No Mere Mortals
Her name was Renee and his was Alex and they are dead.
These two, caught in the riptide of the Minneapolis turmoil, have become convenient punching-bags for some and saintly martyrs to others as they are reduced to caricatures of people as complex as you. Condemnations and justifications abound, but they are still gone.
As the ICE raids continue and the protests grow, what is lost is the horrible diminution of two people, made in the image of God and holding value beyond measure, recast as mere talking points. When, in the Ten Commandments, we are told to not callously end a life, the baseline of that moral injunction is the fact that there are no mere mortals.
As hard as it might be to grasp given all the evildoers in the world, every person is precious to God. Long after our lives are done, in fact, long past the final generation and when the sun burns down to a red dwarf, God says we will live. Nature is mortal. People are immortal.
C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, talks about the value of a person and our responsibility to one another.
It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play.
But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
Too often we can slot people into categories of good or bad, getting what they deserved or not, innocent or guilty, and so avoid, as a Christ-follower, loving them, praying for them, leaning in to understand them. And too often our politics inform our faith life, not the other way around. We did not learn Christ in that way.
Renee and Alex are gone, but also are over 35,000 slaughtered Iranians in a handful of days, and Nigerian children kidnapped who watched their parents and villages destroyed, and the Gazans or the Ukrainians caught in crossfires of violence. The atrocity list seems endless and the violence never-ending. But our belief declares God knows every one by name. He knows the sadness and helplessness death brings, because he lived it. And he promises to restore all things.
In the meantime, believers are called to live outlandish, prodigal, aggressively compassionate lives.
We are surrounded by matters that just seem wrong in every way, some far removed but others close by. God the Spirit will nudge all believers with awareness of an issue each can lean into.
It may look like generosity with your stuff or hospitality in your home or sewing purses for African girls or a neighborhood gathering or helping the homeless or visiting shut-ins. Needs dictate the length of the list, and needs abound so there is something for everyone to do. The question for each of us is,
“This is on my heart. Do I have any way of showing compassion to the need right in front of me?”
I can’t effect change in far-off places, but I can in my neighborhood and town. What might aggressive compassion look like? It will certainly be costly and probably messy. Listen, again, to part of the Lewis passage.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.
So, thinking of my days and neighborhood, practical questions arise.
Do people feel valued by me?
Do people, after spending time with me feel they were heard, encouraged, challenged, helped regardless of who they are?
Do people go away feeling better or worse for the time spent with me?
A life of compassion carries a weight we are built to swing onto our backs. John Donne got it right when he wrote, “No man is an island.” There is a natural interconnectedness to humanity and each of us are placed in an area of influence. We have power to improve our corner, but many times we choose not to do the work to make it so.
Aggressive compassion.
This is a lifestyle adjustment away from self-absorption and toward Christlike living. I struggle with it and so will you. After all, Jesus calls us to follow him, be like him, and do what he did. Mk.10:45 lays out how he lived in response to his guys jockeying for who was higher on the scale of life.
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Regardless of where you stand on the issues of the day, we can agree to pray our laments to God, who listens to every heart lifted up to him on behalf of those crushed by life’s hard edge.
For the families of Renee and Alex
For the officers and soldiers who try to do what is right
For those in Iran awash in grief
For Nigerians terrorized and killed
And for the countless others suffering slavery or unjust imprisonment or poverty or persecution
St. Francis of Assisi puts words to these thoughts in a worthy prayer for me and you.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
No music or jokes this week. Check in next time.