connection with all of humanity. Instead we are gathering together, erecting barriers, and are connected by creating ugly names for those we dislike and hate. We are quick to insist that God also dislikes and hates the same people.
We have taken the next step and are dehumanizing “others,” by stripping away their God-given dignity and talking about them as being inferior and even subhuman. While such proclamations are not factual, they are our dislikes and hates and therefore they are our truth. Unchecked, this leads to anger and violence.
God loves us unconditionally and challenges us to unconditionally love one another. We are called to celebrate those God-created connections with the Church.
Loneliness is a spiritual crisis that touches us all. It will continue to fester until we have the courage to hold accountable all those people that would try and tear apart what God has joined together.
The reconstruction of the past years of abuse will take courage and time to reverse. You can start by naming the things you love about church and allow God to use your love as a soothing balm and as a means of healing all the spiritually wounded.
There is fresh blood on a Florida school house’s floors. The murderer, like other school murderers, was known as “a loner.” God so loved and so must we.