Religion Is as Religion Does

October 31, 2023

Beloved: 
          I read lots of books.* A friend helped me plant 155 tulip and daffodil bulbs.  I walked on the beach and swam in the ocean.  I played with my granddaughter.  I sewed until my fingers and neck positively ached.  And I slept and I slept and I slept.  All of which is to say my three weeks of vacation was, to quote Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.

          In the time I’ve been away from work, the weather has turned in southern Indiana and the most punishing of wars has ensued in Palestine.  I can’t remember grieving any war like I’m grieving this one.  I can barely stand to look at the images, yet we must not look away, not while other parents dig through rubble searching for their buried children.  150 babies delivered daily by doctors without enough water to wash their hands nor the pain meds those mamas need, even for c-sections.  Ten of their twenty-five hospitals are gone.  Gone.  Because one group picked a fight they could not possibly win and the winner is determined to punish not just them but man, woman, child, grandma, grandpa, tree and flower in their extended neighborhood.  Punish them to death and then some, it seems.
          “There’s long history connected to the land,” they say.  Of course.  “And religion too.”  No doubt.  “And contemporary politics between other countries in play that complicate the situation.”  I know all that as well.  I’ve heard all these in references to the war recently, as well as “those people will never be at peace” — my least favorite for its smack of blanket racism.  Every statement like these tempts us not to see what is happening in real time in Palestine.      One of the poorest, most densely populated places in the world is being leveled by the strongest military in the region backed by the richest country in the world.  Of course there is political nuance all around, but the reality on the ground is just that — reality.  A reality in which parents write their children’s names on their little legs in case they are discovered in the rubble.
          As a precious colleague once said, if your religion allows for such things, you need a new religion.  Mine doesn’t.  The Christ who calls us to solidarity with the least of these makes no such allowances, let alone support of such terror and destruction, such dehumanization of one’s neighbors.  Religion is as religion does, for all of us, and all I know to do is pay attention, name the truth, speak up for the oppressed and spend my privilege on their behalf when and where I can.  It’s very little in a world that needs a lot, but neither is it nothing.  May God find us faithful to all this day requires.

~ peace & prayers, 
pastor annette

Vacation Reads
The Violent Bear it Away, by Flannery O’Connor /fiction
The Wager, by David Gann (He also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon) 
Dead Wake:  The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson
The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (my favorite of the bunch!) /fiction
Europa, Europa:  A Memoir of WWII, by Solomon Perel