A Fragment of Light in You, In Me
“Tikkun Olam. There is a Jewish legend behind this notion. Sometime early in the life of the world, something happened to shatter the light of the universe into countless pieces. They lodged as sparks inside every part of the creation. The highest human calling is to look for this original light from where we sit, to point to it and gather it up and in so doing to repair the world. This can sound like an idealistic and fanciful tale. But Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who told it to me as her Hasidic grandfather told it to her, calls it an important and empowering story for our time. It insists that each one of us, flawed and inadequate as we may feel, has exactly what’s needed to help repair the part of the world that we can see and touch.” (Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It)
There is a fundamental truth that underlies how I see the world and my place in it. It is that God first loved me, forgave me, embraced me as I am, and continues to give me abundant love and mercy every day of my life. Believing this, I am compelled by Jesus in the Gospel (Luke 6:27-38) to treat others in the way that God treats me. It’s not how I think I should treat others or whether or not I feel someone deserves my love and mercy, but how God treats me and every other person in this world.
That changes things for me. It shifts my approach to how I interact with and do for others what God always and everywhere does for me. This is no easy or touchy-feely thing. I can’t see others in the same way as before. If I believe that God always and without end loves me and forgives me then I cannot treat another human being, stranger or not, unclean or not, worthy or not, in any way that dehumanizes that person. My regard for the person who lives in poverty halfway around the world must be the same as my regard for my kin, my family, the ones I love and cherish.
I am stunned by the revelation. It is so clear to me what Jesus was teaching his disciples and the people who listened to him. Not that I understand the whole of it, but it’s more in focus than ever before. Love your enemies. If someone asks, then give without measure, without expectation of reciprocity. Have mercy and compassion for all people, even the person who sins against me, even the stranger.
Why? Because this is how God relates to us! God loves, has mercy toward, has compassion for all people the same. And it’s an overflowing mercy, an unmerited mercy and grace and love. The same. For all. There are no bounds, no walls, no obstacles to God’s overflowing love and mercy. Except, of course, the walls and obstacles I build myself.
The more I realize this in my own life, in my own experiences, I can do this more toward others. My heart, my will and my mind expands to include all people. I either believe, in my bones, that all people have inherent dignity given by God or I don’t. If I don’t believe this, or only believe for a chosen few, then what is happening in the world at this moment makes sense to me. I can’t help but believe in the inherent dignity of all people because that is how God sees me, the sinner that I am. The indescribable love and mercy and generosity of God for me impels me to love in that way.
My heart is expanding. It calls to mind the words of Fr. Greg Boyle: Every person is unshakeably good, without exception. I am unshakeably good. You are unshakeably good. The unwanted people in our midst and beyond our borders are unshakeably good.
How will I respond? To help “repair the world,” recognizing the inherent dignity of all does not mean that I am a doormat or that I am naive to what is happening around me. I am not weak or a loser if I practice this love. I believe it takes courage to see others in this way so that my actions and words reflect light. I see this as a resistance to the evil of the present time. Let’s resist it together, from where we sit toward what we can see and touch.
Let our prayer be: Help me to see and believe, Lord, that you love me abundantly, without me having to earn it; that you forgive me even if I don’t deserve it; that you embrace me as I am right here and now. Help me to see and believe in your abundance, Lord. Expand my heart and heal me so that I can see all others as loved in the exact same way. Give me the courage to then choose to love as you first loved me. Amen.
