"TEAR DOWN THE WALLS OF INDIFFERENCE AND HATRED," POPE LEO XIV

 

Iona, Scotland

I've been thinking.  Christianity is a cross-shaped faith.  The vertical beam could be our relationship with our God.  We mortals made of dust reach to the heavens.    The first and great commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind," Matthew 22:37.  Christians strive to love the Lord with heart, soul and mind so that He shall abide in us and we in Him, John 15:4. That striving to reach God is bound to the horizontal beam, which could be the side-to-side relationship with our neighbors, whom we are to love as we love ourselves. 

Cruelty toward a neighbor is no more Christian than hating Christ would be.  Cruelty and hate are not Christian virtues.  They are not virtues at all.  A vertical relationship with God (Jesus loves me, I love the Lord), creates horizontal obligations (I will befriend the poor, the widow and orphan, the fellow Christian, the Jew, the Palestinian neighbor, whether next door or across the sea). 

I wrote before about an evangelical turn against empathy ("A Word About The Stranger," April 17, 2025 post).  Empathy is a virtue.  It allows any of us to place ourselves in another's shoes and see what we would want or need if we were in their place. What does a trans or gay person need to be safe in this world?  How does it feel to be bullied for one's gender or religion or status?  How does it feel to be without status, or to be hungry or homeless?   

There are Christians (which we might put in quotes) who have chosen power over principle.  I think we have to admit that these are mostly MAGA Republican "Christians."  Those who approve the the cutting of AIDS and vaccine research, the firing of 6,000 veterans who are Federal employees, the waste of $92 million on a military parade that is without history in our country, the end of Supplemental Nutrition for our poorer school children, and so on.  

Many speak out against this, but no one, I think, with more authority than Pope Leo XIV who in Sunday's Mass in St. Peter's Square asked that the Holy Spirit   

“break down barriers and tear down the walls of indifference and hatred. . . ."

 "Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,”

 the first American Pontiff said.  He did not name a specific country or leader, but it's hard to deny that the shoe fits us.

In our church on Sundays we say the creed. "We believe in one holy catholic (small c) and apostolic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the Life of the world to come."  The leader of the Catholic (large C) church, has told the world in this statement that there is no room for prejudice or political nationalism.  In our country today this is called Christian nationalism or perhaps, again, white supremacy. 

If we are being tested by the times we live in, we might say that many are failing.  But many are not.  Many are doing much to protect the weak, the sick, the old, veterans, children, refugees, the air we breathe, the principles we live by, our democracy. Opportunities abound.  Common Cause, Indivisible, MoveOn, The No Kings Team, the Contrarian, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, the Dworkin Report (a favorite), the Watchdog Coalition, Civil Discourse, all found on-line supporting community activism.  Plus opportunities for churches, non-profits, individual actions, community protests, voting, prayer, financial contributions and contacting Congress. What have I missed? One such opportunity is this Saturday, 1800 peaceful protests and counting across America on our first ever NO KINGS DAY.     

Christianity is a cross-shaped faith.  As a gift to us, there are calls to action everywhere and much for which to be thankful.  Let us rejoice and be glad.   

                                        Nina Naomi     

 

WISHES AND DREAMS ARE NOT WASTED

Wishes and dreams don't have to come true to have value. I'm taking this thought from the nature writer Sydney Michalski on Substack.  Maybe you know her.  Wishes and dreams are hopes and hope is good on its own.  It is never wasted.  As Emily Dickinson says, 

Our hopes may be dashed, this is not unusual.  But then the hope changes and continues to live.  Hope sustains us, whether the hopes are large or small.  Today I hoped my dermatology biopsy would turn out negative, and it did.  A hope fulfilled.  My husband's turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma and so we hoped they would get clean margins and they did.  Another hope fulfilled.  Last summer a spot turned out to be melanoma, so I hoped it was early stage and it was.  It needed no treatment beyond removal.  One hope disappointed but the second one fulfilled.  Were any of these hopes wasted?  Not at all.  

There is always something to hope for.  We each ultimately hope for a long life and a peaceful death.  But in the interim we might hope to get into college and then to graduate, to find a partner or be happy single, to find a job or be brave enough to leave one, to have enough to survive or enough to share.  Each hope today is for something tomorrow.  

A dream or wish looks to the future.  I hope I get to go the Florence again.  I want to see the ancient chapel where Dante met Beatrice, the Duomo, Michelangelo's David. This may or may not happen.  But the wish itself is lovely.  It sets to mind these beautiful places, my memories of them and the feelings that seeing them again would bring to my heart.  My breath enlarges, a bit of the awe returns.  Every time this wish surfaces something good happens to me.   The wish itself brings joy. 

A daydream is a happy thought.  Living in the woods, winning the chili cook-off, taking a dream vacation, remodeling the kitchen, being debt free, learning an instrument. . . .  These are all worth thinking about, each a dream that might become a plan.  

Michalski writes, "To look ahead to what is possible in the future, and fashion a thoughtful vessel to contain its potential, and offer it into the sweeping current of the present, could never be a waste of time." In nature that vessel might be an acorn, or a seedling from the Rose O' Sharon that jumped the fence and might bloom this year, or another forsythia plant emerging through the pine straw as a shoot from the root of my giant spreading shrub.  

In our lives that vessel is our heart.  As vulnerable as we are, as fragile as our hope may be, we set it afloat before our eyes and rest upon it.  And if it becomes a plan, we work to make it happen.  But in the meantime, if it brings some relief, or respite, or even joy, let's continue to wish and dream and thank that faithful thing with feathers that perches in our souls.  

Nina Naomi

THREE QUATRAINS AND A COUPLET

 I found some light verse I composed, just little chats with my Journal that I wrote on a day I needed to backtrack to a time when I was worried.  Goodness, I may have written these 4 years ago.  And even then it was a backtrack.  Do you ever do that?  Have a need to re-process something, not a present worry but something that intrudes less over the years, yet still intrudes?  There's a cost to this, it's said.  But writing an emotion gives you some distance from it.  You're not there if you can write about it, I've found.  Anyway . . . 

Me:  I tell you secrets.

Journal:  You can.

Me:  How can I be sure?

Journal:  Heart of my heart, we are one.

Me:  Sometimes I'm embarrassed.

Journal:  Oh no, please.

Me:  Please what?

Journal:  Please know that I welcome every word. 

Me:  You know why I started writing.  I was betrayed. 

Journal:  They betrayed themself too.

Me:  I should have forgotten by now.

Journal:  It doesn't matter if you forget.  It was repented.  You forgave. 

Me:  You can't change the past.

Journal:  No, it changes you.  

 

"WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU BUT TO DO JUSTICE?"

 Every morning I begin the day with a look at my phone--the New York Times, the Guardian and Substack.  Some of my Substack favorites are about nature, poems, watercolors, attention to the minute like a salamander or frog that lives happily on someone's front porch or daisies in a meadow (like mine).  

But I also get stuck in the news:  the wanton destruction of Ukraine and Gaza, the cruelty of cutting food for the hungry, medical research for the chronically ill, educational budgets for our school children, Medicaid for the deserving poor . . . the list is long.  When I think it can't get worse, it does.  Like the $4 million jet from Qatar or the attempt to exclude international students from Harvard.  (full disclosure:  My grandson is an international student at St. Andrews, Scotland.)  Or maybe the worst, some movie-inspired parade of military might on Trump's birthday. We've all seen those in old black and white Nazi propaganda clips. 

Many are saying that America isn't immune from cruelty, recalling Indigenous genocide (full disclosure again:  we just visited the Taos Pueblo, what remains of the sovereign nation of the Tiwa of New Mexico); the cruelty of slave holders; the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during the second World War.   Three groups that looked different from the whites with the guns or whips and power.  But it does seem simplistic to conclude that this administration loves cruelty for its own sake, as sadists do.  After all, what our president seems to love more than anything is gold and wealth, for himself and his friends.  Think of the golden escalator at Trump Tower (more disclosure:  we've ridden that thing) leading inexorably to the glorified new Air Force One from Qatar (no doubt embedded with golden listening devices).  

No, as analysts are noting, the demonization of immigrants, gay adults, trans youth, women who need abortions, Medicaid recipients, international students who might support Palestine, protesters, grant recipients, NPR and PBS (I loved Downton Abbey!), scientists, the judiciary, is not for its own sake but rather the playbook for fascism, dictatorship and white supremacy.  We live in a hard time.  

As a Christian, many wonder, what can we expect from our churches? In a different time, Martin Luther King Jr said, "The church must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." Surely this is true.  There is no conscience in this administration and its supporters.  No empathy.  No kindness.  To speak up is a duty; to waffle or remain silent, a sin. 

After the new Pope Leo XIV (Chicago native) appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's in Rome, a writer for the New York Times (David French, an evangelical from the rural South) noted:  Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.  We have an American of malice and an American of love and compassion.  French said, "Christianity is an ancient faith, one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we've ever confronted in the United States."

I find hope in this, that our faith will help us endure--not passively but in active protest--and that long after Trump is gone from public life, Pope Leo will be preaching the Gospel that has sustained us for over 2,000 years.  

We have two visions and only one is sustainable.  The Bible says in Micah 6-8, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your god?" 

There will be protests all over America on June 14, easy to find under No Kings, Mass Protest, June 14, 2025.  I signed up for our local one.  It is something we can do, a showing of conscience.  For what is required of us but to do justice.  

                   In peace, Nina Naomi

 

PESSIMISM IS FOR LIGHTWEIGHTS by Selena Godden

Think of whose that marched this road before

And those that will march here in years to come

The road in shadow and the road in the sun

The road before us and the road all done

History is watching us and what will we become

This road is all flags and milestones

Immigrant blood and sweat and tears

Built this city, built this country

Made this road last all these years 

This road is made of protest

And those not permitted to vote

And those that are still fighting to speak

With a boot stamping on their throat

There is power and strength in optimism

To have faith and to stay true to you

Because if you can look in the mirror

And have belief and promise you

Will share wonder in living things

Beauty, dreams, books and art

Love your neighbor and be kind

And have an open heart

Then you're already winning at living

You speak up, you show up and stand tall

It's silence that is complicit

It's apathy that hurts us all

Pessimism is for lightweights

There is no straight white line

It's the bumps and curves and obstacles

That make this road yours and mine

Pessimism is for lightweights

This road was never easy and straight

And living is all about living alive and lively

And love will conquer hate.

                  Selena Godden, b. 1972 Hastings, UK

 

IF YOU LOVE THE TREES, THEY WILL LOVE YOU BACK by Nina Naomi

 IF  YOU LOVE THE TREES, THEY WILL LOVE YOU BACK.

IF YOU LOVE THE BIRDS, YOU WILL WAKEN TO THEM.

IF YOU LOVE TO SING, YOU WILL LIVE YOUR LIFE SINGING.

IF YOU LOVE THE EARTH, YOU WILL TEND TO YOUR GARDEN,

WALK IN THE GRASS, GO BAREFOOT IN SUMMER, 

IN SPRING AND IN FALL, THEN SOCK FEET IN WINTER.

IF YOU LOVE THE NIGHT, YOU'LL STAY OUT AFTER DARK,

LIGHTS IN YOUR WINDOWS SEEN FROM AFAR, A CHILL ON YOUR ARMS.  

IF YOU LOVE TO CLIMB TREES, YOU WILL GROW UP THEIR FRIEND. 

YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THEIR TRUNKS IN YOUR ARMS. 

YOUR FEET FIND THEIR BALANCE, BY FEEL YOU CLIMB HIGHER,

A PLACE TO STRADDLE MAYBE A PLACE TO DANGLE, 

TESTING THE STRENGTH OF EACH LIMB, A PLACE TO SIT,

A PLACE TO HIDE.

THIS BRANCH WANTS TO HOLD ME. 

IF YOU LOVE A TREE, IT WILL LOVE YOU BACK. 

            by Nina Naomi 2025

A DAY OF WHALES

Southern California Shoreline

 This place we're staying, and which we leave on Monday has been full of magical experiences.  I mean the kind that evoke awe, that intake of breath where you feel respect, wonder or even a touch of fear, as when you first hold your newborn or witness her grown-up achievements, when you stand at the edge of a canyon or by a water fall, or when you swim with the dolphins or sight a whale.  Those things that take us out of ourselves so much that we don't want to move away. We all have them. We want to stay with the moment.  And when this happens in nature we receive a healing like no other.  

While I love home best, where I live does not have mountains or whales.  Our dear friends who live here in Santa Barbara, California have both.  History, mountains and valleys, whales and seals and dolphins, orange and lemon trees, a bit of the bohemian which I like, views from every hillside. I can't get over it.  

Yesterday was whale watching day.  We drove to Oxnard Harbour, about 40 minutes away, and booked a Winter Whale Watch.  The whales hang out in the channel between the southern California coastline and the Channel Islands, just doing their thing.  The day was bright and clear, gentle swells and blue-black water about six-hundred feet deep the captain said.  And all about humpback whales spouting, fluking and diving.  We stayed out for hours.  So many people live off the water, fishing, boating, sailing, diving; scientists, oceanographers, marine biologists.  What is miraculous for me is an everyday event for somebody else.  

But whales are special.  It's their size, isn't it?  There's something about size that pushes a natural wonder up into the awe category.  The mountains and valleys, looking up at the cliffs or down at the frothing waves.  We've been doing a lot of that.   And yes, we have the Atlantic off the North Carolina coastline, but our coast is sea level, not a cliff in sight.  Our wonderful sandy southern coast is too warm for a whale highway, or for seals.  

This has been a healing time, something I am always up for.  Nature helps depression, boredom, fatigue, stress; it even helps our grief.  We are as much a part of nature as any other animal, part of its rhythm, if we let ourselves be.  The whale watch was a group of 35 strangers with nothing in common but an overwhelming desire that day to take a boat ride far from land and see whales.  What an interesting thing to have in common.  We made space for each other, helped each other get a better view, shared the wealth.  

I suspect I won't see whales again for a long time. We have much else to do in our lives, most of it the ordinary chores of an ordinary day, nothing wrong with that.  Like most North Carolinians, we'll go to our own beach at some point and enjoy the hot summer days and humid nights, tiptoeing on the scorching sand and rinsing off before going indoors.  It sounds wonderful and I will be glad to be home. 

I don't usually make a general comment that Life is Good.  Because I know how varied our burdens are, my own included.  But as for today, why not accept it:  today this life is good.  Wow, that feels like a prayer.

      In gratitude, Nina Naomi