dangerous unselfishness

"Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....

Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother."

— The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

'poem VI'

O saints, if I am even eligible for this prayer,
though less than worthy of this dear desire,
and if your prayers have influence in Heaven,
let my place there be lower than your own.
I know how you longed, here where you lived
as exiles, for the presence of the essential
Being and Maker and Knower of all things.
But because of my unruliness, or some erring
virtue in me never rightly schooled,
some error clear and dear, my life
has not taught me your desire for flight:
dismattered, pure, and free. I long
instead for the Heaven of creatures, of seasons,
of day and night. Heaven enough for me
would be this world as I know it, but redeemed
of our abuse of it and one another. It would be
the Heaven of knowing again. There is no marrying
in Heaven, and I submit; even so, I would like
to know my wife again, both of us young again,
and I remembering always how I loved her
when she was old. I would like to know
my children again, all my family, all my dear ones,
to see, to hear, to hold, more carefully
than before, to study them lingeringly as one
studies old verses, committing them to heart
forever. I would like again to know my friends,
my old companions, men and women, horses
and dogs, in all the ages of our lives, here
in this place that I have watched over all my life
in all its moods and seasons, never enough.
I will be leaving how many beauties overlooked?
A painful Heaven this would be, for I would know
by it how far I have fallen short. I have not
paid enough attention, I have not been grateful
enough. And yet this pain would be the measure
of my love. In eternity’s once and now, pain would
place me surely in the Heaven of my earthly love.

— Wendell Berry, from ‘Leavings’

Eucharistic Freelapse

My sponsor told me once (twice) ((three times)) about his first sip of alcohol after more than two decades of continuous sobriety. An accident? An ambush? Shirley Temple got deflowered somehow, at any rate… The Big Book doesn’t call it an allergy of the body for nothing. Spiritual anaphylaxis sets in before it even hits your tongue. Almost like your taste buds have stretched their ESP to the limit of its range, looking for the slightest hint of ethanol to scream about. I’m not blushing, I swear. I’m just allergic. I’m not manic, I swear. I’m just obsessed... “The Blood of Christ; the Cup of Salvation.” The watchword that somehow manages to defuse the bomb by tripping the wire. I drink a sip each week so that I never drink more than a sip. Your pharmakon ain’t got nothin’ on the Eucharist, Plato.

Love God completely • Love yourself rightly • Love others likewise

This is the refrain of the podcast Untangling Christianity that my friend Kyle recommended to me (great podcast, by the way). It is a threefold explication of the Greatest Commandment, according to Jesus. A popular Shi'a skaykh that I follow argues that Jesus was not a law-giving prophet, in contrast to Moses and Muhammad. This seems to disprove that. Jesus lay down a shari'a for his followers. It is spare in its rhetoric, but I'm realizing it's the shari'a I need at this point in my life. Following this shari'a is taking me out of Islam, a journey that I'm having trouble finding the words and courage to explain to my Muslim friends who so jubilantly celebrated my entrance into Islam. But I'm trying to give myself permission to love and ask to be loved regardless of the form my worship takes.