faith – Page 20 – Southwest Conference Blog

10 Things You Want to Know Before Going to War with ISIS

Following the recent terrorist attacks, a few presidential candidates and other political leaders are calling for an increased U.S. military presence in Syria. For example, the CNN Republican presidential debate this week produced an unusually substantive debate on the wisdom of the U.S. engaging in regime change. As the political debate intensifies, followers of Jesus must once again reevaluate our stance on war.

For centuries, Christians have debated the most Christ-like position regarding war. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas developed the doctrine of Just War, and the Catholic Church includes their concepts in its catechism. Conversely, pacifists generally trace the origins of their nonviolence to Jesus.

One of the titles Christians use for Jesus is “Prince of Peace.” While living in a violent empire, Jesus taught his followers:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22).

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:43-45a).

As conflict with ISIS escalates, how should followers of the Prince of Peace think about war? What questions should we ask before supporting a war? And how should we respond to those Americans who seem to be eager to go to war?

Here are 10 things followers of Jesus should keep in mind about a war with ISIS.

ISIS wants a war with the United States to fulfill their apocalyptic scenario.

ISIS intentionally releases slickly produced videos of gruesome murders like beheadings and the burning of the Jordanian pilot, and they claimed responsibility for the Russian plane bombing and the terrorist attacks in Paris. They want their videos and attacks to be viewed by as many people as possible. Why? Perhaps ISIS releases these videos as propaganda in order to enrage the U.S. and other world powers with the goal of drawing us into a war.

Graeme Wood reports in “What ISIS Really Wants” that ISIS has their own version of the apocalypse. After drawing the world (Dajjal, in their view) into a final battle in the Middle East, “Jesus—the second-most-revered prophet in Islam—will return to Earth, spear Dajjal, and lead the Muslims to victory.”

You read that correctly. ISIS wants a final war, and they believe Jesus will come back to save them. The more rage and fear they can create within the United States, the greater their chances of drawing us, and the rest of the world, into their final war.

The American news media profits from war coverage.

I believe that there are many honest and decent news journalists, and I most appreciate journalists who are willing to give a self-critique of the American news media. We know that the advertising profits of commercial television channels depend on advertising that is driven by ratings. When a war begins, news channel ratings go up. When news channel ratings go up, so do advertising profits.

On top of that, some media outlets are more fear-based than others. Psychology Today suggests that fear-based news follows a two-part formula – 1) Create fear with the headline, then 2) Suggest that the fear can be relieved by watching the newscast. What could possibly create more fear-based ratings than a war with terrorists? Again, I deeply appreciate honest journalism and responsible media. We must be aware, however, that war financially benefits those who give (actually, sell) us information.

War will likely not stop terrorist attacks.

In Matthew 26:52, Jesus famously tells Peter, 52 “Put your sword back in its place… for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

In other words, Jesus says that violence begets violence. With every bomb that falls, ISIS terrorists are emboldened to kidnap and execute more hostages and attack more innocent people. The perpetual conflict in the Middle East is an illustration that the cycle of violence can last for hundreds of years.

Christians who do support war cite Just War Theory, not a desire for vengeance.

Just War Theory began as a doctrine of justifiable war created by followers of Jesus such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. While I am not Catholic, I find the catechism of the Catholic Church enlightening regarding war. Criteria include:

The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

There must be serious prospects of success;

The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

The second criteria of “All other means…” could be endlessly debated, but it demands the question, “Are there any other means by which to address this conflict other than violence?” Certainly followers of Jesus should lead the way in suggesting alternate means of addressing a conflict.

There are potentially more effective ways to decrease extremism than war.

If one criteria for war is “All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective,” we must ask, “What are some other means to put an end to conflict?

ISIS appeals to disenchanted young people who feel marginalized by using a twisted interpretation of Islam that moderate Muslims reject. Consequently, perhaps the two most effective means of confronting ISIS are to 1) Address the reasons for marginalization and 2) Promote the voices of moderate Muslims.

Children and other innocent persons will die in a war.

This is a fact we would like to ignore, but innocent people are killed in every war. The innocent dead will include children who are every bit as valuable to God as your children and mine.

Our children will be the ones fighting the war.

Those sent to fight will be the sons and daughters of peace-loving Americans. While the murders committed by ISIS are horrendous and inexcusable, a war will lead to the deaths of more people.

Few Americans have been killed by ISIS, while thousands of Americans are killed annually within the United States.

Ten thousand Americans are killed by other Americans with guns every year, and “In fact, far more Americans were killed by gun violence in 2013 alone (33,636) than all the Americans killed on U.S. soil by terrorists in the last 14 years, and that’s including 9/11.”

According to CNN, U.S. officials are not sure how many Americans ISIS is currently holding hostage. One official said there may be “a number.” The article states that approximately 80 journalists from various countries are now held. Every life lost is tragic and horrific, but the number of Americans killed by ISIS is small relative to common causes of death within our own country.

Just across our southern border, staggering violence is occurring that is largely ignored by the American media. According to the Huffington Post, over 100,000 people have been killed in gang-related violence since 2007 in Mexico. Why do we see daily reports from the Middle East and far less reports about horrific violence closer to our country?

Motivated by love for our neighbors, followers of Jesus want to relieve misery, protect the innocent, and save lives. Relative to the causes of misery and death in our world, is a war with ISIS warranted?

A war with ISIS will cost American taxpayers.

Much of American politics is an argument over how much the government should collect in tax revenue and how it should be spent. The Harvard School of Government found that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost U.S. taxpayers $6 trillion. That’s $75,000 for every American household. How much would American society benefit if that sum of money were to be invested right here in the U.S. in the form social programs, infrastructure, education, etc.?

It is certain that more Americans will die in a war with ISIS than the number already killed by ISIS.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the deaths of five Americans, and it is a certainty that more than five Americans will be killed in a ground war with ISIS.

On September 11, 2001, 2,996 Americans were horrifically murdered by terrorists. During the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 6,802 U.S. service members were killed, over twice the number of Americans killed on 9/11. Several thousand more U.S. contractors were killed in the two conflicts, and the number of civilian deaths is massive, perhaps between 100,000 and 200,000 people. Many times more people lost their lives in the wars following 9/11 than in the terrorist attacks themselves.

While I, personally, accept Just War Theory, I believe that Christians should sober-mindedly consider the teaching of the Prince of Peace regarding violence– do not murder, pray for those who persecute you, and those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

Whether or not you support an escalated conflict with ISIS, as the drumbeat of war intensifies, those who follow the Prince of Peace should march to a different beat.

Trapped in a Single Story

by Tyler Connoley

In July of 2009, Chimamanda Adichie gave a Ted Talk in which she talked about the danger of the Single Story. The talk recounts the ways in which we trap groups of people by only telling one story about them. “The single story creates stereotypes,” she said, “and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.”

The same is true for the metaphors we use about God. When we only say that God is our Father, and forget that God is our Mother, we trap people in the Single Story. That trap can be damaging for someone who has difficulty connecting with father figures. The same goes for any metaphor that becomes the only metaphor we use for something that is beyond our understanding.

I learned this lesson most-profoundly from a hospice patient I met when I was a chaplain. This woman, who I’ll call Hope, was a devout Christian who was certain that God would welcome her when she died — and yet she was terrified of dying. As I visited Hope over the course of weeks, I couldn’t figure out why she was so afraid, until one day when she opened up to me about the one and only time she had left Grant County. She and her husband had gone to Phoenix to visit his family, and within twenty-four hours of arriving, she had begged him to take her home. “I hate traveling,” she said. “I’ve never left Grant County again.”

As I pondered why she needed to tell me this story now, I finally realized what was making her so afraid. This was a woman who loved life and laughter and exploring ideas, so her family, her friends, and the hospice staff were trying to help ease her fears by talking about the “amazing journey” she would soon be going on. But she was thinking, “I hate traveling.” All she could think about was that trip to Phoenix.

So, we began to talk about “going home.” I invited her to share stories about her mother and father, whom she loved and looked forward to seeing. We talked about her sister, who had died the year before. They loved to cook and eat together, and we imagined the banquet God would prepare for her on her arrival. Hope’s family and friends agreed to use this metaphor when they talked to her, as well. And soon, she was not afraid, but looking forward to her home-going.

I return to Chimamanda Adichie, and her observation about stereotypes. The Single Story is a trap that can be damaging. The problem is not that our metaphors for the Divine and the Beyond are untrue, it is that they are incomplete. We need multiple stories, so each of us can find our place in the stories of God’s people, so the child of a single mother can know his God loves him like his mom, and so Hope can know she’s going home.

Christmas & Bowen Family Systems

by Amos Smith

Christmas is a time for family. Above is a picture of my family growing up. Family is never perfect. Every family I have encountered in ministry has challenges. Some hide the challenges better than others. Yet, challenges are always there.

How we deal with the challenges of our family of origin has profound repercussions for the rest of our lives. Family and the dynamics of family relationships give us the blueprint that tends to define our future relationships. I have a high regard for Family Systems Thought or Bowen Family Systems as it is commonly called. Bowen Systems has given me and many other ministers and rabbis a more accurate understanding of faith community dynamics than any other paradigm.

One of the counter-intuitive insights of Bowen Family Systems is that all of our relationships are inter-connected. In other words, if a man is having challenges with his wife, instinctively one might think that the best thing for him to do is to work on that relationship. Yet, often Bowen Systems would say, “If you are having challenges with your wife work on your relationship with you mother.” If a woman is having challenges in her relationship with her son, she may need to work on the relationships she has with her ex-husband, husband, or brother. And the list goes on… For a humorous representation of what this might look like in the twenty-first century you may want to take a look at the television show “Modern Family.”

During the holidays many people are stressed by all the preparations. Yet, what is more important than the meals, the stuffed stockings on the mantel, the lights, and the presents under the tree, are our relationships. Seen correctly, beyond shallow commercial and cultural trappings, Christmas at its best is a time to work on our relationships with the people we love. And when one relationship grows in honesty, good boundaries, respect, and love it will have ripple effects on our other relationships.

Merry Christmas!

Advent: Living in the Dark

by Amanda Peterson

The beginning of Advent is a time to stop and make a choice of how to enter this Holy season. The darkest time of the year is an invitation in many traditions to celebrate and acknowledge the Presence of God in several forms. As a contemplative Christian, the invitation is to dwell in the dark, unknown and not yet. It’s a call to dwell in the reality of darkness. Darkness has a way of surrounding and causing a sense of coming within. It slows life down and is the invitation to sleep.

When I lived in Alaska the winter darkness did not have a good effect on this desert rat. I had to sit under a lamp that mimicked the sun so many hours of the day just to stay sane. Even though my life was busy, I knew if I didn’t take the time to bathe in that light, my life would totally stop with depression. Too much darkness without the promise of light can kill.

I can also remember summers in Alaska with 24 hours of daylight and the challenges of trying to put a 1-year old to bed. To be honest, in a way I was glad when long days were coming to an end I was given a chance to rest.

Too much light can kill, also. I tend to think in our age we are bathed in too much light. Any time in our lives there can be light. Even when the darkness calls, switches are flipped and work and business continues.

The same principle applies for the darkness within. When anxiety pops up, TVs are on, phones are checked, or some other distraction is available to shoo it away. For some there is a sense of being out of practice with what to do when it’s dark, whether literal darkness or internal darkness of death, terror, pain, or loss. It is overwhelming and frightening. There is a desire to control it, yet sometimes in life there is no light switch to flip.

The honoring of seasons like Advent gives an opportunity to remember that darkness is just the other side of light; that God is in the midst of it all. Rather than using it as a count down to Christmas, it is an opportunity to dwell inwardly, learn how to see in the dark and look for the little candles of light. Learning to stand in the dark heightens awareness and creates vulnerability , empathy, and trust. In my home we always turned out all the lights in the living room when we lit the advent candles. Those flickering lights created a hush and an instant dwelling place in the reality that life is so much more when we take the time to be quiet in what is. It was a time to remember that God has entered this world, one of dark and light.

Practice: Take an evening and don’t turn on any lights or other electronics. Use alternative light like a candle or a flashlight. See what is noticed as you dwell in what is.

The Un-evolving Relationship between Evolution, American Christians, and Climate Change

by Ryan Gear

Last week marked 156 years since Charles Darwin published Origin of Species. Had Darwin lived an incredibly long life, he would be able to see that a high percentage of Christians in 2015 still have trouble with his theory that species evolve over time.

Not only that, he would see that Catholics and Protestants have trouble with the science affirming some human element in climate change. According to a study by Arbuckle and Konisky, a belief in biblical literalism, the same belief behind the denial of evolution, also correlates with a denial of climate change.

While world leaders convene this week in Paris for the COP21 conference on climate change, could it be that the biblically influenced denial of science is actually what is slowing our country’s progress on mitigating climate change? If so, perhaps the place to begin is with a treatment of the Bible’s relationship with the theory of evolution.

Conservative Christian groups like the Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans believe that the theory of evolution is incompatible with the Bible’s teaching of creation in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 (Roman Catholics and mainline Christians see evolution as compatible with Christian faith). The groups who reject evolution do so because the Genesis creation accounts appear to have God creating the heavens and the earth in six 24-hour days.

Even those who hold to a more literal reading of the Bible have proposed that Genesis 1:1 leaves room for a gap of unknown time, making it possible to reconcile evolution with a literal reading of the Bible. This is not the only way of reconciling faith and science. In a post I wrote for the religion blog Onfaith entitled 10 Things Evangelicals Aren’t Supposed to Say, I cited evidence that there are actually two creation accounts in Genesis chapters 1-2.

This evidence, however, is unconvincing to a significant percentage of American Christians. The Pew Research Center found that:

Only a minority of Americans fully accept evolution through natural selection. About two-thirds (65%) of U.S. adults say humans have evolved over time, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey on science and society. But only a little more than half of that group (35%) expresses the belief that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes. About a quarter (24%) of U.S. adults say that evolution was guided by a supreme being. The same survey found that 31% of Americans reject evolution entirely, saying that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

As to the role of religion, a full 64% of American white evangelicals reject the evidence accepted by 98% of American scientists, that humans and other species evolved. According to the Gallup Poll, the percentage of Americans who reject evolution has remained relatively unchanged since 1982.

Evangelical Christian and scientist Francis Collins believes that it doesn’t have to be this way. As head of the Human Genome Project, Collins argues that DNA essentially proves the theory of evolution to be true, and that evolution does not have to be a threat to any religious person’s faith. As a believer in theistic evolution, Collins writes:

But I have no difficulty putting that together with what I believe as a Christian because I believe that God had a plan to create creatures with whom he could have fellowship, in whom he could inspire [the] moral law, in whom he could infuse the soul, and who he would give free will as a gift for us to make decisions about our own behavior, a gift which we oftentimes utilize to do the wrong thing.

I believe God used the mechanism of evolution to achieve that goal. And while that may seem to us who are limited by this axis of time as a very long, drawn-out process, it wasn’t long and drawn-out to God. And it wasn’t random to God.

Even though secular scientists may not agree with his explanation, Christians can. It is a better alternative to denying evidence-based science and human discovery, altogether. More importantly, due to the correlation between biblical literalism and climate change denial, it just might save our planet.

Advent

by Amos Smith

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” –John 1:5

This is the first week of Advent!

Church of the Painted Hills UCC put out an “Advent Meditations” booklet this year. It is wonderful to read people’s varied Advent reflections and stories. It makes Advent personal.

The essence of Advent and Christmas for me is the affirmation that against all odds, in the midst of darkness of global terrorism, in the midst of the darkness of massive environmental degradation, and all of our adult struggles, there is a Light in this world. This Light shined in the most obscure of places–in a backwater of the Roman Empire that no one knew about called Judea. In that backwater on a speck of planet in an average sized galaxy called the Milky Way came a brilliant Light. This Light was so brilliant that it transformed and healed everything around it and spawned a faith that eventually spread to over one-third of the world’s population.

We need to know that there is a Light in this world that participates in the Light that shown at the beginning of time (Genesis 1:3)… A Light that spoke a word into the shadowy chaotic deep… A Word that created order and beauty and meaning out of chaos (poetically rendered in Genesis 1).

When our lives are plunged into chaos after the death of a loved one, a car accident, a random act of violence, a divorce… It is in those times of darkness that we most need to know that there is a Light.

That Light of Christ is the reason for the Advent and Christmas seasons. It is the reason we lift up our hearts and voices every Sunday. In that spacious Light, in that primordial freedom, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

Advent blessings!

Gratitude

by Amanda Peterson

Gratitude is an important practice of anyone who wishes to walk with God. Seeing all things as gift can change one’s entire life. Expressing gratitude can literally change the world. Religious leaders, mystics and scientists all agree that those who practice gratitude attract a fuller and happier life. Those who dwell in negativity and lack attack more negative things into their lives.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a powerful practice. If you are experiencing hard times I highly encourage you to keep a gratitude journal that each day lists all that you can be grateful for. Even if it just states that the day is finally over!

There is an abundance of blessings in our lives, if we only look. Yet often there isn’t any discussion of gratitude and challenges. A grateful heart is not always a “happy” heart. That is why I believe it to be one of the most sacred spiritual practices. Gratitude lifts us into the Presence of the Holy. One can be grateful and grieve or grateful and overwhelmed and grateful and frustrated. This poem below addresses that. After you read it what are you thoughts about being gratitude and your spiritual walk? What are your reactions to the poem? Too simplistic or spot on? How does God and the comma connect with gratitude in all thing? This Thanksgiving, whether you are surrounded by an abundance of friends and family you love and/or avoid or you are alone, how can you let the day be one truly filled with gratitude?

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.

Author Unknown

Do the Little Things

by Kenneth McIntosh

Some years ago I and my wife were employed by a publisher producing a series of school books titled “North American Indians today.” We traveled around First Nations recording interviews. Doing so, we repeatedly heard traditional Natives say “Our sacred way involves all of life—not just Sunday mornings.” I always wanted to say “There are many white Christians who practice their faith throughout the week…” I never did say that, though. For one thing, I was doing journalism—certainly not doing missionary work of any sort. Furthermore, after the second time hearing this, it occurred to me that when someone holds a stereotype there’s often a good reason for that.

I’m afraid that for many Christians, faith is indeed compartmentalized. On Sunday morning we hear Jesus’ radical words to redistribute wealth, serve the poor, and eschew violence; but then we go with the flow of a profit-based, status-oriented, violence-ridden culture throughout the week.

Is there an antidote to compartmentalized faith? I see one antidote in the spiritual practices of the Celtic Christ -followers. Their way of life, from the 5th to the 11th centuries, can provide valuable lessons for Postmodern Christ-followers. This is especially true inasmuch as they eschewed the Imperial (homogenous, globalized) branding of Christianity that held sway over the rest of Europe at that time. One of the most valuable perspectives of these ancient believers is that all of life was sacred—all day, all week, all through the seasons, in ever setting—just like Native American indigenous practices.

Saint David (AKA Dewi Sant) brought the Good News to Wales in the 6th century. He had a famous saying, which has made it into modern-day Welsh parlance, “Do the little things.” It was his constant reminder to disciples that becoming a saint, working for justice, and ushering in the Reign of God didn’t consist of big steps and dramatic actions as much as it was comprised of consistency in the every-day, every-hour routines. How they greeted one another, how they cooked the vegetables and how they milked the cow—these were the proof spiritual life. If all of life is sacred then little things matter greatly.

Another example of the importance of little things in Celtic Spirituality is a collection of old prayers and chants called the Carmina Gadelica. In this book there are chants for awakening in the morning, for washing one’s face, for milking, for farming, for fishing, for making a fire, for life transitions, and etc. Whatever a person might do in the day, there were simple chants to sing and prayers to recite throughout the day.

Could you try to connect prayer with “the little things” you do daily? Perhaps a brief prayer for every time you switch on a light bulb, “Light of the world, let me shine in my little part of the world today.” Perhaps a simple grace whenever you raid the cupboard or refrigerator or water cooler for a snack or a drink. Say a quick prayer whenever you encounter someone—in person or via computer—“Christ, may I see you in this person.” Prayers when you leave the home, the office, the car…and so on.

As we live out our faith in the little things, it could have a big impact.

Icon of Saint David at Saint David’s Cathedral, photo by Ken McIntosh

A Rat Pack Sabbath

by Ryan Gear

In July 2012, I was blessed to take a ten-day trip to Israel, and our tour group spent the Sabbath in Jerusalem. The Jewish tour guides on our bus dropped us off at our hotel on Friday evening, the beginning of the seventh day.

On the way to our hotel, our tour guide said, “Let’s turn on some Sabbath music.” I expected a dirge, something completely depressing, something that said, “Thou may no longer buy beer for 24 hours.” That was not, however, the music that fit the mood.

He turned on the tour bus radio, and the song began, “Da da da da da, Start spreadin’ the news.” It was Sinatra. Not exactly what I expected, and that was excellent. He explained, “On the Sabbath, we listen to relaxing music.” On that day at least, Sabbath music in Jerusalem was Rat Pack music.

He clarified further that Sabbath means “to stop, to cease.” It means to stop working and enjoy life without work for one day each week. He told us that he was going to go home, light candles, and enjoy dinner with his family. His kids and grandkids were coming over for dinner. They would say Sabbath prayers, talk about their week, play games, and have fun. His definition of the Sabbath is a day to enjoy life with your loved ones.

When we got back to our hotel, we discovered that a group of Ultra-Orthodox Jews had rented a ballroom with their families and were dancing and partying on the Sabbath. This wasn’t what observing the Sabbath looked like where I grew up in Ohio. When they were done, the hotel looked like Def Leppard had trashed the place.

In Jerusalem, the Sabbath is a weekly vacation day— a fun, relaxing, 24-hour celebration with the people you love. It’s not observed out of a sense of duty so much as it is anticipated and enjoyed. This makes sense for Christians too. In Mark 2:27, Jesus says, “Humanity wasn’t made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for the benefit of humanity.”

Once or twice a week, my four-year old son and I walk to our mailbox to get the mail together. In our subdivision, our mailbox is about 200 yards down the street. If I walk to get the mail alone it takes me five minutes. When my son and I go together, it takes four times that long.

Our neighbors have some bushes next to the sidewalk. So, my son takes a few steps out of our yard, and then he stops to smell the bushes. There are no roses on the bushes. They’re just bushes, but he stops to smell them. Then we take a few more steps, and he stops to crouch down to watch some ants walk across the sidewalk. Then he takes a few more steps until he hears a birdie. He stops to listen for where the birdie is, and then he watches the birdie. Then we take a few more steps, and he hears a doggie bark. He stops to see where the doggie is. He explains to me that “Doggies say ‘woof woof.'” Then we take a few more steps, and so on.

Now that he’s four, he wants to “explore” the culvert where water runs off the street and into the rocks. We walk along the rocks and watch for bugs. Taking a few steps off the street magically turns us both into Indiana Jones.

He is absolutely filled with wonder, and he starts and stops according to whatever interests him. Then, eventually, after stopping and starting several times, somewhere along that fun, wonder-and-awe-filled journey… we get the mail.

Children do what comes naturally to humans. What if it really is hardwired into the human brain to live according to a rhythm, a rhythm of working and then stopping, and then working and then stopping?

We have lots of sayings to express this. We say, “The joy is in the journey” or “Life’s a journey, not a destination,” or “Take time to smell the roses.” I read an article recently finding that employees who have a little bit of downtime in their day are more productive. Go figure. We all know we need more rest.

Many people in our workaholic culture feel like soulless machines, pressured to stay late and expected to not take all of their vacation. That’s not what it means to be human. Sabbath means that you can take control of your life and live life to the fullest, not as a production line machine, but as a real live human being. The Sabbath empowers you to be more than your job and more than money.

So, let me ask you, are you overly busy, trying to accomplish more than you’re physically or emotionally able to do? Are you spending more time at work than what is healthy for your family? Are you a people pleaser, over-committing by saying yes when you should say no? How good would it feel to stop, and take a vacation day once per week?

That is the primary meaning of the first creation story in Genesis:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

The two creation accounts of Genesis do not explain the scientific origin of the universe, but they do convey a world of wisdom, wisdom that continually coaxes our evolution into more whole creatures.

The seven-day creation poem was likely inspired by parents trying to teach their children why they observe a weekly Sabbath day. Egyptians had a 10-day week. The Babylonians may have observed a monthly Sabbath on the new moon. Israelite parents had to explain to their kids why their schedule was different than everyone else’s.

Do you weekly remind your children to stop and enjoy life and each other? Sometimes a health problem tells us that it’s time to live a more balanced life. Sometimes our time-starved families remind us. Sometimes, in our more reflective moments, we clearly see the truth expressed by Frederick Buechner, “There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up.”

Maybe this blog post is another reminder that you have nothing to prove. As we read in Genesis 1, you’re created in the image and likeness of God. You have dignity and worth because of that, alone, before you lift a finger do any work. Our Creator has given us a rhythm for experiencing the good life, a rhythm of working and resting, working and resting, working and resting. We’re created to be more than machines.

The Sabbath gives you permission to be human.

Brian Swimme and the Celebration of the Sanctity of Earth

by Amos Smith

Brian Swimme teaches cosmology to graduate students at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. Swimme often reiterates that the underlying reason that people abuse the earth is that they don’t think that it’s sacred. Swimme’s emphasis is the marriage of Religion and Science.

Swimme says when we look deeply into our 13.7 billion year “cosmogenesis” that we cannot help but be filled with awe. The fact that the Big Bang happened is in itself a profound improbability. No known laws of probability can account for it. It is both a sacred and a scientific miracle.

Swimme has produced a twelve part DVD series called “Canticle of the Cosmos,” which has been distributed worldwide. His work is most influenced by the French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who believed that everything in existence has a physical as well as a spiritual dimension… The Universe is in a deep process of transfiguration. Love, truth, compassion and zest—all of these divine qualities are embodied in the universe.

Swimme seeks to place scientific technology in its context of the infancy of the earth community as it struggles for reconnection to its sacred source. For Chardin and Swimme the human being is the current culmination of a still-evolving universe.

For Swimme the ecological disasters that happen on our planet take place because the cosmos is not understood as sacred. A way out of this difficulty is a journey into the universe as sacred. Swimme is a mathematician by training, who seeks a larger, warmer, nobler science story. The story of the Universe should not just be a collection of facts. It should sweep us into a grand world view, including meaning, purpose, and value addressed by world religions.

Swimme thinks that the popular view is that the earth is like a gravel pit or a hardware store, that the earth is just stuff to be used—that consumerism has become the dominant faith, which exploits the riches of the earth. His fundamental aim is to present a new cosmology that is grounded in contemporary scientific understanding of the universe but nourished by ancient spiritual convictions that the earth is sacred. “Indeed God saw everything that God had made and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)”

I like Swimme because he offers a sacred understanding of the Universal Big Bang, which is the larger context of the Christian Big Bang. The Universal Big Bang is a miracle of science. The incarnation, which is the Big Bang of Christian tradition for me, is the miracle of faith. That through Christ, God is with us!