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Life is cheap?

07 Feb

Dear God, I don’t really have a verse to go with this thought today. Or, better said, I’m not starting with a verse today. I’ve just had a thought festering in my mind for the last two or three weeks that I wanted to work out this morning (not that I’ll get to any real resolution because I’m too ignorant to get that far).

I have a friend’s funeral today. She was a precious woman. She was loved by her family. It was a long struggle for her with various ailments. In and out of hospitals. In and out of physical rehab facilities. A real concern for how she would be cared for after her mom passed. And now her mom has outlived her. Her mom has other children facing physical ailments. Her mom is unbelievably strong and resilient, having survived her own bout with serious cancer about five years ago. And here she is now, burying her daughter today. I cannot imagine how her heart must be breaking right now, even as I type these words.

So my friends life was precious. Her life brought some of your presence into the world. Her life was not cheap. Or was it? It seems like lately, on an aggregate scale, we have started to treat human lives as cheap. I read yesterday that 40,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza in the last 16 months. Even if that number is inflated and only half that many have died, how can we just blink and move on when we here that that many lives have been snuffed out unnecessarily. Then there were the Jewish lives that were snuffed out in a day back in October 2023. Then I read another story yesterday that the Russians are taking the North Korean off of the front lines in Dursk because of their heavy losses. As I understand it, these North Korean soldiers were literally cannon fodder. But each one was a life. Each one was a soul. then there are all of the Ukrainians who have died over the last three years simply because a leader in one country decided he wanted their land as his own. Tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands on both sides?) dead at one man’s whim. And now in our own country, people groups are being marginalized and discriminated against. Racism has reared its ugly head, and people are judging others–bullying others–based simply on the color of their skin. We don’t see these lives as precious. We see them as cheap and something to be exploited for our own advancement.

But what if my life, in the end, is that cheap too? What if it is simply not important that I continue to live? Yes, it would leave a hole like any one of the other hundreds of thousands of people I’ve mentioned here left holes. Just as my precious friend leaves a hole this week. But in the end, am I not just 1/8-billionth of the current population of the earth?

Father, in the end, the value I add is that I get to worship you and the bring your kingdom and your will into this world my treating the lives around me as precious as you treat them. To love them. To encourage them. Maybe to admonish them, but lovingly. Love my neighbor as myself? Well, I think my life is precious, so I think what that really means is that I see each person’s life as being as precious as my life is. Life is not cheap. Their lives are not cheap. At the same time, I could die today and leave the hole that all of us leave because while life is not cheap, it is certainly fleeting. Even a life lived to 100 is still such a small piece of history. So help me to feel the value you place on me, respect and appreciate the value you place on us all, and then act on that. And please comfort the family and friends of my friend who died. She was loved by us. She is loved by you. She is precious still.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on February 7, 2025 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories

 

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Hebrews 10:32-34

31 Jan

32 Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. 33 Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. 34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.

Hebrews 10:32-34

Dear God, I am in a position of privilege, and I have friends who are not and suffering. What shall I do? What will be my response?

This was the New Testament reading for many church denominations today including the Catholic church. As I sat down to pray to you this morning, I was trying to think of a passage where Jesus comes to someone else’s defense. Maybe the woman who anointed his feet (probably the best example). The children who the disciples tried to keep away. To a lesser extent, some of the people he healed who were harassed by the Pharisees. But then I decided to check out the Catholic church’s daily readings for January 31, and I came across this passage. It really works well.

I don’t like bullies, but I am also not necessarily good at spontaneously responding to them. I need a plan. Yesterday morning, a friend was in tears. They told me they had been in a local shop and a customer told them they better get out because ICE was coming for them, and then they called my friend a racial slur. My friend happens to have been born and raised here, has a college degree, and works in a job serving the community. They are a great person by any measure. While they cried, all I could do was cry with them and speak truth into them. All of the good things I know about them and how much they mean to the community and to individuals they love. Frankly, I was surprised at my own tears, but I was actually grateful for them. I was grateful to know my heart is still capable of empathy.

Then that left me with the question for them and for me: What do we do the next time we experience something like that? For them, the next time someone does something similar to them. For me, as a privileged white man in the middle of Texas who will probably not experience racial discrimination on that scale, when I witness it. What will I do? And is there anything else you want me to do in the meantime? Is there a way I can make this pain count and not let it be wasted?

That takes me back to this passage. The author of Hebrews is talking about persecution because of you, but persecution is persecution. Even if my friend had been exactly what this person was purporting them to be–undocumented–it would have been no justification for that behavior. Those words. That venom. Verse 33 says, “…and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things.” That’s me now. How do I help others? What price am I willing to pay? What am I prepared to do when, not if, I see this happen to someone? How much will I risk for them?

Father, we are so precious to you, and yet we see throughout all of our known history, human life is cheap to us. While there are natural disasters and diseases that kill us before old age can, too many people die at the hands of other humans. It’s incredible. As an American, I can sit here on this side of the world and not think about the human suffering and mass deaths in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, different parts of Africa, etc. They are just numbers in my mind. I’ve become numb to it. But now that I can put a name and a face to the human suffering, it hurts to see human life, the human life you’ve created and love so much, treated so cheaply. Help me to see each soul around me. Help me to love the abused and the abuser. Help me to know how to love the soul that is scared and help the soul that is so lost that they feel the need to inflict pain on another soul. And help me to lean into you. My heart hurt yesterday. I was sad. I was angry. I still am. But help me to be exactly who you need me to be for your kingdom’s coming into this world’s sake as well as my own.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on January 31, 2025 in Hebrews

 

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Emails to God – Racism (Esther 2:8-11)

04 Jun

8 When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. 9 She pleased him and won his favor. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven female attendants selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her attendants into the best place in the harem.

10 Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. 11 Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her.

Dear God, I find the need to hide her nationality and family background to be interesting. Isn’t it funny (in the ironic sense) how we humans make such a big deal over race, nationality, gender, etc. You can almost see the idea of the gender issue just because men and women are sooooo different, but the fact that we make race such a big deal is somewhat puzzling.

There is good news on this, however. I don’t believe we are born with this prejudice. I remember when my son was in Kindergarten and even first grade. He had friends who were Latin and African American. They were great boys and, frankly, my wife and I were thrilled to see it. The something happened some time during first grade and into second. I don’t know if it was stuff the boys heard from their other kids, older siblings, parents, relatives, television, or what, but somewhere along the way they started to notice they had different skin pigmentation. Then we saw them starting to segregate themselves on the playground.

I work in a charitable medical and dental clinic for low-income families who are uninsured. Although roughly 40% of our patients are Caucasian, the assumption by many who visit us is that most, if not all, of the patients we see are undocumented Hispanic people. They don’t realize that there are plenty of poor Caucasians who cannot find affordable medical help. The irony is, if I were to use a broad brush to overgeneralize the races, our difficult patients who do not perceivably work hard for a living tend to be the Caucasians. More of the pain medication seekers tend to be Caucasian. We all want to think our race is “better”, but…

Father, I know that the corruption of racism is deep within my heart, but I also know that there is your hope of being able to expunge it. I really do want to be rid of it completely. Help me to do this. Help me to go back to the Garden, as it were, when my eyes had not yet been opened and the corruption of shame and ridicule had not yet come into my heart. Help me, also, to instill this spirit in my children and those who work with me.

 
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Posted by on June 4, 2012 in Esther

 

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