Friday, February 4, 2022
It’s a Shovel
and a Shadow
on Snow.
The Truth is There’s Lots of Hard Work
That Must Be Done.
Leviticus 19:32
You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
Romans 12:10
Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.
Words of Grace For Today
The other day on CBC radio I heard a voice describing how the Indigenous People have elders. I’ve known some of this for decades (a nice refresher – I’ve bracketed those particulars that may not have been provided by the voice on the radio) and some was new. [No one can themselves work to become or claim to be an elder. There is no age requirement, only that it takes decades to become wise. Time does not guarantee wisdom, though. There are many foolish old people. It is a recognition given by the community, one person at a time, until it is consented by most that this or that person is an elder.] An Elder does not hold all the wisdom that there is. Each elder is respected and sought out for the kind of wisdom that that elder is recognized for. One may be a spiritual elder, another a story-teller elder, another a healer elder, and so it is for each gift for which an elder is recognized and sought for guidance by others.
The old admonition to ‘defer to the old’ found in various ways in the Bible is not always wise advice to follow in all situations. As above, some old people are still very unwise and some outright foolish. The same goes for respecting one’s parents. Most deserve better than they get from their children. It’s a matter of children rebelling in order to find their own voice and way in life. Some children would be far better off if they had learned some respect for their parents and elders, and learned how to exercise that even while they found their own path in life. Outright disrespect which seems to expand with each generation and becomes so obvious in classrooms, where students do things to teachers that were unheard of just 10 years earlier! On the other hand, some parents, parents that neglect their children, abusive parents, parents that have sex with their teenage children, parents that would as easily kill their own children if they do not do everything to ‘make their parent proud’ … simple said these parents should not be left to be parents … and yet the communities, churches, and courts continue to do exactly that, evil and corrupt as they themselves are.
As in all things in life there are no simple equations or admonitions to provide to anyone about how they should live, from whom they should respect and take guidance, or where their loyalties should lie.
Paul, as many others before and since, provides the guide that applies ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS: we should love and honour each other, all of us loving and honouring all others.
Sometimes love and honour means telling the hard truths even when people do not want to hear them, especially when people do not want to hear the hard truths.
To lie in order to avoid a hard truth is not to honour or respect the listener, nor the abusive person spoken about. To lie in order to destroy someone who tells the hard truths is to dishonour everyone, starting with oneself, continuing on to the person lied about and the [abusive, mentally ill, corrupt, or addicted] person about whom hard truths have been told, to all those involved (for lies seem to spread like wildfire as if we humans lust for rumours about others’ sins), and most of all to the children who hear and live with the rumours, who know they are false and learn they cannot speak the truth for fear of reprisal. Yes, with these wide-spread, destructive lies we teach our children to accept lies as the normal manner of life, especially if one wants to ‘get ahead’, which starts out more basically: if they do not want to suffer at the abusive hands of their parents and/or others.
The story Jesus came to live, preach, die and be resurrected in order to give us is a simple and full story: God loves us all unconditionally and gives us renewed (forgiven and equipped) lives so that we can exercise that same unconditional love for all other people.
So we love and honour each other … starting with the truth, even the hard truths we would rather not face or speak out about.
Love and Honour, even our elders, and even the foolish people, no matter their age, and even those that are corrupt, evil and abusive.