Looking Inward
10-21-07
As I am a now and then storyteller, I would like to tell you a story from my childhood because it speaks to the subject I’ve chosen.
When I was a child my father ranched on the Montana prairie. He also farmed in the lower valley near a river where we joined a dozen other families trying to live off the land. Our connection with bigger towns, especially in winter, was a small mail train that left off mail and picked up or released passengers. Twice a day it moved in and out so quickly that we called it the Skidoo.
All of us were poor those days but some were extremely poor, such as the Kettrie family who supported 7 boys and a baby girl when I knew them. One day I was left to play with my friend Benje Kettrie while my parents went shopping in the "Big Town". It was bitter cold and the snows were deep so we two six-year-olds played indoor games while several of the older boys did chores outside. Suddenly one of Benje’s brothers came hurtling through the front door shouting, "The Sheriff got off the Skidoo and he’s coming for Daddy!" In a state of pandemonium, Mr. Kettrie and his sons started lugging hunks of beef from the lean-to which they then frantically tossed into the pot bellied stove and then in to the kitchen range. Soon the aroma of roasted meat filled our senses and, no doubt, directed the Sheriff on his way to the Kettrie home.
It turned out that Mr. Kettrie had purchased beef from some Indians, a felony that carried several months jail sentence, as it was well known that some of the Indians rustled cattle from white men’s ranches and any meat for sale would likely have been stolen. After the Sheriff made a pretext of searching the bare-looking cupboards, he removed the lid from the cook stove where beef sizzled and snapped, and then he took Mr. Kettrie to jail.
Benje and I followed his six older brothers upstairs. When he reached the top landing the oldest boy turned and cried out, "Where’s God?" Benje, whose face was white as chalk, his freckles standing out like orange polka dots, broke the silence with his stutters, "He-he-he’s in Mama. God’s in Mama." And I thought of Mrs. Kettrie downstairs as we had left her, clutching her baby to her skinny bosom, bible in her lap as she rocked to and fro, her eyes looking sadly far off. Now I knew that God was very wise and powerful, having created the stars, and our world of trees and rivers and I thought what a fool boy was Benje to think God was in his poor mama.
Later, my mother would explain to me that God was everywhere present and had prepared a place for his presence in every soul. I was excited to have Benje’s words confirmed. So, when neighbors teamed up their horses to their sleighs and carried food and coal to the Kettrie home I was pleased to think that God was in them, directing their kind efforts to the Kettries through a bleak winter. And when the Sheriff and his wife discovered that Mr. Kettrie made and excellent Mulligan stew, the Sheriff gave him a key to the jail so he could go home at will to be with his family, as long as he was back in jail to serve four meals a week to the inmates. I decided that God was in the stern Sheriff, also. My mother next told me that it was appropriate for us to silently bless everyone you met with the thought, "The Christ in me loves the Christ in you." It made me happy to observe that folks seemed to soften a bit as I sent this "telepathy" of love to each of them.
So, here I am, all these years later, a member of a church that breaks out singing, "The Spirit in me greets the Spirit in you," as we come together for worship. So my next words are meant to affirm us as we lift up the spirit in one another.
In 2 Corinthians we read: Therefore from now on recognize no person by what he is in the flesh (or, from a worldly point of view). But it’s hard not to judge one another by how we talk, how we dress, what our achievements are, etc. Of course the external is affected by the internal, but we are to recognize that our true center, our true self, is the spirit within. Long after these bodies are laid to rest, our spirits join one another in the nearer presence of God. It’s through recognizing the spirit in one another that we have unity and oneness and a strong sense of being bonded to each other.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, "I like Christ, but I do not like Christian; they are so unlike Christ." Gandhi was referring to his exposure to Christians under the external laws: proud, exclusive, racist. Gandhi became so enamored of the Christ of the beatitudes that he visited a Christian church to learn more about him. But the church barred him from entering because he was brown of skin.
Now Jesus liberated his disciples form the tyranny of the law by making it subordinate to love and compassion, to the law of the spirit. Paul sees the law of the spirit as a love affair between God and Jesus, God and us. It is a spirit-filled way of living, aimed at making us professional lovers of God and all people.
It was not the external law that drove the Good Samaritan to stop and tend the needs of his bleeding brother. Nor is it the external law that compels anyone to risk or sacrifice themselves in compassion for those who are afflicted. It is the spirit of God, of love that speaks in the heart.
It is important that we nurture the spirit within us by meditating and focusing. As we commune with our inner spirit, God often speaks to us through the nudges and nuances of the Holy Spirit. God in us is tenderness, joy, celebration, humility. He is also the God who weeps, who feels to the depth of his being the suffering of his creation and moves us to share his burden in prayer and loving service. As we are obedient, we live from our center. Living from our center frees us from the fear of public opinion. Jesus paid no heed to what people thought of him; he did the will of God. In living form our center we find some good, even in our stumbling which humbles our egos and make us patient with the failure of others.
The Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., under the pastorate of Jim Wallis, has experimented for years with the practice of listening to God. When there are issues to be resolved affecting the church ministries, they gain oneness of mind by discussion, prayer, and looking within until they come to unity. They have never experienced quarrels or schisms. That church is renowned for their love for God, one another, and the poor and rejected.
For years the Quakers have practiced corporate listening to the inner light. In 1758, John Woolman and others pricked the conscience of the Society of Friends regarding the demonic institution of slavery. Many sessions of discussion were held. Much prayer and inner listening prevailed. Finally, after hours of agonizing prayer, Woolman – who had sat with head bowed and tears in his eyes – rose and spoke. Among other things, he said, "The cries of the oppressed have entered into the ears of the most high…God may by terrible things in righteousness answer us in this matter." The Quakers melded into one mind to remove slavery from their midst. They freed their slaves and made monetary reparation to each one for those years of bondage. Under the prompting of the spirit, Quakers had voluntarily accomplished what not one of the anti-slavery leaders (e.g. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson) had been willing to do. A wise man once said, "If you cannot listen to your brother, you cannot listen to the spirit."
I was 28 years-old when I read Gibbon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire which included the true story of a Roman senator who converted to Christianity. He knew Caesar’s penalty for shifting allegiance from Caesar to Christ and in no time at all the Roman Praetorian Guard came to confiscate his home, lands, and possessions. The toga he wore as they led him away would turn to rags. His punishment would be confinement in a cold, dark, sunless dungeon. His daily fare was brackish water and old bread through the long years until he died or was mercifully executed. As they led him away, one of the guards taunted him, "Now where is your kingdom?" The deposed senator looked fully at him as he placed his hand over his chest and replied, "In here! In here!"
I was deeply moved by that story. For the first time I understood the incomparable empathy of a creator who lived in his children, sharing their fate. I saw that God would be more than a loving force around this poor prisoner, but God would also be his interior companion in his daily privations and torments.
The story evoked in me the memory of Benje Kettrie and his "God is in Mama" wisdom and I remembered those innocent, sweet years when I visualized the divine life in everyone. I now understood what Jesus meant when he said what we do to others we do to him. I saw clearly that we were to be his healing hands, his soothing words in sharing his abundant gifts for all who are in a world of hurt. Living thus from our center we experience God’s joy and true purpose for our lives. Praise be to God!
Jeanne Freeman
Lay minister