LIII.
PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
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He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake…Psalm 23:3
A pandemic does not excuse us from faithfulness. A pandemic does not excuse us from playing our role as God’s agents in the moral and spiritual arc of history. Friedrich Nietzsche counseled us to be worthy of our sufferings. From the vantage point of surviving Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl claimed that “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Think of great leaders, people who called forth the best of their nation in times of trial – George Washington at Valley Forge, Abraham Lincoln calling the nation to its better angels, with charity toward all and malice toward none, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who counseled courage in the face of threat. Think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks, who were persons of greatness and integrity despite being objects of hate and persecution. The times cry out for leadership of spirit, and we must be leaders ourselves. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” as
June Jordan says of the South African women peacefully protesting apartheid.
This is our time to be God’s people. This is our time to care in our small sheltering in place world and as citizens. This is our time to realize that God calls us to our highest values when we are tempted to retrench, hiding behind walls of protection and hate. This is our time to love.
We can embrace God’s vision of Shalom now and all the days of our lives.
For a piece on the moral and spiritual arc – https://videopress.com/v/RuMmhbU6?fbclid=IwAR34nuQbJRt6mGq4tCclCMJ8CNcMG1PIziob_THkVhWN-UU_lDhKmtUkJJk
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Awaken us to your arc of love and healing that we might have great loves and large souls, caring for all your children by your grace. Amen.
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