What MATTERS Is The Miracle of All Human LIfe Made in God's Image - Whether Black or White, Red or Yellow, and Blue Blood Too!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                                      ― Marianne Williamson

                      “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an effort to win a soul for God.”

                                                         - Author Unknown

“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But unfortunately that statement represents a short-sighted focus, a misguided focus – the myopic focus of one generation of Americans after another now being taught in Godless schools and universities; of generations of young people with Godless attitudes and a values void largely due to the exclusion of God and His truth from the public forum.

“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But why settle for such an insipid statement that asks us to think so small about any human life – to think simply that life matters, that somehow and for some reason a human life is a plus and not a negative? And God forbid that you should ask that secular society for some rational explanation as to why you should think this! But leave it to our abortion culture, and now our infanticide culture, to think in such small terms, in such dull and mundane terms, about the value of a black life, a white one, a blue one (police!), or a red or yellow one.

The fact is that our society and schools, silent and without feeling for the killing of our children, have wandered far off from the Light of God. Our society and schools have totally lost a sense of the wonder and miracle of each and every human being. In Judeo-Christian tradition – largely ignored by mainstream media today – the basis for this wonder and awe in the face of even one human soul is the concept of dignity. It is the incredible concept that every human being, irrespective of color or creed, is a child of God made to uniquely mirror the divine image.

The dignity concept tells us that each and every human soul is “beyond all price”. Every person has inestimable worth and value.  It’s not a question that a human life – any human life - simply matters.  It’s more the case that a human life, any life made in God’s image, has “power beyond measure” to  make a decisive difference in this world – power in fact to make all the difference in the world. And a society that respects human life has a moral imperative to make sure that each any every human life has that chance, has that possibility.

I can recall an event back in the 1970’s that perhaps can illustrate the power and potential of one human soul. The Holy Father, John Paul the 2^nd, was hosting a youth rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During his presentation there was a power outage and for moments over 25,000 young people sat in total darkness. Then one young man lit a candle. Applause rang out through the massive assembly, for all could suddenly see in the glow of that one light. What was that light worth? What difference did it make?

In fact, that light made all the difference in the world. They say that the overthrow of the Communist regime in Romania started in the same way – with the lighting of one candle by Daniel Gavarol. What else can happen with one light, one life? If it’s a single light in a steeple of an Old North Church and the year is 1776, that light has infinite potential, unlimited possibilities, and incredible power to make all the difference for the future of our world.

So also is the power and potential of the light that is each human life. Each of us has that same power to decisively grace the world with our own unique light, a song that only I can sing, a poem that only I can pen, a book that only I can write, an idea that is uniquely mine - for when God made each of us, “He made an original, not a copy, a copy, a copy…”

The potential of each human life? Don’t think small here, and settle for an idea that somehow it is a question that a life “matters” versus having no value. Open to the infinite possibilities and unlimited potential of each human life - and especially open to the “power beyond measure” of that life if that person is open to the help of God. “God times one – you can’t put that number on the board!”Look at Mother Teresa! Just one person open to the promptings of Grace, responding unreservedly to the irresistible leadings of the Holy Spirit, and the Light of that one life has forever changed our world, has lit our world with the radiance of the noon day sun.   

So what is that light worth, the light that is each and every human life? Compare the potential light of each human to the Light of Jesus. Oh yes, the comparison is valid. St. Paul tells us that all the honor, wealth and prestige he had before knowing Jesus was as dung to him. The Light of Jesus, the Person of Jesus, was worth more to him that all rank and privilege, than all the gold and silver in the world. But doesn’t Paul in saying this also mirror to us the love in the heart of the Father for His Son? Furthermore, as God’s children made in His image, this inestimable value of the Son is precisely our worth as well in the eyes of God? Were we not bought with the price of His blood? In union with Jesus are we not now like Christ a child in the arms of our all-loving Father?  

Only a Judeo-Christian society resting securely on its biblical foundations can even begin to see the grandeur and glory of even one human life. For the Bible forces us to see the incredible sanctity of life, to see life through the eyes of a Father’s love for us. God’s Word compels us to contemplate all human life as the Father of us all Himself sees it: the life of even one person as infinitely precious in His sight; the human soul as worth more to have than the chance to have the whole world (Mt. 16:26), or the chance to gain the glory and wealth of all creation.  What more does the Lord’s Love shown forth from the Cross tell us, if it does not tell us this?

But is our sick society today capable of rising up as out of the darkness of a cave into the grandeur of this light – the light that is the inestimable value and worth of each and every human life?

As a father myself there have been so many powerful moments where I know I have seen that light, where the Grace was given to see the value of even one life through the eyes of God’s Love. Much as God Who “so loved the world”, as the Lord Who did not spare His own life for us, what would I not give for the life of my child, for one who is flesh of my flesh, life from my life?

There have so many decisive defining moments in my life that have made abundantly clear for  me  the answer to that question. But one some years ago I remember most of all. I remember it all too well, in every detail. Often in fact, I relive it as if it were yesterday, or as if it were only moments away in my recent past.

It was a day when I almost won “Megabucks”, a lottery game in our state – and as my luck with lottery games goes, believe me this “almost won” moment was for me a once in a lifetime experience. I had four of the six numbers. The fifth number was one digit off from the correct one. The sixth however was nowhere near to the right one.

I remember remonstrating with the Lord about this: “Lord, could you  not have given me wealth today?” And then I went on and on to Him about all I would do with the money to give glory and honor to God. I felt like the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7, haggling with the Lord for the healing of her daughter. Her importunate pleading paid off. The Lord was pleased with her persuasive protestations and her persistence. He answered her prayer and healed her daughter. But in answer to me the Lord was silent – or so I thought.

It was not even an hour later after this dialogue with the Divinity that my youngest son came home. He looked shaken and fear still cast a dark shadow across his face. In an agitated voice he told me that on the way home only moments ago he had almost been killed by a car while on his bicycle. The car had rapidly and recklessly backed out of a driveway, forcing my son out into the middle of the road only then to face an oncoming car. Miraculously he had dodged the first car and also avoided a head-on collision with the second.

There have a number of times in my life when I know the Risen Lord has spoken to me. One of those moments was then, as I looked into the face of my ten year old son and loved him. Just at that instant I heard the voice of God say to me: “Did I not give you wealth today?”

Tears filled my eyes. I had received this day the “wealth” only God can give, the “wealth” that money cannot buy. God had given me the life of my son. What would I give for that life? Would I give even “Megabuck millions” for the life of my son? You know the answer. His life to me was and is more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. Since that day to now my prayer before the Lord, the Father, their Holy Spirit has always been to fill my life with their “wealth”, the “wealth” that money cannot buy, and the “wealth” that once God gives it the world cannot take away.

What is that “wealth”? It is the lives of my children, my wife, my family, my friends – the lives of all the people God has given me to love as He loves: as His children made in His image and likeness; and as such, infinitely precious in His sight, of inestimable value and worth. This day the Lord rejoices over each and every one of His children, and renews them in His Love. This day He sings with joy even because of you. (Zeph. 3:17-18)

Proclaim then in whatever way you can the real value of each and every human life, all children of God marked with divine dignity and called to a most divine destiny. Stand up and stand out with the grandeur of this light of biblical truth in the face of a dark and demented world all around us today – a sick world that aborts its children, or even allows them to be born only to be slaughtered and sliced open for the harvest of vital organs; a perverse world where untold thousands of Christians and so many others are being killed in the name of some sinister and unholy crusade.

Tell that sick society the price paid in Christ’s Blood for each of those lives lost to the evil inhumanity and barbarism that is really out there in the world of our own day and time. Tell them the real value of each and every one of those lives lost – young or old, infant or aged, black or white or blue (police!). Tell them of the Gospel of God: of the call by the Father to each of His precious children, to each and every human life – the divine call to Holy Communion with God through oneness with His Son, the call of Love from the Father to an eternal intercourse with God, the call of the Divine Bridegroom to all humanity His Bride to become one flesh, one body, one heart, one life with Him forever.     

Baltimore Riots - A Warning to America, a Warning to All Humanity

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                         ― Marianne Williamson

                 “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an effort to win a soul for God.”

                                            - Author Unknown

           

            There is something that tears at the very heart of me when I see American teens emptying out of their public schools and then rioting in our streets - teens from public schools leaving their “educational facilities” and then robbing, looting, destroying property, and all the while attacking and assaulting police in the process.

            What’s happening in this country? Or should the question rather be: “What’s not happening in this country?” To cut to the chase here, are these students in Baltimore public schools, or in public schools anywhere in America, being taught the substance of the Marianne Williamson quote above? What is that the substance and foundational core of that quote? It is that you are a child of God made in His image, with a soul therefore of inestimable value - a soul therefore with power beyond measure because it is capable of making manifest in this world the Glory of God that is within it.

            This is what is not being taught in the public schools of this country. This is what is not happening in this country. The young today in the USA do not know their inherent dignity as children of God made in His image, the inestimable value of a soul that has the power to mirror the divine in this world. There is no limit to God. So also, there is no limit to a soul made in His image. There is no limit to how high that soul can reach, no limit to how far that soul can go on a journey to excellence for love.

            When liberal minded educators today remove such teachings from our public schools because of their biblical basis, tragedy happens. When they forbid the teaching of such foundational truth, spurn such core values like a student’s dignity as a child of God made in His image, the stage is set for societal collapse. It becomes only a matter of time before the disturbing images from Baltimore begin to spread like a disease throughout our country, before the moral and spiritual decadence those images represent become the norm throughout our nation.     

            But where educators and professors do teach this foundational truth, the biblical concept of a student’s dignity as a child of God, amazing events happen, even miracles happen. People’s lives are transformed, elevated to the heights of the extraordinary, to the heights of excellence. I think of such real life miracle stories as those captured in films like “Stand and Deliver”, “Coach Carter”, “Freedom Writers”, “Miracle”, and “Dead Poets Society”.

            In each of these films an educator or a coach dares to think differently, to think “outside the box” of what the liberal agenda allows or what a godless curriculum demands. The educators in each of these films build their teaching efforts upon the biblical truth of human dignity (Gen. 1:26-27): that their students are children of God made in His image. They respect this inherent dignity of each and every one of their students. Accordingly, they set goals and expectations that “raise the bar”, that summon their students to reach for a level of academic and athletic performance representing nothing less than consummate excellence.

            The results are phenomenal. In each of these movies – save one (“Dead Poets”) - the stories told are based on real life accounts. Each film narrates a tale of incredible events that unfold in the lives of students taught their inherent dignity; in the lives of students called to high expectations – called to reach for dreams, goals, and noble aspirations only capable of a soul made in the divine image.

            In essence, each film simply tells story of students realizing their innate dignity – of students realizing their “power beyond measure” in the pursuit of the extraordinary (So Professor Keating’s term in “Dead Poets”), the “uncommon” (Herb Brooks term in “Miracle”), the outstanding, the prodigious, the arcane; of realizing the inestimable value of their lives and their souls in the actual achievement of works indicative of nothing less than consummate excellence, even genius.

            So America, wake up! Our educational efforts with youth today are doomed as long as our schools exclude from the public forum all reference to God, His word, and biblical values. That word and those values have been throughout our history the basis of our law and the bedrock and foundation upon which our society stands. But now we are building our future on sand, and as such our posterity will only “inherit the wind”.

            Even now, all-pervasive throughout our land is a generation of youth that no longer understands the power and potential of a human being made in God’s image. In fact, in our society’s darkness attitudes toward human life have gone deeper and deeper into the night. Turning from the Light of God, it is a society sick and blind that sees human life as cheap, not good enough; that treats the child of God as trash and not treasure, as a piece of junk and not as the jewel they are in the eyes of Christ, as a piece of cheap glass and not as the diamond they are in the heart of the Father.

            Given the rejection God and Heaven widespread throughout America today, our society already sees, feels, and experiences what the lost souls feel in the torment of Dante’s Inferno – that they are “no one”, and therefore expendable, disposable. How many among us feel nothing less than this today? How many in fact feel that they are disenfranchised, cast out, forsaken; or, that their life is cheap, of little worth, easily to be left out or discarded? What else can one feel in a society that yawns in the face of abortion, in a society that stands silent in the face of ISIS slaughter, in a society obsessed with violence in its media, amusements, and movies?

            But there is something else among us that one can know and feel. In schools where the teaching of God and His Christ are honored, there is something else that people still experience in most dramatic ways. Students in particular still experience their inestimable value and dignity, the transforming power of the human soul made in God’s image. It is “power beyond measure”, a power within every person that impels us to reach for and achieve brilliance, beauty, wisdom, ethereal truth, love like only God can love. It is Power, a Spirit within, that exalts each of us to the heights of the divine; a Power, A Spirit, that like a “wind beneath our wings” enables us to climb the sky and perch on mountain peaks – all toward the end, the goal, the dream, that each of us can do what we were born to do: reflect in our own unique way the Glory of God within us all.                

              

The Tree House in the Moonlight, or: The Wealth Only God C an Give

                 

             Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God…Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where it comes or to where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

- John. 3:5,7

            Then turning to His disciples He said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

-Luke. 10:23-24

            The tree house is way up on a hill in the woods behind my family’s home. Built high up the trunk of an old and mighty oak over twenty years ago, the tree house though unfinished still stands tall and proud today. Its open view of the fields and meadow beyond the edge of the forest below remains as majestic and magnificent as ever.

            To get to the tree house my sons and I built a switchback trail up the hill. Tim was in the fourth grade at the time. Pat was in 7^th. The tree house is not at all that far into the woods, requiring perhaps a little more than a hundred steps to reach it. It is a climb that even now in my twilight years I can handle, and more than my family knows I will often climb the path to that awesome house in the tree. I do so because the house is holy site to me. It is a place where the Lord taught me ever so clearly and powerfully what a blessed man I am – blessed with the wealth that only God can give.

            I remember so well the night of Grace when I received that teaching. It happened sixteen years ago. Tim was nine by then. Pat was 12. It was July 31^st, the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It was a most beautiful summer night. The moon was full, and there wasn’t a cloud in the starlit sky. There was a soft and cool summer breeze blowing steadily through the trees in the forest. The wind was moist and refreshing, coming from the south and east, therefore blowing inland with ocean air from the Atlantic only an hour away.

            It was later in the evening, around 10:00 PM, when through open windows I could hear the sound of the summer winds blowing through the leaves of the forest trees. The sound was tantalizing, alluring, exciting, even enchanting. I went out to our back deck where I could clearly look up the hill into the forest, directly toward the house in the midst of the trees moving in the winds.

           

            It was then that I first noticed the awesome sight that added to the refreshing breeze rustling through the leaves. As the leaves swayed in the wind they literally sparkled in the moonlight. The forest seemed alive with bright little specks of spraying light – reflected moonlight that shined off the leaves, as with sounds like excited children, they seemed to sway and swing in the summer winds.

            I got a flashlight and headed out into the forest. I had to go up to the house in the trees. As I climbed I turned off the flashlight. The forest was so full of scintillating moonlight filtering down from the leaves that I did not need any light of my own.

            I prayed as I walked. The presence of God was so palpable. His Spirit and Love seemed to permeate the woods and the wind. I felt no fear in the darkness. The Lord was with me.

            I reached the tree house. Climbing the ladder, I lifted myself from the forest floor into the tree above. Soon I was sitting in the unfinished home high up the oak tree; and like that tree and all the trees around I was swaying in the currents of the wind.

            I sat in the solitary chair we had in the house. It was the only one we had taken the time to carry up there from our home below. It was a sturdy chair and comfortable – easy to rock in it too. It was also high enough that I could look out the wide openings in the wall frames, openings for spacious windows that would give awesome views toward scenery on every side.

            As the tree house was unfinished, with only the side frames up and no completed walls or roof sections, so the breezes blowing through the trees also moved easily through the house. Their speed as they brushed by me was unimpeded, and their refreshing coolness unabated in any way.

            I sat there and prayed in what seemed to be a mystical setting. I prayed my own original version of the Jesus prayer: “Jesus and Mary, I love you…” Over and over one says those words with deep and calming breathes – the names of “Jesus and Mary” invoked while in haling; “I love you…” on the exhale. Even as the Bible tells us, to invoke the Divine Name of Jesus is to summon His Presence. And already on this night I could say with the Apostle John, that I was experiencing His Risen Life present in power to my own life – “the Word of Life…which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, was made manifest” to me. His Love was so alive in the winds, in the scintillating moonlight radiating off leaves swaying in the summer breeze, His Life so completely permeating His creation with nothing less than Real Presence.

            While I prayed I looked out beyond the forest from high in my perch toward the open meadow behind our home. At times I would gaze at the full moon, and the silver glow moving out from its center and filling the night sky. And with every breeze I gazed at the leaves moving in the wind, sparkling with reflected moonlight. At all times I felt God’s Presence, as if all creation this night was breathing with the Spirit of His Love.

            Now there was a rustling heard down below, a movement through the leaves on the path leading up the hill to the house in the trees. It was Tim, my nine year old fourth grader. Though after 11:00 PM, he was moving up the hill in the dark without a flashlight. Did he know that Dad was in the tree house? I think he did. But still he called up to me, “Dad, you up there?” and I assured him that I was.  

            Tim climbed up the ladder and entered the tree house frame. Then he laid down on the treated deck wood floor right beside me to my left. With arms arched back behind his head, he gazed up at the moon through the trees.

            We didn’t talk much. It was enough for him to be there with his Dad. It was enough for me too just to share the beauty and power of this night with my son – above all though to share the sense of the Spirit of God so alive in the light and wind. In fact, once Tim came I understand that something very important had been missing from the power of this night – the chance to share the Love and Joy which was anointing me. Is it ever enough for us to have Jesus only for ourselves? Or in the encounter of His Love, are we not driven irresistibly to share Him with others? I think of the excitement of the Apostles who upon meeting Jesus, rushed to share Him with friends and family.

            Now there was another sound of rumbling from down below, moving ever closer and closer up the path to the house in the trees. It was Patrick, my twelve year old seventh grader. Without a word he came all the way up the path in the dark, and joined Tim and I in our perch high up in the huge old oak.

            Following Tim’s lead, he also laid down to my right on the floor boards beside me. Then he too focused on the trees branches above, moving in rhythm with the breezes of summer. In silence now all three of us watched with awe as the leaves sparkled with reflected moonlight, as they swayed and vibrated in the currents of the wind.

            So there we were. Now past midnight, then past 1:00 AM… We were drawn into the enchantment of a night forest all aglow with scintillating moonlight, so alive with wind, Spirit, Presence. Hours went by like minutes. Like Peter before the transfigured Christ, we wanted to stay before this feast of Joy, Love, Peace; Spirit, Power, Freedom. Like Peter, we did not want to come down from our little mountain. We did not want this moment in time to end.

            After 2:00 AM my sons and I left the house in the trees and climbed back down the hill to our home below. His Joy was in us and our Joy was full – the Joy and Peace of the Love only God can give. That Love had touched us and filled us in a most extraordinary way this night. Yet for myself, there was more than that. I realized that a blinding Light of illumination had come over me this night, anointed me if you will. I was coming down from my own Mount of the Transfiguration with a new knowledge, a new wisdom. From this night on I knew for certain the Grace, Gift and Blessing which the Lord bestows upon the believer. I now had eyes to see what many prophets and kings wanted to see but could not. Really, I was made to know by the Spirit this night the magnitude of the wealth which filled my life, wealth which money can’t buy and only God can give.

            The wealth only God can give… There on the hill, in the house in the trees I had felt it, and not only in the Glory of His Love which filled the forest and which fills all of creation. I had felt it most of all in the love of my son to my left, in the love of my son to my right. I had felt that wealth at the thought of my wife’s love and the whole of my family’s love, my family safe, secure, asleep in our home below – and all of this love enhanced and energized by His Love Present in power to our love as well. Thus, I had felt the wealth of God most of all in the Church present to me.

            Up there high on the hill, in a house high up the old oak tree, I had felt a true foreshadowing of the communion of Saints sharing in the Triune Life of God. I had seen a glimpse, looked upon and touched something of the breadth, the length, the height and depth of that Love known only to those filled with all the fullness of God - known only to those filled with a Love which reaches out from a Sacred Heart pierced and broken for us, and a Love which then draws us to Himself.