My Lifejacket

A month ago I made a post outlining my concern with Trump.  I concluded it by stating my strategy that I was going to get tighter with Jesus and stay that way.  In the comments I was moved to get specific about what that might look like.  I put into writing what I figured I needed to do.  I committed to read a chapter of the gospels every day, until I had them memorized or the turmoil south of us had passed, which ever came first.  I have mostly made good on that promise to myself, I have missed days but I am working at it.   Its funny what you notice when you read with different eyes.  For instance I knew that Jesus and his Mom and Dad had to flee to Egypt when he was very small, to avoid being found and killed by Herod the ruler of the day.  However something never really hit me until I read it while also pondering what was happening to immigrants in the USA.  It hit me, “Jesus was a refugee!”  He was received by Egyptians as a human fleeing threat to his life.    We say that having been human Jesus knows what humanity faces, this story adds texture to that and adds strength to the Christian mandate to treat the refugee, the immigrant with dignity.  There is a lot percolating in me as a result of my reading. 

This morning I grabbed coffee and found myself thinking as I picked up my Bible, “why am I doing this?”   The notion that came to me was “because this is putting on your lifejacket.”    That makes sense for me.  I am finding the daily onslaught of developments dizzying.  I don’t know enough to make good replies to what I see on social media, I don’t know how I can make a difference.  Things seem so significant, with so much potential for harm near and far, it feels imperative to attempt to make a positive difference, and certainly I need to not drown in it all.   I pondered then that my readings serve as a lifejacket for me when they help me stay clear eyed about what matters, what is true and right.  Staying clear about that, speaking from that, will keep me from starting to go under.  Here is an example of how that worked one morning recently.   I read the part of Matthew where Jesus says “it is easier for a camel to go throught the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I have preached on this passage many times.  There is much that could be said, but in the context of getting the wisdom that is going to keep me afloat, there was a clear message.   It goes something like this, “Kathy, first of all, you are a privileged white person, you see things through that lens, don’t think otherwise. And….. Be careful.  Be wise.  Be unselfish.  Secondly, do not trust anything that creates harm for some so that others can be rich.  Do not trust it.  It is not of God.”

That” lifejacket” tells me I am right to be concerned when the richest men in the world sit closest to the incoming president at his inauguration, and when I hear that their wealth has increased immeasurably since the election, I am right to be suspicious, and when I refuse to give my allegiance to a way of life that blesses all this, I can feel justified.  Holy shit, why do these thoughts feel so radical to say out loud?