How do I talk about what is going on without talking about what is going on? No matter what I say about what is going on, some of you will react negatively. How do I wrap my head around this?
Maybe we can agree we live in turbulent times? Something is going on. People are taking sides. Public discourse has deteriorated. And, the other side is to blame!
One of my instructors in seminary once told us the job of a minister was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Maybe that was why he was teaching at seminary rather than serving in a church.
My experience is the comfortable don’t react well to being afflicted.
Perhaps you’ve heard the fable of how to boil a live frog? The tale goes something like this, if you place a live frog in boiling water it will immediately jump out.
But, if you place a live frog in room temperature water and gradually raise the heat it will enjoy the rising temperature until it is too late to jump out and be boiled to death.
A little research shows the debate about the reality of this fable which is used by corporate consultants, politicians, preachers and activists to illustrate their point.
Current research shows 1) frogs dropped in boiling water are immediately disabled and can’t jump out; 2) frogs won’t sit still long enough to raise the temperature gradually enough for them not to notice; and 3) as the temperature rises frogs get increasingly agitated and will jump out if the container allows it.
The current rising temperatures of social discourse reminds me of the times in which Jesus and his disciples lived.
I think of the oppression by the Romans, the hypocrisy of the religious authorities: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Zealots calling for armed rebellion, and wonder at how this mixed bag of fishermen and other lay persons became the dynamic evangelists that fostered a new religion.
Following the story of Jesus’ resurrection, in the book of John chapter 21, Peter and six other disciples decide to go fishing.
Why not, they are fishermen after all? Only they go at night and in the darkness they catch nothing. Night can symbolize the darkness of sense consciousness, of ignorant denial or limited thinking. In this state we are unable to catch on to the divine ideas we need in order to grow spiritually. They had to bring the darkness to light.
At daybreak Jesus comes to them and encourages them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat.
When they do their nets are so full they can barely haul them in. In the light of day, when we open our minds to the possibilities for divine expression, the awareness of spirit dawns in us and we are abundantly supplied with divine ideas for life and living.
The number of fish that are caught, 153, is spiritually significant. It starts with the one, a consciousness of unity, which draws to us all we need in the material realm or five sense consciousness.
Three is the trinity: spirit, soul, body or mind, idea, expression or thinker, thought, action. Added together it equals nine, a spiritually aware number: a trinity of trinities.
This catching of spiritual awareness was what Peter and the others needed in order to complete the work that was theirs to do; they needed this strength of faith in the divine in order to be the foundation of this new way of spiritual living. But first, they had to bring the darkness to light.
We can each consciously bring the darkness to light. We can acknowledge all we see in the outer as being reflections of what is inside of us.
We take the response ability to bring all these dark parts of ourselves to light that they may be transformed into light and love so that we may abide in love. We abide in God (1John 4:16)
I invite you to affirm with us: ”God is the light in which I see; I am a radiating channel of light and love; my life is transformed!”
Rev. Matthew E. Long, Peace Unity Community