Beloved
by God
“A
story is told of the Buddha when he was wandering in India shortly after his
enlightenment. He was encountered by several men who recognized something
extraordinary about this handsome prince now robed as a monk. Stopping to
inquire, they asked, ‘Are you a god?’ ‘No,” he answered. ‘Well, are you a deva
or an angel?’ ‘No,’ he replied. Well, are you some kind of wizard or magician?’
‘No.’ ‘Are you a man?’ ‘No.’ They were perplexed. Finally, they asked, ‘Then
what are you?’ He replied simply, ‘I am awake.’”
Jack
Kornfield (A Path with Heart, p.56; Bantam Books, 1993)
Clearly
the whole notion of “wokeness” has become a stumbling block for many
conservative Americans. The Buddha’s idea of being awake is similar but not the
same. Being awake means that you see what is. You don’t try to gloss over conditions
of life that are hard to accept or painful to remember. The Buddha’s family tried to shelter him from
knowing what the world was like by keeping him away from it, but once he made
his own decisions, once he wandered into the world, they could no longer
protect him. And seeing what was—that people had suffering as well as joy in
their lives—he became enlightened. Which is to say, he knew the truth. In fact,
the word Buddha means to awaken.
And in
the 6th century BCE, he stood out—people noticed that he was
different, but they didn’t know why exactly. Perhaps he had that same glow
around his head that people reported seeing around Jesus. Jesus stood out, too,
and for the same reason—he was different. He told people who lived in squalor under Roman
occupation that they were the salt of the earth, beloved by God. That
they were, in fact, the chosen people of God. Words they desperately needed to
hear because their suffering was great.
If we
are awake, we know that there is suffering both within and without, both
individual and collective. But there is also joy in abundance. Some of the
poorest people in the world are the most giving. I’m watching the people of
Kentucky, hit by monster tornadoes, trying to wrap their heads around what just
happened to them. The damage to their town, and to them personally, is
staggering. On one street alone, eight children were killed. But people from
everywhere are coming to help. One man from Arkansas drove to Mayfield
with his grill and a truck load of burgers and hotdogs to feed the people who
are trying to clean up the wreckage of lives and livelihoods the storm left
behind. Sometimes we are most awake when we are stretched to the limit.
You don’t
have to wander too far into the world to discover that we are not “all in this
together.” But we can help each other and care about one another’s wellbeing.
We can pray and grieve for the losses and send whatever money we can spare. We
can let the people know that they are not alone. We can hold them in our hearts.
As more of us awaken, the world will transform into a kinder, gentler place.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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