08/27/2021
Heat
Hello my name is Jeff Stevens and I am the pastor at awakening spirit Christian church. If you’re having a hard time hearing me right now it’s because I am sitting in front of a Frigidaire model 1100 C air conditioner and it is going at full blast. The air conditioner is going full blast because the temperature here in Northern New England has risen to 81°. For people around here that’s about as hot as we expect hell could ever be (we’re kind of heat wimps in that way), and so the AC is on full blast so that everyone in this house won’t start doing their best wet wicked witch of the west impression, melting while cursing the sun and crying out “what will become of me and my beautiful wickedness?”
In New England the heat only means one thing. It means that a storm is coming, and judging by the heat now it’s going to be one wicked blowa. That’s Northern New England slang for “it’s going to be a bad one.” The worse the heat, the worse the storm that follows.
Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because in this country it’s getting hot politically, hot socially, and hot spiritually. How hot? Hot enough that a man was arrested after claiming on Facebook he was going to set off a bomb in front of the library of Congress, because his chosen candidate didn’t win the last election. How hot? So hot there’s a new disease that affects everybody across all sexes and races and ages and social strata religious orientation and political orientation, and some people, some leaders, see what otherwise seem to be common sense measures like mask wearing and getting vaccinated as political statements. So even when parents want to mandate masks for their kids it’s seen as an assault on liberty, and not the assertion of parental rights, or common sense. Judging from the amount of social spiritual and political heat we’re seeing this coming storm’s gonna be a wicked blowa.
To prepare for storms and other bad weather, we know what to do. Our generator is ready. We’ve stored up food and water. For the coming spiritual storm it would be wise to prepare too. Fortunately, what we need to do is clear: come together, support each other, include everyone, and, always, do everything guided by love.
That sounds easy, it won’t be. We live in a nation that has become more and more divided- hatred which used, in theory, to be relegated to the fringes, is now more or less the norm. If you haven’t gone on social media recently, don’t start now. It’s an ugly landscape. One side is now openly saying that if the other side other side gets Covid and dies they will have had it coming, while the other side insists that Covid is fake, the vaccine doesn’t work, and 600,000 dead Americans won’t convince them otherwise. Nurses and doctors are looking at triaging Covid cases before the now-filled ERs are overflowing. They have the Hippocratic oath to guide them, so until they get to a point of mass triage, thet will treat people vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. In our healthcare system though, hospitals are under no such restraint. And doctors have to do what they’re ordered to or risk termination.
So Covid is back. Isis is back too. This time the variant is named Isis K. You would think that Isis, an enemy of the United States for the past 20+ years, would energize us by its reemergence, make us feel that we’re all in this together again, rally us to fight a common enemy. That’s not what’s happening. From average citizens all the way up to the politicians, people are taking sides instead, tripping over each other to blame Biden or Trump, depending on which color jersey they wear in the combat sport that is what politics has become.
So there, I just saved you 40 hours or so of misery reading social media and listening to the “news.”
It’s not easy to act toward people with love in even the best of times. When your whole nation, maybe even the world, is sickened by hatred and division, poisoned by suspicion, handicapped by stupidity, hobbled since it abandoned reason, made crazy after it’s faith in humanity has disappeared- it becomes almost impossible. Yet, as a new phrase goes, here we are.
Here’s some tips to get you through, time tested by teachers trying to interpret religious meaning while caring deeply for people who aren’t listening, both while trying to steer people away from the dangerous hatred religion itself has fostered and towards a common sense stance of love, reason, calmness, compassion, and kindness.
First, be aware that you can’t fix crazy. The Christian take on this is that if you come to a house that will not listen to you, beat the dust off your sandals and get off that doorstep heading towards the next town. Some of the following techniques will just fall on deaf ears, and if they do move on. Some people just can’t hear, some can’t hear you right now, and others will disagree with you even if they have thought it all through. God (or nature, or evolution) gave people reason and the ability to make good decisions. She also gave them free will. You can ask people to quit shoving pickles up their noses putting spam on their heads and screaming at each other, but you shouldn’t expect guaranteed or immediate change.
Secondly talk about what you know. If you want someone to get vaccinated, for example, talk from your own experience. I was nervous as anything about it. I’m a diabetic and suffered from a heart attack and a stroke two years ago. Trying to heal me they discovered a brain tumor. Any medical anything gives me pause. This includes vaccines. But, I am blessed with a rather scientific sister, a veterinarian with two Ivy League degrees, who assumed that people could be reasoned with and went out and did the research- real research not Google- and came back to tell us that this vaccine had been in development for an awful long time, because over a decade ago we figured that a new virus would emerge and we should try to be prepared for it in advance.That sounded reasonable to me. So I went and got a vaccine. And I will go when more people have had their first doses and get a booster if that’s what my doctor recommends. For me, that’s logical and ethical, and hearing it from someone I trusted and loved, took. I still disagree with her on many things- she is my sister after all- but that doesn’t mean that I won’t listen to her now.
Lastly, have compassion. I know we’ve all become star-bellied sneetches and non-star-bellied sneetches of late, looking at each other askance- thinking the surface mark of a star is all we are and all we ever will be. It’s not. Each and every one of you is so much more than that. You’re all Stardust that stood upright and gained life and sentience and became a way for the universe to know itself. That right there is a hell of an accomplishment. I’m blessed again, I have a wife who reminds me of the simple fact constantly, because I am constantly forgetting it. In doing so she keeps me from spiraling down into hatred, madness, the rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking and stupid politics. She keeps me focused with that fact, trying to reach out, turning the other cheek no matter how often I get slapped for my trouble. That simple fact that my very existence is a miracle keeps me sane.
Think of that a lot. And while you’re at it be aware of the opportunity that presents itself to you now one of the greatest opportunities of your life. The opportunity in a time of chaos to act out of compassion, to interact with kindness, to love and love and love some more, Remember that people are more important than politics, that goodness is more important than taking a side, that life is more important than stoking the fires of division, that love is a much better way to live than hate. Finally, remember that this is not a game, this is the world that we live in, and what we do now shapes the kind of world that the generation that follows us live lives in. We have neither the right nor the time to be anything but our best selves to indulge anything but love.
Amen
