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“Thinking of Brussels and all of Belgium,” courtesy of Flavia Pennetta on Twitter.

I woke this morning, like all of you, to the news of the terrorist attacks in Belgium. I thought, as surely all of you did, “What can I do?”

What can any of us do?

As a practicing Catholic Christian, Holy Week gives me an answer.

I attended mass on Palm Sunday, just two days ago, where I heard the gospel writer Luke report that Jesus saw the city of Jerusalem and wept, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes…” Jerusalem was a stand-in for God’s chosen people, which Jesus knew included everyone.

Surely Jesus is weeping today – for Brussels, for Belgium, for the world, the victims and the perpetrators.

We do not know how to make peace. It eludes us at every turn. We have tried more sanctions and surveillance, anger, revenge, violence, and profiling to no avail. We have won individual battles, but we are losing the war. We have to find another way forward – at least in our own hearts, because that is where all lasting change comes – from the inside out and the bottom up. And I think about how Jesus acted during the final days of his life and it gives me a clue about where to begin.

The Buddhists have a term for individuals who act as Jesus did in the world, especially as he entered Jerusalem, knowing he was going to his death. They are called SPIRITUAL WARRIORS. 

A spiritual warrior is “one who combats the universal enemy; a heroic being with a brave mind and ethical impulse.” The spiritual warrior’s “only complete and right practice is that which compassionately helps other beings with wisdom.”

I believe that is how Jesus entered Jerusalem. He went, full of compassion for the brokenness of our world, in order to teach us another, wiser, way to be.

While some Christians cling to the idea that Jesus’ death paid our debt to God, I don’t see it that way. Honoring a divine blood price and human sacrifice sounds far more like something the Islamic terrorists would embrace than the God that Jesus’ humble, loving, and merciful life revealed.

Theologian Ronald Rolheiser wrote a beautiful alternative metaphor of how Jesus’ willing, sacrificial death might have accomplished the same purpose of universal love and salvation, but through an entirely different mechanism.

Jesus took away our sins in the same way a filter purifies water. A filter takes in impure water, holds the impurities inside of itself and gives back only the pure water. It transforms rather than transmits. We see this in Jesus. Like the ultimate cleaning filter, he purifies life itself. He takes in hatred, holds it, transforms it, and gives back Love. He takes in chaos, holds it, transforms it, and gives back order. He takes in fear, holds it, transforms it and gives back freedom. He takes in jealousy, holds it, transforms it and gives back affirmation. He takes in Satan and murder, holds them, transforms them and gives back only God and forgiveness.

This is it friends! This is how we can live like Jesus, no matter what our faith, or belief system, or even if we have none at all.

 In fact, I guarantee you are already doing it! Every time you act, instead of react; every time you hold your child’s fear, your friend’s anger, your life’s chaos, and give back something better, you are the holding tank and the filter of Love.

But in these difficult times, we have to crank up our internal filtering systems and start working overtime. We have to pay attention to what’s coming in and be intentional about what we are putting back out, because that is what a spiritual warrior does and that is what we are all called to be! Of course, some of us are called to be military warriors as well, to work on the front lines of defense against terror and violence, but we are still called first and foremost to be spiritual warriors, especially if we call ourselves Christians. Only by holding and transforming hate into Love as Jesus did will we meet the evil of this world with a more powerful force than itself. Remember what Paul affirms for us: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love NEVER fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:7. If Love appears to be failing, it is because we haven’t really tried it yet.

Mark Nepo says that the spiritual warrior is “someone who is committed to a life of transformation not knowing where it will take them, or what it looks like,” but that you can be sure “they have a crack in their heart, because that’s how the mysteries get in.” Jesus wept because his heart was full of cracks; it was broken open for all of humanity and we must allow the same to happen to us if we have any hope of being a part of the peace-making process in the world. I don’t know what it will look like, but I know we must begin there.

I had plans to commemorate Holy Week in church settings: to share Jesus’ last meal, recall his final words to his family and friends, and observe his persecution and death, but my piety has evaporated in the face of tragic reality. This week instead, I’m going to learn all I can about the victims of today’s bombings, the ones who ate their last meals and spoke their final words and walked to their deaths, not willingly, but betrayed, as Jesus was, by the worst of blind, ignorant, and fearful humanity. My faith demands that I hold them, as I would hold Jesus this week, in Love. I don’t know what difference it will make, but it is what the cracks in my heart ask me to do.

I know I quote Richard Rohr way too often, but he is so good and as always, he gave me a path forward just this week. In his daily meditation on Saturday, he wrote, “True spirituality is about keeping your heart space open. It is daily, constant work. The temptation is to close down: to judge and dismiss and hate and fear.” But if we are training to be spiritual warriors, we have to resist that temptation, because giving into it means deserting the work of God in the world, which is Love, mercy, reconciliation and healing. Richard goes on: “You have to work to live in Love, to have a generosity of spirit, a readiness to smile, a willingness to serve… Love is a choice. You have to deliberately, consciously, intentionally choose to stay connected through your practice to the Source of Love, which is the heart of God.”

Practice, warriors, practice! This week especially! Every time you remember, every moment you have to spare, let the cracks in your heart be a filter for Love. Breathe in the pain of the world and breathe out healing and wholeness. Breathe in the hate and breathe out forgiveness. Breathe in the judgment and breathe out compassion and mercy. Breathe in the toxicity, pain, and fear of humanity and breathe out Divine Love. And although I know we cannot bring new life to Belgium at the end of this Holy Week, we will be bringing new life to the world from the inside out.

In the words of one of my heroes, Carry On Warriors!

P.S. The list of the victims is very sketchy still, so I can not name any as of yet, but when I am able to find more information, I will try to update the blog, so perhaps you can hold them in your hearts with me during this Holy Week.

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end-happy-ending-quote-saying-Favim.com-680495_largeI believe in happy endings, but before you dismiss me as a romantic, let me clarify.

A happy ending isn’t the same as “happily ever after.”

A happy ending isn’t limited to times when you get exactly what you want.

A happy ending doesn’t mean there’s no darkness on the horizon and it definitely doesn’t mean nothing bad is ever going to happen again.

A happy ending is simply this: in the end, there is some possibility for redemption, a glimmer of hope that all is not lost.

I don’t know when we started to lose our capacity for hope as a nation, but it seems to me we’re on our way and in some Western societies, they’ve arrived.

The Washington Post ran a commentary this week by Michael Gerson, which described the practice of euthanasia in Belgium, a (seemingly) civilized society. When afflicted with a serious, or terminal illness, it is a basic right in that country to have assistance in carrying out your own death. The Belgian courts recently extended that right to prisoners with mental illnesses, saying in essence, if you don’t want to be alive, who are we to stop you? In fact, it’s our moral and legal obligation to help you.

My heart dropped as the writer considered the implications of the ruling. At what point is mental illness considered terminal? At what age do we give up hope for successful treatment and recovery? At what point do we start believing that the “right” to commit suicide when facing cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, or the like, is actually a duty, or obligation? At what point do ailing individuals feel like they must act on the perception they are taking up too much space and time in their homes, or society? At what point past our prime do we become undeserving of our space?

In the last year alone, 1,800 Belgians exercised their right to die, up 25% from the previous year. Are these numbers a sign of a need that was previously unfilled, or of a society who has lost their cultural belief in happy endings?

When everyone surrounding you believes that who and what you are in this moment is all there is, then you are in trouble (and so are we). The one who is suffering cannot be relied on to see the route to healing for themselves. That’s asking too much of them, to carry the burden of their pain and the weight of possibility as well. It’s our obligation to hold that hope for them. We may not feel like happy endings are real, but we’d better believe it anyway, because it’s the only hope for our future.

A happy ending says that when everything is lost, something can be gained. When we are broken, something new will be made. When all is dark, it’s because we can’t see the light, not because the light doesn’t exist.

While we are well, we need to repeat these truths to ourselves over and over again, so that we can remember them when the bad days come.

Every day, in public schools across America, kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance, claiming that our nation is “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” It’s a good thing too, because the evidence to the contrary is everywhere. It doesn’t always feel like our country is on the right track, but our common belief in those foundational values allows us to press on and reach for our higher selves, instead of giving up on the system. We need to bring that same level of commitment to the way we value life itself, not just the structures that govern it.

As individuals we can’t believe in happy endings all the time. That’s why we have to believe in them as a society, as families, as parents and spouses and siblings and friends. We have to talk about them, share them, celebrate them. We have to saturate our culture with the knowledge that just because we can’t see the way out, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I find it discouraging that so much of our cultural conditioning leads us to believe that ‘happy endings’ are for fools and fairytales. Happy endings are for fighters too. Like Winston Churchill, I believe that we can “never, never, never, never give in.” But Belgium has. In the name of choice, they’ve lost sight of our collective human responsibility to struggle together to make meaning from our lives and our deaths.

I am not unsympathetic to those in mental and physical pain. I would never make a blanket judgment about someone’s obligation to live through unspeakable suffering, or the choices they make in those moments, hopefully surrounded by loved ones. But I want to make my stand on the side of hopefulness. James Finley, one of my teachers, commented recently, “Few people in hospice recover, but many people in hospice are healed.” Healing, of any kind, is a happy ending, for those who are leaving and those left behind.

Ultimately, a happy ending isn’t primarily about how we face the end of our lives, though that’s what got me thinking about the subject. A happy ending is about how we face the disappointments we are handed each and every day: the too-small bank account, the unflattering gossip, the college rejection letter, the nasty fight with our spouse, the team our kids didn’t make and the friends who don’t want to play. Do we believe something good can come from this bad?

No matter how many movies, books and songs try to convince me otherwise, I believe in the power of happy endings. When I look the “bright side,” it’s not out of naive optimism, or willful ignorance. It’s an intentional choice. How else will I meet those final challenges without a daily practice in the hope I claim?

Where is my happy ending? Right here, wherever I am.