Author: krinvan

Characters Welcome! That’s the banner that could have waved above every church I served during three decades of ministry. The evidence was clear on any given Sunday.

Musicians from local bars played in our praise bands. An ex-homeless woman with an intellectual disability was our weekly greeter, passing out bulletins. A woman found sleeping in our parking lot became a prominent member of our outreach ministry. Addicts, alcoholics, and the mentally ill discovered that the love of our congregations was a boon to their healing. A recluse who had served as a tunnel rat in Vietnam came out of hiding and made meaningful relationships in our midst. We embraced all colors, classes, and sexual identities of God’s children, a rainbow coalition!

Given my affinity for broken people, born of my personal struggles, I led our members to seek out the poorest in our streets. One place we found them was at dilapidated mobile home parks, pockets of American poverty in our “land of plenty.”

To this day, the faces of precious people I met there are vivid in my memory.

I remember Don and Linda. Don was a Vietnam veteran, suffering from the effects of Agent Orange and his long addiction to alcohol. He finally got sober and was living in a shabby Winnebago in Pomona, California, an inner-city community racked by gang violence. We met him while circulating flyers at his mobile home park. Someone lovingly offered to drive him to church, where he eventually joined our family.

One day, Don met Linda as she was panhandling outside a grocery store. He gave her what he had, then invited her to come to his trailer for a meal. Linda was intellectually disabled, a lost soul, and she ended up moving in with Don. Nothing sexual, just an unlikely companionship, and it was the only stability Linda had known for years. Eventually, as Don’s condition worsened and he was confined to a wheelchair, she became his gentle caregiver. Some would say theirs was a match made in heaven.

One Christmas Eve, our church included their trailer in the route for our offkey but joyous caroling tour. I’ll never forget the sight of Linda wheeling Don onto his flimsy, makeshift porch. In the glow from a single string of lights, I watched their tears of gratitude at our presence. A pit bull on a chain from the next trailer strained to get at us, its barking a crude counterpoint to our tunes.

I remember Jeff, a young man who dreamed of joining a rock band, yet whose marijuana and meth habits drained his meager income and frail health. His lived in a small trailer in the high desert outside Littlerock, California. It was papered with posters from his favorite 80s bands—Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order—but also classics he had learned to love from his mother, especially The Beatles. Both of them attended our church.

On one of my visits, he asked if he could play Eleanor Rigby during worship. Of course! Backed by our praise band, he offered his gift on a Sunday just before Christmas, a haunting acoustic version that mesmerized us. When he sang Ah, look at all the lonely people it was an admonition to see those who are often invisible on the margins.

I remember a woman and her children living in a squalid trailer park in Alice, Texas. Our congregation was passing out food and toys, and when we knocked, the woman cautiously peered through a crack in the door. The odor of cooking grease and old diapers seeped around her. Were we the police? Immigration officers? In Spanish, we assured her that we were simply bearing gifts. Her children hovered behind her. I looked past them to see that the ancient trailer was sloping. Her youngest boy was seated on a ratty couch. A hole in the floor at his feet revealed mud and debris beneath him.

I can still see that boy’s face. I don’t EVER want him to disappear from my memory!

So, this is my Christmas shout out to all the lonely, struggling, hurting people in our communities who deserve more than FB memes or occasional hit-and-run charity. They long for loving company—the communion of saints—which is the greatest gift any of us can offer.

Have a blessed trailer park Christmas, y’all!

In December 2016, a federal judge in San Antonio, Texas, ordered that hundreds of women and children–most of them refugees from Central America–be released from two south Texas immigration detention facilities. He had deemed the sites unsuitable for holding minors, sending the families into a wet and frigid winter night. Members of the San Antonio Mennonite Church, longtime activists for just immigration, gathered to address the emergency. How could they respond to the crisis? This is part of their story, excerpted from “Neighborhood Church: Transforming Your Congregation into a Powerhouse for Mission.” You can preorder it here.

As officials released women and children from two detention facilities in response to a court order, hundreds of people suddenly needed temporary shelter and support. On Friday, December 2, 2016, SAMC’s leadership offered its guest house as a shelter. When its two floors filled up, they opened their cavernous fellowship hall, and when even that area overflowed, they opened the doors of their main sanctuary, pushing pews to the walls to provide sleeping space.

At the guest house, a big- screen TV hung from the ceiling announcing departure times for women and children bound for destinations around the U.S. Upstairs was a phone bank for calling lawyers and family members, its long line extending into the hallway. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) learned of SAMC’s willingness to shelter the released prisoners and began to bus them directly to the church’s front steps. Their numbers continued to swell.

John Garland, pastor of SAMC, reflects on that experience and how its ripple effects continue to shape the congregation’s ministry.

“It’s easy,” he says, “to quote Old and New Testament mandates to care for the least and the aliens in our midst. But real conversion to our neighbors doesn’t begin by declaring ourselves a welcoming space for the homeless or a sanctuary for refugees. It always begins in real, face-to-face relationships. This is the essence of incarnational ministry.”

Garland, like most of SAMC’s members, was at the eye of that human hurricane for a number of days. The experience reaffirmed many of the congregation’s cherished beliefs. For instance, Mennonites strive to live simply, believing God will provide more than we need as we walk the path of faithfulness. This trust in abundance proved warranted during the refugee crisis in a number of ways.

Hundreds of surrounding neighbors rose up to provide support in the way of food, water, and backpacks for the traveling women. Many of them openly said, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m glad you are here and I support what you are doing.”

When the fire marshal got wind of the church’s overcrowded conditions, he threatened to shut everything down. This evoked responses from the mayor, the city council, even a congressional representative, all of them wrangling over what to do. But it was the neighborhood fire station that provided the solution. Its firemen, even after working long shifts, volunteered to patrol the perimeter of the church, providing the emergency coverage necessary to make everything legal.

Not everyone, however, was approving of SAMC’s work. Online threats were frequent, some of them warning of violence, and though Pastor Garland never read the specifics, he was aware of potential danger. So, when a jacked-up truck with a Confederate flag on its rear window rumbled into the parking lot, he was understandably concerned. A burly man stepped down from the cab.

“Is this the place that’s helping the illegals?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“Yes, it is,” said Garland.

“Good,” said the man, “because I have some food in the back I’d like to donate to the cause.”

Garland sees this not only as an example of the abundant response of others, but of the unlikely conversion of one neighbor to another in our midst.

There is another incident dear to his heart. During that onslaught of need, SAMC discovered a child separated from his mother. In all the hubbub, some volunteers had taken the mother to the hospital. Until they located her, Garland took the child home and let him snuggle between his two young daughters, a lasting lesson for him and his girls about the need to protect and love our neighbors no matter how they come to us.

He sums up so much of what he learned in a succinct anecdote.

“On the fullest night of that crisis, with the church packed, I tried to sleep in my office. The building was a cacophony of two primary noises. There was the beeping of the ankle monitors each detainee was required to wear, and the coughing! Most of the women had caught a respiratory bug in the detention facilities, and the coughing was nonstop. Between those signs of sickness and the incessant beeping, I thought I was going to lose my mind.

“Then a beautiful voice rose above the din. It was a mother singing a lullaby to her child. That song had a clear message to me. ‘Sorry, white boy, if you are struggling this evening, but I’m trying to put my child to sleep.’

“I realized right then that none of us responding to this crisis were the heroes in this passion play. It was these women who had left everything—their homes, their countries of origin—to protect their children.”

The overcrowded conditions eventually subsided, but not the regular and ongoing need. Today, SAMC and its partners continue to minister to the women and children who come to them from the detention facilities—these neighbors in a global family—but now their service echoes with an even deeper connection born of those days in December 2016.

UPDATE: SAMC continues to shelter stranded asylum seekers in La Casa de Maria y Marta. They also offer Peacebuilder classes, training people how to respond to those experiencing trauma because of their refugee status.

The Coen brothers are geniuses. Their latest effort, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is an anthology of tales set in the Old West that is violent, funny, even profound. It gripped me from the first frame. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone says, “The gallows humor of their fatalistic Ballad allows the filmmakers to do what they do best: laugh in the face of death.”

It is cold laughter, indeed! There are three segments that filled my veins with ice. One of them is “Meal Ticket,” the story of a freak show huckster (Liam Neeson) who sets up his wagon in frontier towns. His attraction is a limbless orator, the “Wingless Thrush.” Neeson props the young man’s torso on a chair, where he proceeds to recite passages that include Shelley’s Ozymandias, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address. It is haunting to hear his eloquence, to watch his rouged cheeks and expressive eyes in the flickering gaslight. It is even more vexing to witness his abject dependence on his handler, a drunk whose only motive is profit. Eventually, the crowds thin. What happens next is not only tragic, but entirely believable.

Why did this affect me so deeply? Partly because I have a son whose disability may be different (intellectual), but who could have been born in a crueler era. The fight for “handicapped” civil rights has been long and tortuous. I recently read The Story of Intellectual Disability: An Evaluation of Meaning, Understanding, and Public Perspective, by Michael L. Wehmeyer. With penetrating scholarship and a journalist’s ear for storytelling, Wehmeyer chronicles how intellectually disabled people have been treated throughout history, including:

• The practice of infanticide, even in “enlightened Athens,” where “defective” children were left in jars near temples in case someone took pity and adopted them.
• The demeaning theories of both scientists and theologians, who regarded these “idiots, morons, and imbeciles” as part animal or part demon.
• Nazi concentration camps for flawed children who were ripped from their families, gassed, then incinerated.
• Mass incarceration and virtual slavery in “institutions for the feeble-minded.”
• Forced sterilization as a standard practice in many parts of the U.S. until the 1970s.
• Substandard education and crippling segregation.

Wehmeyer also highlights individuals who championed the cause of dignity for themselves and others.

One of them is Frederick Boyce. In 1942, at age seven, Boyce was confined to the Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts, an institution for “idiots.” He was given mandatory labor, received scant education, and was housed in a dilapidated dormitory ruled by a harsh attendant. Because he was well-behaved, he and a few other boys were invited to join the Science Club, where Quaker Oats and MIT researchers secretly served radioactive oatmeal as part of a study on calcium absorption.

Even with those atrocities, the worst, according to Boyce, was the indignity of being labeled a “moron,” a term that stuck with him as he struggled to find employment after discharge. Finally, he began working at carnivals and fairs, operating games of chance. He bought his own booth and traveled the amusement circuit all his life.

In 2004, Boyce and six other Fernald alumni petitioned Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, to expunge the word moron from their records. They also wanted a formal apology.

In May of 2005, at the age of 63, Boyce received a letter from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation stating that he “was not mentally retarded.”

He died of colon cancer three days later.

In the film Simon Birch, loosely based on John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, there’s a scene that knifed my heart. Simon, born with dwarfism, goes to his local church seeking spiritual guidance. He enters the pastor’s study and struggles into a chair.

Simon: “Does God have a plan for us?”
Pastor: “I like to think so.”
Simon: “Me too. I think God made me the way I am for a reason.”
Pastor: “Well, I’m glad that, um, that your faith, uh, helps you deal with your, um…you know, your condition.”
Simon: “That’s not what I mean. I think God is going to use me to carry out a plan.”

Later, Simon gets discouraged and returns to the same pastor.

Simon: “I want to know that there’s a reason for things. I used to be certain, but now I’m not sure. I want you to tell me that God has a plan for me, a plan for all of us. Please.”
Pastor (shifting in his seat, obviously uncomfortable): “Simon…I can’t.”

Sitting in the theater, I had deeply mixed reactions to that pastor’s response. Initially, I was angry, even outraged. I felt like saying to him, “Listen, if your doubts have undermined your calling to support the unique destiny of each person, why don’t you take a break or consider a new line of work?”

However, another part of me empathized with his weariness. In my 32 years of ministry, I struggled with tragedies that rocked the foundation of existence. Stillborn children, a young man killed just days before his wedding, suicides, overdoses, floods and fires, cancer that wrenched parents from their children. I always refrained from unsolicited platitudes like “God has a purpose for this.” Those words are hollow, even insulting, as we cry out against injustice or suffer from breathtaking loss. There are questions that simply have no satisfactory answers.

However, I do know this. If Simon came to me with the same query, I wouldn’t hesitate to answer.

Yes, I do believe that God/Creator/Spirit/Tao/Higher Power has imbued our lives with divine purpose, a plan that permeates our days if we embrace it. And though none of us can fully fathom the mystery of this providence, we can experience it in numerous ways. These are some I’ve discovered in my own life.

God’s purpose appears as divine appointments. With deep gratitude, I think of meeting my wife, Donna, when we both needed love and companionship. I look back on how she and I have helped each other through some very dark valleys. I think of counselors and mentors who entered my life exactly when I required their wisdom. I think of how, as a pastor, I was invited into the sanctums of other people’s struggles, offering timely support.

God’s purpose grips us with a love that brings order and healing. God is love, says the famous verse in John’s first letter, and as we move from asking why? to how? this love becomes an experience of life’s design. It drives us to spend ourselves for justice, to comfort the lonely and outcast, to be a conduit for unity and peace. I treasure these simple but profound words from Thích Nhất Hạnh, who died earlier this year after a lifetime of blessing other people: “The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand.”

God’s purpose compels us to exercise our gifts. We all have something to contribute. This is what Simon meant when he said, “I think God made me the way I am for a reason.” Thousands of years ago, David rejoiced with these famous words from Psalm 139: “I praise you, for I am reverently and wonderfully made!” Writers like Wayne Dyer helped awaken me to the unique impulses that arise within me when I connect to Spirit. I enjoy epiphanies that tell me, “This is the purpose for which you were created!” In many ways, including my doctoral work, I have always encouraged people to discover and exercise their gifts and talents. As Dyer famously said, “Don’t die with your music still in you!”

Friends, on this Thanksgiving 2022, I have a shout out to our Creator for all of us. Thank you for not only giving us loved ones on this journey, but for being WITH us, offering purpose that illuminates our paths. May we experience your active presence—and our unique part in your plan—more clearly every day.

Thanksgiving blessings to all of you!

A family member calls it my “coming out,” a booklet I wrote years ago about the universalist spirituality evolving in my life. Called Invitation to The Overview, you can freely download it here.

The central image comes from space exploration. Described as the The Overview Effect—a term coined by writer Frank White—it is that moment when space travelers turn and see our planet suspended in the vastness of space. For everyone who experiences it, this vantage point is life-changing, transforming their view of Earth and humankind’s place upon it. Here are some firsthand words from astronauts.

“Before I flew, I was already aware of how small and vulnerable our planet is; but only when I saw it from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that humankind’s most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.” – Sigmund Jähn, German Democratic Republic

“For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.” – Donald Williams, U.S.A.

“A Chinese tale tells of some men sent to harm a young girl who, upon seeing her beauty, become her protectors rather than her violators. That’s how I felt seeing the Earth for the first time. I could not help but love and cherish her.” – Taylor Wang, China/U.S.A.

In many countries – my home nation of America included – we no longer have a vision of what unites us within our own boundaries, let alone what binds us to humanity across the planet. Nationalism is ascendant around the globe. Ultimately, this is spiritual regression, a return to tribal thinking, a reversal of our necessary evolution as a species. It could ultimately destroy us.

I love New Zealand President Jacinda Ardern’s first address to the United Nations in 2018. After acknowledging our many international challenges, she said the following.

“If I could distill it down into one concept that we are pursuing in New Zealand it is simple and it is this.  Kindness. In the face of isolationism, protectionism, racism – the simple concept of looking outwardly and beyond ourselves, of kindness and collectivism, might just be as good a starting point as any.”

In his Teachings on Love, Thích Nhất Hạn speaks of upeksha, a Buddhist concept that means equanimity or nondiscrimination. He says, “Upa means ‘over,’ and iksha means ‘to look.’ You climb the mountain to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other. If your love has attachment, discrimination, prejudice, or clinging in it, it is not true love. People who do not understand Buddhism sometimes think upeksha means indifference, but true equanimity is neither cold nor indifferent. If you have more than one child, they are all your children. Upeksha does not mean that you don’t love. You love in a way that all your children receive your love, without discrimination. (This is) ‘the wisdom of equality,’ the ability to see everyone as equal…In a conflict, even though we are deeply concerned, we remain impartial, able to love and to understand both sides.” 

What if we internalized The Overview, tucking it like a pearl of great price into our hearts and minds? What if it caused a fundamental paradigm shift? What if national boundaries remained for governmental purposes, but we saw them from the global vantage point of our human family? What if the current conflicts that divide us were eclipsed by our critical need to create planetary tolerance, to galvanize our collective will and protect this pale blue vessel sailing in space?

Perhaps the deepest lesson I have learned in America’s current climate is that ALL of us—both progressive and conservative—can fall prey to the judgement and hardness of heart that disconnects us from each other. We can ALL become complicit. Repentance and a change of behavior are necessary.

It begins by asking ourselves some hard questions. Do my politics, faith tradition, or life philosophy contribute to unity? Am I compelled to find peaceful dialogue with others, no matter how alien their worldview seems to me? Or am I simply setting myself apart with an air of superiority?

As Thích Nhất Hạn has said, “Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on earth. This is the real message of love.”

  We DESPERATELY need The Overview!

The young woman, daughter of a struggling single mother in our church, came to my office with a cloud of confusion surrounding her. She had just discovered she was pregnant, and her young lover—backed by his family and their money—was demanding that she have an abortion.

“I don’t know what to do, Pastor,” she said. “I feel like I’m too young to care for a baby, and I know I won’t get any help from his family if I decide to give birth. I’ve got so many feelings. Mostly I’m angry…pissed off at him and myself for not being more careful. But I’m also afraid and sad…”

Her voice trailed off as she hung her head and quietly cried. After a few moments, she looked up at me.

“What do you think I should do, Pastor?” she asked.

“First of all,” I said, “please know that whatever you decide, I will always support you.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, “but still, what do YOU think I should do?”

“I am deeply opposed to abortion,” I said. “My personal belief is that life begins at conception, and that the genetic material setting the stage for your child’s life is already present. I feel it is wrong to violently end what has begun in the womb. But I also believe that as a man I can’t make decisions about what women decide to do with their bodies and their futures. That is why I am pro-choice, even though abortion seems tragic to me. If you can’t care for this baby, you might consider adoption as an alternative. But I truly mean this…whatever you decide is between you and God. I will always support you.

I paused for a second, then added, “What does your mother think?”

“She kind of surprised me. I expected her to freak out and lecture me, but she said that even though she would help with a baby, the decision was ultimately up to me.”

She sat up straighter in her chair, and it struck me how the magnitude of this choice was weighing on the shoulders of a 16-year-old teenager. She would never be the same.

“Thank you for sharing with me,” she said. “I still don’t know what I am going to do, but I do appreciate everyone’s concern.”

“Of course,” I said. “You can talk to me any time you wish.”

I listened some more as she spoke about her relationship with her boyfriend. Then we had a prayer together and she left.

That memory returned to me a few years ago when I saw a sonogram of the twins inside my daughter-in-law’s womb. My grandchildren were taking shape quickly – small human beings, their features already emerging. I’ve heard the arguments regarding unwanted infants born into poverty. I fully realize that the world is plagued by overpopulation, and that millions of children go hungry or suffer from violence. Still, a child in the womb is one-of-a-kind, an emerging creation like no other. What a miracle!

The battle over a woman’s right to choose will continue in America. The recent Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade has been met by opposition in states that are securing legislation to protect reproductive rights. One thing is obvious. For many conservatives in this country, outlawing abortion has become like Captain Ahab’s legendary obsession with Moby Dick. They will pursue it at all costs, supporting politicians whose morals are contrary to everything else they believe. They will even risk the unravelling of democracy. In this one area—limiting a woman’s choice—they have the narrow-minded zeal of jihadists.

For myself, I hold fast to a key component of my faith—that our Creator has given each of us the sanctity of our own conscience, free from the dictates of other human beings.

That young woman made her decision, then returned to church two weeks later. I welcomed her with a hug.

She calls it her altar—a small, squat table at one end of her bedroom. Every morning she sits on a pillow in front of it, lights a candle or two, then practices mindfulness by bringing herself into the present. The altar is lovingly decorated with icons from her spiritual adventures around the globe: a spray of white sage gifted by a member of the Taos Pueblo, a Mayan-style amulet from a shaman in Cusco, a Celtic cross from the Iona Community in Scotland, a picture of her and her “sisters” dancing under a full moon near the ruins of Templo Mayor in Mexico City.

And then there’s the list. “That damn list,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. It was sent to her by close members of her extended family, a step-by-step outline of how to find the salvation that comes only through Jesus Christ.

When she received it in the mail, it stabbed her heart with multiple levels of grief. She knew once again that her path and the path of her loved ones were continuing to diverge. She knew that despite her efforts to foster mutual acceptance, there was no room for her brand of spirituality in their eyes. She grieved because love in all its fullness would not be mutually experienced in their relationship.

But she also felt the bile of anger, an acid taste that surprised her. It told her that she had not fully healed from her time among conservative Christians. She felt twinges of animosity towards their “our way is the only way” theology. She resented their efforts to reduce her rich complexity to either/or categories, a sickness she sees in our world at large, especially America. She even felt some recrimination towards herself for all the energy she expended over the years seeking the approval of others.

So, what did she do? She placed the list in a prominent place on her altar, unavoidable whenever she sits down to meditate.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“Because that list represents an area in my life that still needs healing, a buried resentment that is keeping me from freedom. My goal is that someday very soon, I will look at that list with only unconditional love, forgiveness, and compassion towards my family, praying that God will surround them with the grace that leads to acceptance.”

Then she chuckled. “Meanwhile, I call it that damn list.”

After our conversation, I sat in my study and mulled her words. I recalled the countless times I counseled people about the need for forgiveness during my decades of ministry. I thought of the metaphors I used, including my favorite from Lewis Smedes, the “forgiveness guru.”

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

I ask you, dear reader: do you have a “list” in your life? A memory of a person or incident that stakes a dark claim to territory in your mind and spirit? If so, I ask you to seize the truth so clearly demonstrated in my friend’s life. Growing spiritually requires discipline and focus. We can heal, but it takes mindfulness. Moreover, the tools we need can be found in many world traditions and faiths.

Though my friend will not be called Christian according to any orthodox definition, her reason for pondering that damn list is one of the most Christ-like behaviors I have encountered in years.

As Jesus reportedly said, “Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Still sweaty from my workout, I pulled out of the gym’s parking lot, and there she was on the opposite sidewalk: a thin woman in her seventies, wraith-like, wearing a loose house dress and simple white sandals. She clutched a spray of pink flowers and a large purple wallet against her chest. Her hair—dirty blonde and streaked with gray—fell in wet strands to her shoulders.

I had no air-conditioning in my old truck, so the windows were wide open for every breath of air. As I came to the stop sign, she looked across the street at me with imploring eyes.

“Do you know where 909 Cloverdale is?” she called out.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Oh dear,” she exclaimed, “I seem to be lost.”

I checked my rearview mirror. No cars.

“Tell you what,” I said, “Let me turn back around through the parking lot, check the address on my phone, then give you a ride.”

Her eyes brightened.

“If you don’t mind. That would be wonderful!”

I googled the coordinates and made a U-turn. She walked—no, glided—across the pavement to my passenger side door. She struggled to get into my truck’s high seat, so I reached across and firmly gave her a hand. A smell like lavender and vanilla filled my musty cab.

As I began the drive, she made some whispery comments.

“This looks a bit familiar…wait, no…was that where we were supposed to turn…no, here…maybe…I just don’t know…Lord…”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve got the address. When we get there, you can tell me if it’s the right home. If not, we will find it. I promise.”

The house was a couple twisting miles away, and as we got closer, questions came to mind. Had she wandered away from a care home? Should I call someone? 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Evelyn,” she said. “And what’s yours?

“Krin.”

“That’s unusual. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Neither have I,” I said with a grin. “It’s taken awhile to grow into that uniqueness.”

She laughed, and her wrinkles seemed to dissolve, the face of a younger woman peering out as if from underwater.

“Where did you get the flowers?” I asked.

As if she’d forgotten them, she stared down, lifting them to her nose.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but aren’t they beautiful?”

“They sure are. You have excellent taste.”

She tilted her head like a small curtsy, and then we reached the address.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “That’s it!”

Immediately, she was all business, straightening her dress over her knees, clutching her bouquet and pocketbook to her chest, sliding to the sidewalk. Was this really the house?

“Do you want me to walk to the door with you?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “that’s not necessary.”

“Well, goodbye Evelyn. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you for your kindness, sir,” she said, her eyes going inward for a moment as if probing. “Krin, right?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, walked to the door, fumbled in her purse, extracted a key, then opened it with ease. I idled at the curb, waiting. She turned, smiled, waved the bouquet like a bridesmaid at a wedding, then was gone.

As I drove away, I recalled a verse from the Christian book of Hebrews. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

It was such a simple favor to offer, yet all the way home I felt wings on my shoulders.

Is this penchant born of my former profession, or a natural part of my personality? I suspect the latter, but here it is: I constantly see metaphors in the world around us.

My wife and I have been watching a documentary called Kingdoms of the Sky. It overviews landscapes, animals, and people that inhabit the Andes, Rocky Mountains, and Himalaya.

The Andes episode startled us with facts and images: birds that nest in glaciers; Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat that becomes an immense natural mirror when glazed with rain, reflecting clouds by day and the Milky Way by night.

Then came the portion that screamed METAPHOR! It chronicles four family groups (tribes) that trace their lineage to the Incas. Separated by peaks and chasms, they come together annually to build Q’eswachaka, the last surviving example of a woven Inca suspension bridge. Recognized by UNESCO for its “intangible cultural heritage,” Q’eswachaka spans a section of Collasuyo, an ancient Inca road that connects Cusco to Titicaca.

Building the bridge is a three-day, communal project, performed annually because harsh seasons erode last year’s work. Villagers of all ages harvest grass that forms the rope’s fiber, then weave it into strong cords using pre-Columbian techniques. Priests bless the process with offerings and prayers in Quechua, dedicating the effort to Pachamama (Mother Earth).

The metaphor is that the bridge leads to community, and it raises a vexing question. In our culture separated by peaks and chasms of race, class, and ideology, will we ever find ways to build new connections?

This insidious division affects all of us. Like many Americans, I am tempted to “write off” whole groups of people. Be honest. How about you?

Mitt Romney did it when he said, “There are 47 percent of the people who…are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims.…These are people who pay no income tax. …and so my job is not to worry about those people.”

Hillary Clinton did it when she said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables…some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”

I’m not immune to these broadsides. I feel like saying, “If you shrug at the separation of women from their children on the border, or want to strip reproductive rights from women, or support the proliferation of AR-15 blueprints for 3-D printers, then ‘unfriend me’ now. We don’t live in the same universe!”

At those exact moments, I succumb to the cancer; I have become part of the problem, not the solution.

Let’s not burn be bridge burners. Let’s challenge ourselves (once again) to build new ones, no matter how difficult. Let’s establish space, both literally and in our souls, where we can listen to others no matter how disparate their views. For me, this means returning to the core of my beliefs: Ahimsa, Matthew 5:43-38, and M.L.K., Jr., saying “The chain reaction of hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars, must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

Back to the Andes. For the tribes building Q’eswachaka, it is a sacred expression of their bond with nature, tradition, and history. Their shared work reestablishes communication and strengthens bonds that are centuries old.

The final image in the Inca segment shows an aged woman carefully making her way across the bridge, the abyss below her, secure in her knowledge that she is supported by the communion of four different communities.

 Now THAT’s a metaphor!

We’ve all seen big A authority in action. Physicians who treat their staff and patients like plebeians. Clergy who wear their robes as emblems of power. Politicians who operate like they’re above the people who elected them. Professors who respond to classroom questions with smugness. Supervisors who pull rank to mask their insecurities.  Those who insist on reminding us of the letters before or after their names (Rev., Dr., Honorable, Ph.D.)

Big A authority shouts EGO (edging God out). It is the province of small minds, small hearts, small spirits. Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it is a delusion from which its practitioners have not yet awakened. Many of them never do.

When I encounter big A authority, I flee in the opposite direction. If I see it in a physician, I find a new clinic. If I hear it from a pulpit, I find a new church. If I sense it in a professor, I drop the class.

Thankfully, there is also authority with a small a. It is a quality we willingly bestow on others, not a surrender to forcible demands. You can see it many ways.

• Physicians whose bedside manner is like a warm hearth, their genuine compassion working in tandem with staff and patients.
• Clergy who, like Jesus, metaphorically take off their robes and lift up the basin and towel to wash the feet of others.
• Politicians who regularly spend time with the neediest of their constituents, not just for photo ops at campaign time.
• Professors who believe there are no dumb questions, and that learning of any type is an advancement in life’s miracles.
• Supervisors whose doors are always open and who make it their mission to see others succeed.
• Anyone who shows us—without pretension—that what they have to share with us was learned in the school of life, sometimes painfully, and not just in the ivory towers of academia.

Obviously, I’m talking about humility, a quality we obtain when we are least aware of it. As Martin Luther once said, “True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.” It happens when we lose ourselves in Spirit and service rather than self-promotion. Call it self-forgetting, self-denial, or even bliss and joy. By any name, it is the hallmark of a highly developed character.

I adhere to many faiths; no “religion” has a corner on truth. That said, I have always loved the closing verses of what Christians call The Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Jesus’s teachings in the Gospel of Matthew. It crystallizes the core principles of the Nazarene’s life and ministry, including his call to love our enemies.

At the end of those verses, we hear, “The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.”

I get that. I really get that. The challenge will always be to live it.