Christian
Christian
By Glenn Mitchell
I found a few more words in the dark. I notice I am never more Christian than in the face of war. If truth be told, there are many times the name “Christian” sickens me when I see what Christianity has embodied historically or how the name is used today. But there I go again, passing judgment, which is decidedly not Christian.
I don’t embrace the name for salvation. My soul seems quite fine in the moment. Beliefs don’t really interest me, though I’m happy to listen to yours. I cringe around most discussions of doctrine. I’m clearly non-creedal. I’m often strangely moved by liturgy. Most of the time I’m happy being a mystic and as you know, I write primarily about ordinary days and the simple beings I share the sacrament of life with on the Homestead. Then along comes another war, not that war has ever really gone away.
When I was a young man working out what I was going to do in the face of yet another war, I dove deeply into Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount. I saw that what he offered was a way to break the cycle of violence. Violence erupts in a knee-jerk fashion in the face of an affront or another act of violence or it comes in a more premeditated manner as a way to set right some festering wrong or to re-work the political map. Immediately the violence forms the sides. Where yesterday there was dialogue and tension in a given country, today everyone falls in line behind their side and war is declared as the only sane response to insane aggression and of course, God is on our side, and the enemy is understood to be less than human. The means of violence are always justified by the holy end which is, of course, peace and the restoration of the just and the good. This notion that violence is finally a redemptive path is at the heart of our love affair with violence. We are so far gone we even entertain ourselves with violence on our screens, as if there wasn’t enough of it already in our world. We are deeply addicted to violence.
Jesus saw clear-heartedly that we finally have to live the way we want life to be. As A. J. Muste coined it so well, “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” Jesus understood the side to align with is the side of Love. The only real redemption in relation to violence comes from breaking its cycle by stepping out from it and refusing participation. Does it work? No, not in the way you are thinking as you ask that question. They killed Jesus, they killed Gandhi, they killed King. But this trinity of non-violent believers understood that isn’t the point. What is worthy of your living? What do you daily give your life to? What are you willing to give your life for?
The Jesus way turns the table on violence by walking steadfastly into Love.
Jesus understood love as the only path worthy of the human being.
The last words my mother heard from me as she was departing her earthly life were from the Sermon on the Mount. I started reading to her, that last morning, as she had so often read to me when I was a child. I began with some psalms and then, I flipped to the gospels and read to her Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount. She loved those words in life and they seemed to calm her as she approached death. I know they calmed me. In many ways, those words are why she and I call ourselves Christians.
“...You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven...” Matthew 5-7
Love and Peace, Glenn
Glenn Mitchell is happily practicing retirement and spiritual direction outside of Spring Mills, PA, where he lives with his wife and TYCP Director, Theresa. Glenn enjoys attending the mystery overflowing around him, making things from wood, tending the garden, cooking, and sitting in silence.
Glenn’s PrayerNotes from the Homestead can be found at: https://glennmitchell.substack.com. Glenn can be reached at glenn@likeafeather.com.