Chapter 6: Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart

Coming from anyone else other than Desmond Tutu, I might have rolled my eyes in both skepticism and more than a bit of irritation at the message of this chapter.  I find myself encountering the message more as a kind of “prosperity Gospel,” power of positive thinking, “just look on the bright side of life” approach--to Christianity and life.

The key issue in the chapter is the thorny problem of suffering in the Christian life and Tutu works with a host of themes around the spiritual and theological question of suffering—from social moral aspects such as injustice and oppression, negative psychological and “soul” states like hate/anger, guilt and fear, moral behaviors like arrogance, and perhaps that most grievous aspect of suffering—death.  Archbishop Tutu is nothing but ambitious at the least!

However, we often get some of the following which reminds one of Joel Osteen rather than a wise elder like Tutu-- one schooled in the fires of war, withering injustice, senseless cruelty, confronting choices which are anything but simplistic and naïve. For example, let us take this phrase on page 72:  “In our Universe, suffering is often how we grow (!!), especially how we grow emotionally, spiritually and morally.”

Oh really?  Suffering is often utterly meaningless, destructive, with no redeeming outcome.
Sometimes, in the words of friends who just lost their ten year old little boy to a senseless death-and are committed Christians:  Sometimes, they told me:  “Life just stinks!”  Or let us this statement on page 75:  “What is it that allows us to transform our suffering to transmute it?  The answer is love!”

Well—sometimes this is patently false!  Job never “transmuted” his suffering and gave God “hell” for it to the end; and, sometimes, many times, love is not enough to transform suffering into anything positive.

I have a parishioner who can’t forgive God, life, or anything else for a destructive event of a loved one but she hangs in there with God and battles and struggles.  I like that.  I like it that she does not get the Almighty off the hook and fights with Her or Him for truth.  And, in my experience, some of the best theology and pastoral response is simply to leave suffering, particularly innocent suffering, a mystery and stand with others in the midst of it rather than offer rather simplistic and banal “answers” which skirt the fringes of truth like the above.

Reading the chapter reminds me of how personal and social context is so important to religious discourse—and, gulp (!),how the personal context of the preacher or write is so important to the credibility of the message. Generally, I am much more sympathetic to writers on the question of suffering who honor the negativity of existence and the lament tradition of the bible—and actually go so far as to hold God accountable for the bad stuff.

I prefer Eli Wisel’s Night, Abraham Heschel’s “pathos” and Dorothy Day’s anger and raw bitterness (and her compassion no doubt linked to the darkness) than to the mega-church “Every Day is a Friday” approach to life—even if it grows churches, brings in big money--and comforts the afflicted (with false hope in my opinion).

BUT—and this is a huge caveat with everything I have shared so far—Desmond Tutu “walks the talk” in attempting to find some meaning in even the worst of suffering—even if this whole approach to suffering does not work often, theologically or pastorally—in my experience.

I can take some of the approach of this chapter because I know it is true to Desmond Tutu’s heroism, leadership, courage and sustaining vision. If his optimistic and ever hopeful world-view is responsible for grounding the man who provided a key hammer tearing down the walls of apartheid and lead the reconciling, humane work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—so be it.

The one area where I found myself riveted in chapter six with this “find joyful meaning” and “all you need is love” approach to suffering is in Tutu’s belief, so true to his life (Any of us who have heard Tutu speak know his joy and optimism is for real, is infectious and is moving enough to leave you breathless!)—that humor can help get you through just about anything!  I also love the way that humor is tied to humility and the ability to laugh at oneself.

Wow!  This is an area I need to learn from Tutu.  Like many clergy, I need to laugh more, and take myself less seriously so much more often, get over myself more, and simply approach life with a much more playful tone. And, yes, those who have taught me much from their courage in the midst of suffering—often do approach it with humor and grace.

Here is one beautiful example of the playful side of Desmond Tutu;  and this story, alone, for me, is worth the price of admission of the Chapter!

In the bad old days, I was helped to laugh at myself by those in South Africa who amused themselves with many jokes about yours truly, the one they most loved to hate.  In those Tutu stories, I always came to a sticky end.  At this time, according to the joke, President Reagan decided to come to South Africa to see how his constructive engagement policy was working.  As he flew over Orange River in Air Force One, he saw a sight that warmed the cockles of his heart, for down there were South Africa’s foreign minister, Pik Botha and President P.W. Botha in a speedboat, pulling me on water skis!  “Wonderful,” thought the U.S. President.  Later he landed and greeted the Bothas effusively.  President Reagan said, “What a tremendous thing—you and Bishop Tutu together like this.”  Then, he flew off.  Pik turned to P.W. said, “Nice man but he doesn’t know anything about crocodile hunting!” (pp. 83-84)

Like so many of you—I just love this guy—admire this guy--would love to inherit “a double share” of his spirit in his courage, commitment, and leadership in the struggle for justice and peace.  And, yes, sometimes even humor and joy fails in the course of suffering;  but, man, is it worth the try!

Thank you, Archbishop Tutu—for provoking me and challenging me with your approach top suffering—but, above all, for giving me the smile and chuckle we often all need to make it out there……

The Rev. Hugh E. Brown, III, D. Min.

Rector, All Saint’s Church, Princeton, New Jersey

Chapter 5: God Only Has Us

The BIG work of building God’s world depends on us!  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m up for the job.  It seems so daunting.  Certainly, God can do better than work through the likes of me!

I have been inspired by many people along the way who have truly been God’s servants, who have given so much to the building of God’s world.  One person who continues to inspire me is a woman named Lana.  She started a non-profit in the late ‘90’s called People in Crisis.  Lana is disabled due to a work accident years ago.  Her life was saved at that time because a friend of hers gave everything he had to help make her well in the aftermath of her work accident.  He not only stayed by her side, but drained his bank account to get her the medical intervention necessary to restore her to health.  She remained deeply indebted to him.

Well, her friend has since become chronically ill.  He suffers from a variety of diseases and syndromes, requires very specialized treatment for which he has no resources and without any decent health insurance is not able to get the level of intervention required.  His life is further complicated by the abuse he endured in his childhood and the associated trauma.  So, Lana started People In Crisis as a way to help her friend, to pay him back for saving her life.  Since 1999, Lana, lacking a board of directors to work for her organization, has been going door to door in various parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania collecting money so she can, in her words, “sustain her friend.”  Her work is tireless.  She does everything legally, acquiring the local permits necessary to go door to door.  She perseveres in the face of outright rejection, she solicits funds day in and day out, she tells her story over and over, and she has collected thousands of dollars over the years to help “save her friend who once saved her.”  In the course of her work, she has encountered so many people who “fall through the cracks” of the health insurance system, who can’t afford their prescribed medications, and who have specialized needs.  Lana, herself, has become a great resource to the people she has met door to door as she has become quite knowledgeable of the healthcare delivery system and the pharmaceutical industry and has assisted countless people with referrals and advocacy services she provides.  Her list of people who need her help has grown.  She is startled by the complexity of the problems she encounters.  Her dream would be to grow People In Crisis into a big organization to raise big money to assist all these people she has met along the way.  In the meantime, she continues to walk door to door, every day, to save her friend and help whomever she can.

Lana reminds me every day about what selfless love looks like.  Her walking the streets, being a beggar really, stretches the boundaries of my love.  She is imago dei, an image of God, a God-carrier for me.  Her life, her rejection, and her battle to secure proper care for her friend, are a clarion call to address the injustices that exist in our society.  Her passion challenges me to be passionate in the root sense of that word – to suffer with – a brother or sister in need.

The BIG work of building God’s world depends on us!  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m up for the job.  Thank God for Lana and people like her whose example is a reminder that “God only has us.”  We are partners with God called to “work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered…”  May we learn to see with the eyes of our hearts the wonderful work of God among us.

Happy Easter!

John W. Sosnowski+

Canon to the Ordinary

Diocese of New Jersey

jsosnowski@newjersey.anglican.org

Chapter 4: God Loves Your Enemies

Chapter Four begins with a startling claim by Desmond Tutu about the breadth and reach of God’s love: “if we are truly to understand God loves all of us, we must recognize that He loves our enemies, too. God does not share our hatred, no matter what the offense we have endured.”

God loves our enemies: God loves those who hate us or who seek to harm us, and God loves those whom we hate because they have injured us, by word, deed or omission, or because of who they are or what they represent.

Now the author has my full attention!

I’m married, and I have two children, who love each other and their parents ... most of the time.  I have neighbors: some who drive through the neighborhood too fast, others who are too slow to shovel snow from their sidewalks or who fail to clean up after their dogs.  We all get along in my neighborhood ... except for the people who don’t talk to each other.  I’m a priest, and I minister on the campus of a large university, where grudges, resentments, jealousies, passive-aggressive behaviors, slights, prejudices, dislikes, vindictiveness and animosity are a speciality of every academic department and program.  In the diocese and wider church I serve on a bunch of committees and boards.  “See how those Christians love one another” - I wish that were true.  Sigh.

In this chapter, the Archbishop leads us into the depths of his experience as a leader of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, who was hated by those whose policies he opposed, and as a father, who was humiliated by the need to explain to his children why they could not visit a beautiful beach reserved only for whites.  These personal stories give credibility to his proclamation of a God of love who commands us to love our enemies, and who has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation.

His stories from the anti-Apartheid struggle are inspiring, both for the courage and patience of those who led the opposition and resistance - and for their astonishing capacities for empathy and deep theological discernment:

Malusi Mpumlwana was a young enthusiastic activist and close associate of Steve Biko in the crucial Black Consciousness Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was involved with others in vital community development and health projects with impoverished and often demoralized rural communities. As a result, he and his wife were under strict surveillance and constantly harassed by the ubiquitous security police. They were frequently being held in detention without trial and at the time of my story involving him he was serving a five-year banning order in his Eastern Cape township. When a person was banned, not only were they literally under house arrest, they could not speak publicly or meet with any more than one other person at a time. He had somehow given the security police the slip and had come to Johannesburg and was with me in my office, where I was serving as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He said that during his frequent stints in detention, when the security police routinely tortured him, he used to think, "These are God's children and yet they are behaving like animals. They need us to help them recover the humanity they have lost."

Time after time Tutu brings us back to the simple but powerful insight that love and forgiveness begin with our recognition of another’s humanity and with our acknowledgment of the ways in which our hatred has twisted our humanity and blinded us from recognizing and responding to our neighbors as children of God.

Tutu is practical.  He writes directly about the questions for which we want answers: “How then do we embrace our enemies? How do we get rid of the hatchet forever instead of just burying it for a time and digging it up later? True enduring peace, between countries, within a country, within a community, within a family, requires real reconciliation between former enemies and even between loved ones who have struggled with one another.”

Notice how he brings the discussion home to where we live:

True reconciliation is based on forgiveness, and forgiveness is based on true confession, and confession is based on penitence, on contrition, on sorrow for what you have done. We know that when a husband and wife have quarreled, one of them must be ready to say the most difficult words in any language, "I'm sorry" and other must be ready to forgive for there to be a future for their relationship. This is true between parents and children, between siblings, between neighbors and between friends. Equally, confession, forgiveness and reconciliation in the lives of nations are not just airy-fairy religious and spiritual things, nebulous and unrealistic. They are the stuff of practical politics.

Whether in the context of systems that dehumanize and oppress those who are different from those who are privileged or powerful, or in the intimate sphere of our homes and families, forgiveness and reconciliation begin from the same clear-eyed and persistent ethic to love as God loves - completely and indiscriminately.

Ultimately, Desmond Tutu gives me the courage to face my own culpability and to take responsibility for seeking reconciliation and forgiveness in my life and among the people closest to me: family, neighbors and my fellow Christians.

God Has a Dream gives me hope - a hope shaped by the gospel.  “In the act of forgiveness we are declaring our faith in the future of a relationship and in the capacity of the wrongdoer to change. We are saying here is a chance to make a new beginning.”

What truth has touched you in these pages?  What has been your experience of reconciliation and forgiveness?  What is stopping you from loving your enemies?  Who needs to hear a word of hope and encouragement from you?

Yours in Christ,
Greg+The Reverend Gregory Bezilla
Episcopal Chaplain to Rutgers University
bezilla@rci.rutgers.edu

Chapter 3: God Loves You as You Are

That God loves us all equally is perhaps the most difficult Christian conviction to grasp existentially, yet the most obvious to grasp logically. For the myriad factors that have made us “who we are”, also shape our responses to how our own lives unfold. My parishioner Rachel and her husband had no children; by the time I met her twenty years ago, both of them had severe health problems, from diabetes that required amputations for Bob, to Rachel’s own Parkinson’s disease. They struggled to remain in their own home, but with Bob’s death Rachel had to enter a nursing facility, where after losing virtually all her faculties, she died. Like so many others, she wrestled obsessively with the question of "Why Me?" But unlike many, she had a ready answer: God was punishing her for the sins and failures of her life. She was never able to articulate just what these were, but nothing could shake her Calvinist conviction that her misery reflected God’s justice. Existentially, she was unable to believe that God loved her.

Julia de Beausobre, imprisoned and tortured under Stalin, knew suffering of a different order, at the hands of licensed sadists. Later, she was asked how she survived.

It was simple really,” she said, “I tried to love my torturers; because if I loved them I would not be adding to the evil in the world by hating them. And if I loved them, it could just be that it might have some effect on them, reducing the evil they did and reducing the amount of evil in the world.

Hers was a logical calculus that grew directly from the Orthodox faith that had trained her to view suffering as “a thing of which something can be made.” And that something derived from the certainty that God loves both “the just and the unjust” equally. Tutu claims that we belittle God’s love for us when we allow ourselves to be seduced by the culture of achievement and “success.” Rachel was tragically caught in this very trap, while de Beausobre’s confrontation with evil and her determination to transform it, refusing to succumb to despair or hatred, matches Archbishop Tutu’s breath-taking claim that “the most unlikely person, the most improbable situation” is “transfigurable.” Both de Beausobre and Desmond Tutu invite us into the deep mystery of how it can be that “as much as God loves you, God equally loves your enemies”—the topic of our next chapter. [p. 41]

The Reverend Joan E. Fleming

Chapter 2: God’s Dream

“We are family, I got all my sisters and me. We are family, Get up everybody and sing”
~ “We are Family,” Sister Sledge

The above song played in my head the entire time I was reading Chapter Two of Bishop Tutu’s God Has Dream. In Chapter One, we heard that God believes in us, that we are His hands and feet in world, transfiguring and reconciling it to Him. In Chapter Two, Bishop Tutu shows us what that dream looks like. Simply put: God wants us to be His family. “I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.”

I was really struck by Bishop Tutu’s image of God’s family. I feel that his metaphor is appropriate and should make everyone pause and reflect on what a family looks like. I was especially moved in the ways that God’s family mimics my own (and everyone’s). We can’t pick our family. We don’t always agree. Sometimes we fight and argue. Families hold all things in common (I’m reminded of my father rolling his eyes whenever I would show up with a “new tie,” and by new tie, I mean a tie I borrowed from his closet). Above all, the image of family is essential to God’s Dream because it means that everyone, everywhere, regardless of differences, is interdependent. At the heart of God’s Dream, and at the heart of our place as his family, is a deep and essential need for relationships with other people. “The first law of our being,” says Bishop Tutu, “is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation.”

I love Bishops Tutu’s introduction and use of the word ubuntu (and not just because it’s my favorite Linux operating system). We are inextricably interconnected—for better or worse—and it is those connections that make us human—ubuntu. We have a tendency in the West, and especially in current streams of Christianity, to believe that we are on our own, that there is pride in “Rugged Individualism” (as Teddy Roosevelt called it), that “me” is more important than “we.” I grew up in a Christian tradition that focused on one’s individual, personal relationship with God; although I still believe there is value in some of those beliefs, I’m struck by how easily community and relationships fall apart when individuals become the focus at the expense of a community. Bishop Tutu reminds us that at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of humanity, is a family. God’s family. “The world is going to have to learn the fundamental lesson that we are made for harmony, for interdependence. If we are ever truly to prosper, it will be only together.”

Furthermore, Chapter two introduces the idea that God’s family is not limited to people. God made humans stewards of the world and its resources. We are as connected to nature as we are to other people. Thus, part of being God’s family is recognizing that the world around us is God’s family as well. Plants, trees, animals, all of nature are our extended family. And we, as God’s stewards, are responsible for it.

As we continue reading God Has a Dream, may God open your hearts to His dream. May God remind you that, although we want His love for ourselves, God’s love is for everyone and everything. May God expand your heart for His people and for his creation. Finally, may God give you a lasting spirit of ubuntu, a spirit that will transfigure the world for Him.

+ Benjamin B. Maddison

Chapter 1: God Believes in Us

God needs me? What a startling revelation! I had never really considered that God was counting on me to be an agent of His transformation of the world. Yes, I had known since Sunday School days that God wanted me to be “in His army” and that, as a Christian, God wanted me to share the Good News, but that He actually needed me, that He couldn’t do it without me, now THAT gave me pause.

Bishop Tutu offers a lovely image of us seated in the palms of God’s hands, having life because “God is forever blowing God’s breath into our being.” As I continued to read and continued mulling over that God needed me in order to realize the power of transfiguration in our world, I kept coming back to this image of being alive with God’s breath, of being given life so that I could go out and do God’s work.

Not one of us is unworthy of being a tool for God’s good, none among us are beyond God’s reach or the reach of His breath, and we all are needed by God to transform this world according to His plan. The perspective that I was created so that I could be a change agent for God gives me new hope that I can accomplish those things to which I am led and that I will continue to have the strength to do the work that I am sent out to do. Even in those time when I pray, “Why me?” I know that I will be given what I need to jump in and carry out the marching orders.

Cynthia Sosnowski

God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time

Dear Friends in Christ,

It is my honor to invite our entire Diocese to read Archbishop Desmond Tutu's 2004 book, God Has a Dream -- a "One Book" selection recommended by the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation. Following the pattern of previous book discussions, various clergy and lay leaders will, in future weeks, post their reflections on different chapters. We are all invited to respond and engage the Archbishop's thoughts, our invited writers' commentaries and all of the contributors to this blog.

It's a small book; humble and simple enough as to be accessible to all sorts and conditions of readers; courageous and powerful enough as to challenge the strongest and wisest among us. Tutu calls it the "cumulative expression of [his] life's work." Above all, it is a book about the dream of God that changes the world that God so loves through the people that God so calls.

There is a wonderful word in the first paragraph of the Introduction (on page viii) that carries with it the great hope of the Archbishop's vision. That word is, "transfigurable." For most people, most of the time, reality is hard, settled and unchangeable. But Tutu asserts that the real world is "in the grips of transformation;" that is, transfigurable. The most unlikely persons; the most improbable situations; the most impossible circumstances -- all of these are transfigurable by the glory-making power of God's love in Jesus Christ. The 'old, old story' of Jesus and his love tells of a Savior who came and stretched out his arms on the hard wood (reality) of the cross that the whole world might be embraced by transformation. No one is beyond that reach; nothing is non-transfigurable. Even at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.    

So, watch this location. Read the comments. Add your own. Engage the questions in "Postscript II" (pages 133-146). Add your own. Don't hold back. I pray that we will see some lively exchanges that expand our minds and enrich our hearts. Let's us read your strong opinions, brothers and sisters. We are New Jersey, after all. You know?

Read this book. Live this dream.

Faithfully yours,

+George Councell
Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey