Sometimes I go out with my camera looking for myself. Today was one of those times when I found what I was looking for. Not altogether. Not so I don't have to go again tomorrow. But enough for today.
SACRIFICE AND BLISS
Everybody wants bliss, but sacrifice is not for everyone. Jesus spoke about that, but generations of Christians, including me, misunderstood what he was saying. The Kingdom of Heaven that was described by Jesus as the reward for living appropriately has been misunderstood so completely that most Christians continue to think of the Kingdom as someplace out there in the cosmos where the people who have passed the test (been born again and saved) will finally get everything their hearts have ever desired, and “the afterlife” for all eternity will be absolutely wonderfully plentiful and beautiful and pain-free and blissful. Of course, that doesn’t make any sense when we think seriously about the teachings of Jesus, his essential message. The “Kingdom” is a state of bliss... and contentment and satisfaction... with the appropriately-lived life right here on terra firma in the short (or long, depending on point of view) period of time included in the approximately four-score-and-six years we are alive. Most people have heard about Rachel Beckwith whose nine years came to an abrupt end this year. She had told her affluent Mother that what she would like instead of birthday presents would be to raise money to send to an African village that didn’t have clean water. On a website set up by Rachel and her mother before her birthday, she explained the inspiration for her project. She set a goal of $300 but died in an automobile accident before she could raise that much money. In her memory strangers have made her birthday wish come true. In donations in all amounts, but many in the amount of $9 that Rachel had suggested, her fund has brought in more than a million dollars to date. My first impulse was to cry when I heard about Rachel’s wanting to raise $300 for clean water and then dying before it could be done, and then to cry some more when I learned about the kindness of strangers who had been moved to participate. My feelings about this little girl and her good heart and soul have moved me to a feeling of immense gratefulness for such a soul as hers and a sense that she intuitively must have known what Jesus was talking about whether or not she knew the stories.
In our culture birthdays are a time when we try to provide a wonderful experience for our children. The parties with games and the gifts are all about wanting the birthday boy or the birthday girl to feel very happy. We try to capture their happiness when we take pictures of them on that day and at other special times like Christmas. When we try to set up those happy occasions for our children, we usually do it with the same kind of thinking that people do when they imagine heaven as a pie-in-the-sky kind of place. Rachel obviously knew better. She was moved to want to do something for people who didn’t have what she had, people with great need, even for people she didn’t know. Wow! That’s so wonderful that it thrills me to think about it... a nine-year-old who understood what I didn’t get at all until I was much, much older. Rachel understood about sacrifice and was willing to sacrifice; and she wanted it not so she could get a ticket to a place called heaven but because she wanted to do the right thing for other people.
Rachel’s sacrifice, and my having watched and listened recently to a discussion between Bill Moyers and the late Joseph Campbell, set me thinking about the subject of “Sacrifice and Bliss,” the title of the fourth program in the Moyers/Campbell Power of Myth series that was broadcast on National Public Television twenty years ago. I have been helped along this week in my thinking about sacrifice by something that happened in my own family. My son David went to hospital for a procedure that was expected to be routine, that would cause him to be mildly uncomfortable for a couple of days. The situation became very serious when on the day after the procedure his temperature rose dramatically indicating infection that could have alarming consequences. He is doing well now... white blood count and temperature normal. He won’t be able to eat for at least a couple of weeks and will take nourishment and medication through a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line. It’s a little like Ramadan with not eating anything even after the sun goes down or Lenten season giving up not just chocolate or beer but everything. David has always been someone who finds the good in even an uncomfortable situation, so he said to me that one of the values of this experience already is that he has been reminded that eating is such a wonderful part of being alive.
On my way back home from the hospital, I was thinking about those people Rachel wanted to help by giving them clean water and about the people in Sudan and other places especially in Africa who are literally dying of hunger and lack of clean water... and that started me thinking more about what Joseph Campbell was saying about sacrifice and bliss... and that led to my thinking about what Jesus said about how difficult it is for people “to go to heaven” if they are rich... and suddenly I knew that the heaven he was talking about wasn’t a pie-in-the-sky mythical place.
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Parallel versions of this story appear in Matthew 19:23-24, Mark 10: 24-25, and Luke 18: 24-25. I had always assumed Jesus was talking about a place after death. Now I see that the Kingdom of God is something else altogether. It’s not a place for cashing in your chips and collecting a reward in the sweet-by-and-by. It’s the bliss Rachel was experiencing because she had decided she’d rather do something for people who had great need than to get something for herself. Bliss isn’t a gleeful exhilaration like seeing fireworks or opening a beautifully wrapped box and finding something wonderful. Campbell couples bliss with sacrifice, suggesting that one may not be likely to occur without the other. I’ll bet there was sadness in Jesus’ voice as he spoke about the dilemma of rich people. Jesus was saying something that is actually sad about rich people, something counter-intuitive. The “rich” person who has the financial means to buy absolutely anything that is available to buy and as much of it as anyone could ever want and have so much left over that there is no reality or sense of having given up something to have it can’t ever do what Rachel did. Oh, the rich person can do what some of the wealthy people in the world do, people like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. We are all grateful for them and for the good work they do. I am full of admiration for them. What Jesus said about the rich man and the camel and the eye of the needle wasn’t a criticism of rich people like the Buffetts and the Gates. I had always thought it was. Now I can hear the sadness in his voice as he told the parable because he was saying how difficult it is for people who have everything to experience the bliss that comes from sacrifice. It wasn’t scorn as I had always thought, but sadness. The richest person in the world could give up ninety-nine percent of all he has and still have enough left to buy anything he could want. Even moderately rich people can give away lots of money and still have enough left over so there is no sense of having sacrificed anything. I am not a rich man, but I am well-off enough that I never have to think when I give something to a “good cause” (we call it making a donation) that perhaps I can’t buy that camera I’ve been considering. Where’s the bliss? Jesus was talking to me about now, not about pie-in-the-sky.
Everybody wants bliss, but sacrifice is not for everyone. Jesus spoke about that, but generations of Christians, including me, misunderstood what he was saying. The Kingdom of Heaven that was described by Jesus as the reward for living appropriately has been misunderstood so completely that most Christians continue to think of the Kingdom as someplace out there in the cosmos where the people who have passed the test (been born again and saved) will finally get everything their hearts have ever desired, and “the afterlife” for all eternity will be absolutely wonderfully plentiful and beautiful and pain-free and blissful. Of course, that doesn’t make any sense when we think seriously about the teachings of Jesus, his essential message. The “Kingdom” is a state of bliss... and contentment and satisfaction... with the appropriately-lived life right here on terra firma in the short (or long, depending on point of view) period of time included in the approximately four-score-and-six years we are alive. Most people have heard about Rachel Beckwith whose nine years came to an abrupt end this year. She had told her affluent Mother that what she would like instead of birthday presents would be to raise money to send to an African village that didn’t have clean water. On a website set up by Rachel and her mother before her birthday, she explained the inspiration for her project. She set a goal of $300 but died in an automobile accident before she could raise that much money. In her memory strangers have made her birthday wish come true. In donations in all amounts, but many in the amount of $9 that Rachel had suggested, her fund has brought in more than a million dollars to date. My first impulse was to cry when I heard about Rachel’s wanting to raise $300 for clean water and then dying before it could be done, and then to cry some more when I learned about the kindness of strangers who had been moved to participate. My feelings about this little girl and her good heart and soul have moved me to a feeling of immense gratefulness for such a soul as hers and a sense that she intuitively must have known what Jesus was talking about whether or not she knew the stories.
In our culture birthdays are a time when we try to provide a wonderful experience for our children. The parties with games and the gifts are all about wanting the birthday boy or the birthday girl to feel very happy. We try to capture their happiness when we take pictures of them on that day and at other special times like Christmas. When we try to set up those happy occasions for our children, we usually do it with the same kind of thinking that people do when they imagine heaven as a pie-in-the-sky kind of place. Rachel obviously knew better. She was moved to want to do something for people who didn’t have what she had, people with great need, even for people she didn’t know. Wow! That’s so wonderful that it thrills me to think about it... a nine-year-old who understood what I didn’t get at all until I was much, much older. Rachel understood about sacrifice and was willing to sacrifice; and she wanted it not so she could get a ticket to a place called heaven but because she wanted to do the right thing for other people.
Rachel’s sacrifice, and my having watched and listened recently to a discussion between Bill Moyers and the late Joseph Campbell, set me thinking about the subject of “Sacrifice and Bliss,” the title of the fourth program in the Moyers/Campbell Power of Myth series that was broadcast on National Public Television twenty years ago. I have been helped along this week in my thinking about sacrifice by something that happened in my own family. My son David went to hospital for a procedure that was expected to be routine, that would cause him to be mildly uncomfortable for a couple of days. The situation became very serious when on the day after the procedure his temperature rose dramatically indicating infection that could have alarming consequences. He is doing well now... white blood count and temperature normal. He won’t be able to eat for at least a couple of weeks and will take nourishment and medication through a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line. It’s a little like Ramadan with not eating anything even after the sun goes down or Lenten season giving up not just chocolate or beer but everything. David has always been someone who finds the good in even an uncomfortable situation, so he said to me that one of the values of this experience already is that he has been reminded that eating is such a wonderful part of being alive.
On my way back home from the hospital, I was thinking about those people Rachel wanted to help by giving them clean water and about the people in Sudan and other places especially in Africa who are literally dying of hunger and lack of clean water... and that started me thinking more about what Joseph Campbell was saying about sacrifice and bliss... and that led to my thinking about what Jesus said about how difficult it is for people “to go to heaven” if they are rich... and suddenly I knew that the heaven he was talking about wasn’t a pie-in-the-sky mythical place.
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Parallel versions of this story appear in Matthew 19:23-24, Mark 10: 24-25, and Luke 18: 24-25. I had always assumed Jesus was talking about a place after death. Now I see that the Kingdom of God is something else altogether. It’s not a place for cashing in your chips and collecting a reward in the sweet-by-and-by. It’s the bliss Rachel was experiencing because she had decided she’d rather do something for people who had great need than to get something for herself. Bliss isn’t a gleeful exhilaration like seeing fireworks or opening a beautifully wrapped box and finding something wonderful. Campbell couples bliss with sacrifice, suggesting that one may not be likely to occur without the other. I’ll bet there was sadness in Jesus’ voice as he spoke about the dilemma of rich people. Jesus was saying something that is actually sad about rich people, something counter-intuitive. The “rich” person who has the financial means to buy absolutely anything that is available to buy and as much of it as anyone could ever want and have so much left over that there is no reality or sense of having given up something to have it can’t ever do what Rachel did. Oh, the rich person can do what some of the wealthy people in the world do, people like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. We are all grateful for them and for the good work they do. I am full of admiration for them. What Jesus said about the rich man and the camel and the eye of the needle wasn’t a criticism of rich people like the Buffetts and the Gates. I had always thought it was. Now I can hear the sadness in his voice as he told the parable because he was saying how difficult it is for people who have everything to experience the bliss that comes from sacrifice. It wasn’t scorn as I had always thought, but sadness. The richest person in the world could give up ninety-nine percent of all he has and still have enough left to buy anything he could want. Even moderately rich people can give away lots of money and still have enough left over so there is no sense of having sacrificed anything. I am not a rich man, but I am well-off enough that I never have to think when I give something to a “good cause” (we call it making a donation) that perhaps I can’t buy that camera I’ve been considering. Where’s the bliss? Jesus was talking to me about now, not about pie-in-the-sky.
2 comments:
Your comments go deeply to the core of the matter. You enlighten me every time you speak or send an email. Thanks be to the Good. Ben
Thats an amazing post. That little girl, so sad, what a wonderful human being she was.
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