As we move through these unpredictable times it can be helpful to consider the beliefs, values and principles upon which we are basing our lives.
One of my favorite themes for preaching is “finding the sacred in ordinary.” We don’t really need magical beings to guide us, nor miraculous signs to lead meaningful lives. “Heaven” is pulsing deep within in every place and time.
We do not need a treasure outside ourselves to have value. Our human sentience is itself a treasure beyond reckoning. The more we base our values on increasing what we have the less we can enjoy each ordinary day.
And when we live too securely in our beliefs we can drift further and further away from the reality we are actually living. Unfortunately, many Christians are taught their beliefs are true because the church has said so in the past. But, yesterday’s truth can be a lie in our own day. Many of the troubles besetting our nation have been born of an effort to get back to an America that never really was in the first place.
If we are not adapting what we believe to what we and other people are actually living through we become religious and patriotic zombies feeding on the flesh of those who threaten to shatter our illusions. In my experience the fewer hypotheticals I base my life on the more accessible wisdom is in confusing times.
The more we base our activism on political victories the more likely we are to compromise our principles away. We don’t need political victory in our own lifetime to give our most important gift to the future. To faithfully carry our little lantern through dark times may be all the light someone coming down the road will need to lift up love’s torch and carry it into the future.
In some ways we are already in heaven if we have learned to see the sacred in the ordinary. It is a great day when we realize our greatest treasure is our character not our fate. It is a life of dignified joy to carry our little lanterns faithfully through dark times so that future members of our human family will find love’s torch still glowing and carry it into the future.