Stumbling on Discipleship

In my previous post I outlined spiritual growth on the Christian path. Here is an example of falling and renewal that happened to me today.

One of the points I try making on this blog is that good and evil do not exist outside of our own deeds. The world is created in complete and utter wholeness, a seamless symphony of life. Good and evil arise from our actions alone, and can only be judged by the effects of our actions.

In this sense, “evil” is an appropriate word to describe some of what we say and do, such as these words of Evangelical leader Franklin Graham. They are evil because they condone the infliction of senseless pain.

Feeling righteous and justified in my anger, I wrote what I thought to be a witty, acrid, damning rebuttal. I was still working on it when I learned that Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist is dying. And I came across a piece of writing so beautiful and warm, so… Christian… that it brought a tear to my eye. It suggests "picketing" Phelps' funeral with lines of signs that proclaim forgiveness. This is the very heart of Christ’s teachings: To embrace evil with the spacious, quiet love that springs from a Deeper Source.

I realized that I was about to do evil myself: the evil of lashing out at my brother in anger. And I decided not to spit venom at Graham.

Instead, I made a wish. I wished that Graham would stop by our church one day. He could talk to our pastor and our other gay members, and after church, I could take him to lunch with some Muslim friends and introduce him to my Hindu wife.

I wished for him to learn that whenever we open our mouths to judge in retribution or justify harm, we inflict suffering on people no different from ourselves.