I kept telling myself I was not having a good year for photography this year, but when I went to look back at this year’s photos I felt a little more encouraged. Here are some of my faves (and I do not know why I am attracted to some of these pics).
Favourite pics of 2024
The Addiction of Greed
The eye of the greedy person is not satisfied with his share;
greedy injustice withers the soul. Ecclesiasticus 14:9
I want what I don’t have.
I like to think that having the thing I want – skill, object, experience – will make my life more complete. It will help me be the person I wish I was.
Greed is our foundational sin.
I’m pretty sure that is true.
Greed is an addiction.
We always want more.
Greed serves our need to be recognized and admired.
Greed serves our need to control.
Greed operates out of a sense of scarcity,
rather than a recognition of enough.
For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart,
those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord. Ps. 10:3
Greed is born out of our sense of incompleteness and restlessness. We are convinced that possessing that thing – money, power, resource – will improve our sense of self-worth. It may improve our net worth and increase some sort of power, but satisfying greed only increases our greed, lessens our self-worth, and increases our dissatisfaction.
Facing our own personal greed is necessary to live a good life. Undoing our greed will foster greater peace within and without
And Jesus said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ Luke 12:15
Corporate greed, however, is greed combined with institutional power. It is the foundation upon which colonialism and capitalism are built. Corporate greed is the reason for our growing wealth inequality. Corporate greed benefits the wealthy and punishes the poor. It is our most insidious societal sin.
In Buddhism the Sanskrit word Upādāna is the word for grasping or attachment. It is one of the primary causes of dukkha or suffering. So much of the suffering in the world is a consequence of greed – particularly corporate greed.
Such are the ways of all who are greedy for gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors. Pr. 1:19
Our greed is an addiction and perhaps we need a 12-step process to manage this addiction. Knowing and name the reality of greed and its damaging effects is important. As with so many things, an attitude of letting go or surrender is important.
Gratitude may be the great antidote to greed. It’s hard to hold both gratefulness and greed in one’s heart. Gratitude recognizes what we have is gift. Gratitude does not seek to dominate, control, or acquire. As Br. David Steindl-Rast, the great advocate of gratitude states, “If you're grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share.”
Trying to foster gratefulness in our hearts is an important step to counter individual greed. Fostering corporate/systemic gratitude is a challenge for which I have few solutions. I wish I could offer hopeful ideas, but they elude me.
What I can do is daily acknowledge my greed and strive to increase my gratitude.
House of Prayer
Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, ‘It is written,
“My house shall be a house of prayer”;
but you have made it a den of robbers.’
Luke 19:45-48
This past Friday’s gospel reading was about Jesus driving out the commercial ventures that were housed in the temple. It’s a text on which a lot of people place a lot of weight. It is often used to evoke questions about Jesus’ relationship with violence. Or it’s used to talk about the exploitation of the poor.
Those are all fine, but that’s not where my eyes and thoughts were directed. Jesus states “My house shall be a house of prayer.” Jesus’ complaint was that the purpose of the temple and the reason people come to the temple was for prayer. And these financial exploits were viciously distracting from that purpose.
I am struck at how Jesus centers prayer, and his anger is that the temple’s purpose as a place of prayer was being violated. Jesus’ iconic moment of anger and action was about prayer. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever thought it this story that way before.
I’ve been increasingly attentive to the centrality of prayer in Jesus’ life and teaching. A quick search of the gospels for verses having to do with Jesus and some version of the word “pray” yields four pages of verses. Curiously none of these verses are from the gospel of John. All this means is that John doesn’t use that specific word, but we know this book is filled with instances of Jesus in prayer.
Luke’s gospel is particularly attentive to the prayer life of Jesus. Immediately after baptism Jesus is seen to be in prayer. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,” Lk 3:21
Luke’s gospel has the most mentions of Jesus withdrawing to a deserted place to pray.
Luke 5.16: But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.
Luke 6.12: Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.
Luke 9.18: Once when Jesus* was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’
Luke 9.28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus* took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
Luke 11.1 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’
This final verse demonstrates that Jesus’ disciples recognized Jesus’ particular gift for prayer and asked to learn from him. In Matthew’s version of Jesus teaching the disciples to prayer he offers instructions not only in the words to say but that prayer is not to be a public display of piety or a wordy exposition but an intimate connection with God.
Another verse in Luke that has captured more of my attention recently is “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” (Luke 18:1). This instruction to “pray always” is echoed in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17) This goal of ceaseless prayer is a puzzling mystery for how one might live that out, but many monastic traditions in particular strive to make that a reality. While the mechanics of how to do this may be a mystery, this instruction is a reminder that prayer is to be a constant presence in the life of one following Jesus.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we are reminded that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 6:19) And so, as temples of God, we too are to be a house of prayer. The purpose of our very being is to be in contact and communion with our God.
As a Mennonite one of the central tenets of our expression of faith is captured in the German word “nachfolge” which means succession, or emulation, or following after. This word is used to describe our relationship with Jesus; that we follow in the way of or emulate Jesus. I’ve mostly encountered this being expressed as an ethical injunction. Follow in Jesus’ way of sacrificial peace. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a sermon on following Jesus up the mountain to pray. I’m not saying this as a criticism of my Mennonite family, but as perhaps a bit of a missed opportunity.
I wonder what Jesus’ act of clearing away the vendors and the moneychangers looks like in my life. How might Jesus clear those things that distract me from the purpose of prayer?
The centrality of prayer to Jesus’ life and ministry is important to pay attention to. His work was sustained and enabled through constant prayer. Jesus was a healer, a teacher, and a prophet. Jesus was all those things because Jesus was a man of prayer.
I don’t think much about my legacy or what my impact on the world will be, but when I have thought about it, the one thing I’d like people to think about me is that I was a man of prayer. I’m far from deserving that epithet but hope some day to earn it. I hope that some day I will be a house of prayer without distraction.
Morning visit to a prairie dam
Took a country drive this morning and happened upon a small dam.
There’s Demons in the Desert
I saw a brief article in the recent Anabaptist World about Mennonite colonies in Bolivia. Quoting John Bueckert of Providencia, “Our ancestors thought that if we were far away, in the countryside, there’s more possibility of controlling evil. We want to live like they did.”
Going out into the wilderness or the desert to escape the evils of the world seems reasonable on the face of it. Escaping and avoiding the things that destroy you is good self-preservation. Moving further to more remote places to escape the challenges of the world is a familiar Mennonite story.
Mennonites are not alone is in seeking escape from the world in the wilderness. There are many other examples of people heading out into the desert or wilderness for religious reasons. Their wilderness destination, however, was seldom a place to escape evil.
The desert fathers and mothers of early monasticism went out into the desert alone, only to be assaulted relentlessly by demons. For them, escaping into the desert was not a way to avoid evil, but to confront evil more intimately and severely. The stories of the desert father and mothers are filled with tales of battles with demons in the forms of people, animals and thoughts. It was in the desert that Jesus clashed with the devil who was luring him with fame and fortune.
The demons of the world – consumerism, vanity, vulgarity – are weak compared to the demons that assault from within – anger, lust, avarice, and despondency.
While I know very little of the history and experience of the Mennonite colonies in south and central America, stories of people in these colonies losing the battle against their own demons are not hard to find. Bueckert’s idea that there is more possibility of controlling evil in the wilderness seems to lack much evidence to support this wishful cause.