Being Here

If for so many good reasons, I try to extend respect to others, I also want to receive respect in return. But that is not the way of the world, is it? Nor is it the way of many who claim Christianity—not even toward other Christian groups or traditions. To fully entrust that expectation of respect to others—including those who dislike or disagree with you—would be more than innocent or naive, it would be unwise and trust misplaced, wouldn't it?

But if not respect, then what about tolerance? Surely that is a reasonable expectation. As I posed the question in my essay Out of the Box:

So, how about this: I’ll live my life as well as I know how, and others can do the same. We will try, so far as we are able, to respect each other. But failing that, we will politely tolerate each other. Civility. I can live with that. How about you?

But even the guarded hopefulness you might struggle to infer from that question might be misplaced, even naïve, might it not? We are not nearly ready to see each other as one family of humanity, and certainly not as one family of God. It is not the way we’ve evolved genetically or been molded socially, culturally—or at least not most of us. As my pastor is wont to say, it’s not heaven yet.

We are competitive and contentious as a species, and given too much to disagreement and argument. Not only are we contentious and disagreeable among our different nations, races or ethnicities, cultures, religions and ideologies, we are constantly disagreeable within them. We are continually in the process of finding reasons to distinguish or differentiate ourselves from others, lift ourselves above them or remove ourselves from them. This is an observable, predictable process, and we are too often unpleasant and hurtful in doing it. And it all breeds deep prejudice and discrimination, anger, even hate. It’s clearly not heaven yet.

And sadly, being an outwardly religious person too often has little effect on one’s inclination toward contentiousness, prejudice, and discrimination. For as we have lamented, religion too often and regrettably has more to do with distinguishing, defending and strengthening various cultural and political identities than humbly loving and serving God by loving and serving others. It’s not much like heaven in some religious communities either.

(But for those who hear the voice of the One who calls, accept the invitations that lead to new life and changing identity in Him, then more and more, nothing short of respect, compassion, forgiveness—even love—will do.)

So, if loving one another, even respecting one another, is too often just not in the cards, not realistic, don’t we have to reach even more earnestly and insistently for tolerance, at least? Can’t we make an effort to focus on those personal or group characteristics that we can appreciate or accept, and work from there? Can’t we make a better effort to just get along? In the name of mutual safety for ourselves and our families, in the name of peace on shared ground and in common spaces, can’t we agree to patiently and politely abide one another? Can’t we at least get over the lowest bar of tolerance and civility?

We should be able to do this. Flawed creatures that we are, we still should, wouldn’t you think? You’d think we could do it in the name of intellectual understanding, knowledge and wisdom. But not so. You’d think we could do it in the name of civilization or common humanity. But no. You’d think we could do it in the name of God. But still no—and ironically, sadly, it is this very intolerance of other people, and the attendant attacks and warring ventures against them, that have so often been identified with people who claim faith in God.

But eventually, won’t this “flattening” world, this evolving but loosely woven global economy and society force us to abide, if not respect, our different neighbors? Since the world is pushing us more and more together, since we can’t help but encounter each other daily as we more often share the same living places and work places, perhaps we can find ways to be more understanding, more patient with one another. Out of social or economic necessity, through some measure of assimilation, or because of the inevitable laws that have become necessary to protect the public order and welfare—nationally and internationally—we’ll find our way there, won’t we? Perhaps. In its time, if it has an appointed time. And, God willing.

God willing. That’s the rub, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just not part of the deal, not the way it’s all been set up to evolve. Maybe it would even defeat the greater Purpose of it all. If the primary purpose is that we discover and seek relationship with the One who calls us, and then a transcendent and eternal identity in Him, we might next ask, how? We could then recognize that another key purpose of it all might be to make clear, reinforce, and continually reiterate the inherent shortcomings and failings of humanity, the limitations of the temporal human experience. And in this way, the quest might be better understood, redefined and redirected. That is, it’s not heaven yet. Not here. Not now. Our eternal, spiritual citizenship is Elsewhere.

I know that this understanding could be for many a troubling explanation of things. But I only report what history reports, what I see observing the world and its people, what appears reasonably evident to me given my experience and sense of identity—and also what the Bible and reverenced writings of other faith traditions also seem clearly to affirm.

These sources and research science, too, continually remind us that the world is constantly passing, with its cycles of birth and death, beginnings and endings. And our lives and identities are passing along with it—the people, places and experiences, and who we used to be. On a larger scale, cultures and nations pass, too, and with the longer cycles of cosmic events, so do most all species of all life forms.

And one day, eventually, the Earth as we know it will also pass away—rendered deep-frozen lifelessness, exploded into scattered cosmic debris, or imploded into nonexistence. Only faith and hope sustain me, and only humility and love usher me into a transcendent, timeless relationship with the One who calls us. And my mysterious, abiding-in relationship with Jesus increasingly opens the door to a sense of shared identity and spiritual existence with God that endures—now and, in some real sense, forever.

First written: November 2006 and updated January 2007 in my Identity's Complaint essays.
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007