The Practice Of Belonging To Each Other

Today we celebrate two “holidays” in the United States. On the church side we celebrate Mary the Mother of the Church. On the civic side we celebrate Memorial Day. And given the readings of the day, I find them both deeply connected – especially at this moment in history.

In our first reading today from Genesis 3, Adam (meaning ‘first man’) and Eve (meaning ‘mother of the living’) must leave the Garden of Eden after eating from the tree of knowledge. They have realized their own potential for doing good and harm and, as such, cannot stay in a state of bliss or ignorance. Actions have consequences, and now they must take ownership and responsibility for them.

In the gospel from John 19, we pop into a scene during the crucifixion. Numerous women (including Mary, Jesus’ mother) are at the foot of the cross as is John the disciple. Jesus says to Mary, “Here is your son,” and says to John, “Here is your mother.” In his final moments alive, Jesus once again re-defines kinship and indicates that our responsibility for one another goes far beyond blood relationships. We all belong to one another.

When I think about Memorial Day and celebrating all of those who have died during military service to our country, I cannot help but think of both of these readings and the current war of choice that our president initiated with Iran. 

Genesis clearly shows us that we are responsible for our own choices, and that we must think through them deliberately because they have consequences. In the Hindu tradition, the word karma (which means deed or act) has come to mean that our actions have energies or reverberations – both in the world and in the spiritual realm – and that these have impacts (whether we realize it or not).

Our national proclivity towards violence in one form or another continues to have profound implications for us as a country. From the start of our nation, we chose violence and genocide as the means to address conflicts and chose conquest over co-existence. This has continued to rattle the soul of this nation and has captured our imagination – so much so that it becomes hard to think of other ways to respond when we feel threatened or are harmed.  It also leads to events like the shooting at a mosque in San Diego last week that killed 3 people (in addition to the two attackers who apparently took their own lives).

At the national level, we witness an administration that uses violent rhetoric against those it disagrees with, blows ships out of the water, initiates war with Iran, bullies people into submission, supports authoritarian regimes around the world, violently pursues immigrants and slashes benefit programs for the most vulnerable.

Of course our country is not alone in this. So many nations have pursued and practiced violence. Historians estimate that between 500 million to 1 billion people have died in one form of war or another throughout human history (and that is not counting the wounded, those affected by the lives lost and the impacts on those who survived the wars). The implications of war in terms of lives lost and lives affected is just staggering.

When will we collectively decide to “study war no more.”

We know that there are alternatives, however, and Jesus and Mary offer us a foundational practice today that can become the anchor for this other way of being: the practice of belonging to each other.

Mary, sometimes referred to as the “new Eve” can become for us a true “mother of the living” if we can accept the invitation like she did to see one another as kin (in fact, to see the whole of creation as kin).  Mary stood at the foot of the cross and has seen firsthand the impacts of violence on her son, on her family and on her community. And so this Mother of the Church says “no more” to the way of violence. She chooses a way of kinship instead.

This way will require much from us – commitments, skills, practices – likely even forms of suffering that will demand that we do some of the hard internal work that makes us able to respond to our kin in a way that honors and acknowledges them (even under difficult conditions). But I do not see another way. As Martin Luther King warned us hours before his own death, “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Rev. Cameron Trimble is a spiritual guide and faith leader whose work I appreciate. In a recent post, she talks about the need to not grow numb or dissociate from the violence around us. She says, “I think many Americans have become psychologically numb to mass violence because it happens so often that it overwhelms us. We move from one tragedy to the next before we can even process the last one. Our numbness comes with a cost: if we stop grieving, we also stop loving fully.”  She goes on to say, “The Sufi tradition teaches that the heart should stay “broken open.” It should not be shattered by despair or hardened by indifference, but open enough to keep feeling compassion in a violent world.” Rev. Trimble acknowledges that this is a difficult spiritual practice but it is what we will need if we are to try to move towards kinship.

Grieving. Refusing to grow numb. Loving fully. Recognizing kin. These are all movements in our journey.

This Memorial Day, may our hearts remain open. May we honor all those who gave their lives by creating a world where no one need give their lives any more. And may we follow the Mother of the Living to a place where all are recognized as kin.