Note: Great security and love have sustained me through this pandemic—until this afternoon. Then I was unexpectedly shaken with sorrow for a friend whose life work is tumbling down around him. He was on my heart as I wrote this plea for the nation. I get to the point slowly, please read on to the end. That’s the important part. Forward it or cut any relevant part to send to others— and ignore typos etc. I usually revise—but feel urged to post this one tonight. g
Three tree paintings, Trees 79, 90, and 91, started out as one picture. Years ago, I cut the original into pieces and mounted them, side by side, on poster board. The idea of unity despite separation reminds me of life today. While our nation embraces an unnatural degree of social distancing to try to slow the spread of covid-19, many of us feel cut apart from our former whole, even as we hang together.
Wisdom invites us to separate from each other during a pandemic, and boundaries are always vital to keep us safe from wicked or toxic people. Separation can bring order out of chaos. In the beginning, God separated light from darkness, sky from sea and land from waters. Holiness demands division by intentional separation from evil; purity rejects all that’s unclean. Perhaps hardest of all, Divine Love asks us to cut off the selfish, God rejecting, independent impulses of our very own souls.
At a simple level, division and differentiation are essential to reproduction and life. Yet underneath the unique properties that make one kind of stuff different from another, one person different from another and one nation different from another is an underlying longing, not for uniformity, but for unity and peace—in ourselves, with others, and with our world. When my own sense of Shalom— my sense of harmony with others and the natural world is disturbed, I long for God’s unifying harmony, order and peace.
And it’s up to us—here and now—today— as frail humans— to seek peace, to repent of toxic divisiveness and prideful separation. It is up to us to bring unity and cooperation to our fragmented, divided world. Could the virus now separating people and distancing us from one another be a natural symptom of the divisiveness in our hearts? A divisiveness that separates us from God because we want our own agendas and platforms? Can our human race repent of seeking our own ways and choose to abide by Jesus commandment to love God and one another? Could enough of our politicians and media people repent of divisively bashing each other to reach a tipping point of good will and godliness that would influence the spiritual climate of our world? Could enough of us obey Jesus’ commandment to love one another and to agree with our enemies (not His enemies) to facilitate change? Can we invite Him to search our hearts and can we seek the unity of His love in the bond of peace in our own lives and relationships? Might God then bring safety to our homes and communities? I don’t know, but writing these words makes me want to get on my knees and pray—for myself and my troubled friends—
Lord, “Search my heart”—as the Psalmist once prayed, “and see if there is any wicked way in me.” I want to deliberately choose to come into living agreement with Your commandments and Your love. This life of mine feels uncertain right now, at times precarious. I don’t know what’s ahead. I don’t know if our situation will get better or worse. I need help. I need You. I need to be born again and get Your Spirit inside of me. My own spirit isn’t always enough. I want Your Holy Spirit to help make me fit for You. Give me Your strong love and peace to cast out all fear.
This day, as so many of us face illness, loss of loved ones, loneliness, uncertainty about the future, and concerns bout food and finances—as so many of our hopes and plans seem to shrivel and die— let us find hope in You. Let us, as a nation, turn to God and one by one ask Jesus to come into our hearts and hold us steady through this storm. Not to go back to ‘the way things were’ but to go on into the future linked with God. Consider the Holy Spirit’s words. May they live in us— Unite us, Lord in You.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Colossians 3: 12-15 ESV
BE eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4: 3-6 ESV
[ Jesus prayed ] That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. John 17: 21-23 ESV
