Dear Friends,
The pandemic and the election season are crowding in on us.
So, too, are fears about our families, schools, job losses, daily living. Can
we have any peace of mind in the midst of all of this turmoil?
In today’s second reading, Paul offers four ways to let
God’s peace be real for us in these troubled times.
First, he says, dismiss anxiety from your mind. He doesn’t
say hate anxiety or fight it or destroy it. Dismiss it, he says. Let it go.
Open yourself and let it go.
Secondly, Paul says, “present your needs to God.” Do you
ever pray by speaking to God out loud? Yes, out loud. It doesn’t matter if any human
person is there to hear you. God is with you. Say what you need out loud so you
can hear it and say, “Yes. I really need that” – or “No, I had better find
another way to express what I need.” We may not get what we ask for, but let us
at least turn to God, the companion of these difficult times. Maybe we can
learn to be continually turned toward God. And that is what really counts. We
can only embrace God if we are first turned toward him.
Thirdly, Paul echoes here what he says elsewhere, namely to
put on the mind of Christ – put on his lifegiving, compassionate way of
thinking. God tells us in Isaiah, “I think thoughts of peace and not of
affliction.” When we learn to think God’s thoughts, peace is not far from us.
Paul tells us plainly today, “your thoughts should be wholly
directed at all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest,
pure, admirable, decent, virtuous or worthy of praise.”
Finally, Paul caps all of these admonitions with the
challenge to live according to what we have learned to believe.
It’s a clear and almost trite thing to say that we are all
different: Black, brown, red, yellow, white, educated and uneducated, pizza
lovers and those who fancy Thai food. We love jazz and classical music, pray as
Muslims, Jews, Christians and so on. We are all different. Can we accept the
dignity of each person or do we judge people’s differences as wrong, lacking in
value? Writing in a new book called “Graced Crossroads,” Ted Dunn says, “What
divides us is not our differences. Rather it is our condemnations and attempts
at coercion that are the cause of our polarization, rising tension and violence.”
One important way of moving toward acceptance of one another
in our country is to internalize the mind of Christ – to accept protestors’
ways of calling attention to injustice, to value the work people do on behalf
of building up loving and compassionate communities. What those with a
destructive frame of mind do is to tear down and steal, under the cover of the
efforts the hurting make up front.
To be good and do good requires that we also realize with
Thomas Merton that there is a chain of links that we need to dismantle:
“We
are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves,
And we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”
Let’s get to work. The mind of Christ is ours for the
asking.
~Sister Joan Sobala
