November is a lot of things here in the United States. First, and hardest to ignore this year, November is the month of revolution. Leadership of the country faces an attempt to overthrow and replace them, not necessarily with better, every two to six years, depending on the office. I'm not going to perpetuate the American lie that the revolution is a peaceful one, carried out without violence. and that, unlike non-democratic countries, no one gets hurt when the revolution comes.
rev·o·lu·tion : revəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n - noun 1. a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. synonyms: rebellion, revolt, insurrection, mutiny, uprising, riot, rioting, insurgence, seizure of power, coup (d'état).
There's the definition of revolution, and it's obvious that we don't really have one. We use the word as a metaphor, but the reason that the metaphor works is because there is an element of truth. Or maybe whoever decided to start calling civil pressure and voting things like peaceful revolutions and nonviolent revolutions created a self-fulfilling prophecy that we would act like elections are revolutions. Because I don't know about you, but I haven't seen much peace in this country since the campaigns got going. I understand that bullets aren't flying, but words are weapons too, and they do damage. People are fighting with neighbors. blocking family on Facebook, ending friendships and relearning how to really despise and reject and hate each other over this peaceful, nonviolent, harmless war we have going on.
Now, please don't get me wrong. I understand this is not true physical violence. Nor is it as physically dangerous or deadly. I would not insult the men and women who have served this country in real war zones with the idea that the smack talk on Facebook and Twitter is as horrible as the bullets flying across the sand in Afghanistan. And I did 7.5 years, day for day, in prison, and I can assure you I know the difference between yelling and a real riot. That said, words are weapons. I remember a few fights that will always be there, times of violence that pop into mind when I begin thinking of such things or when something triggers them. But there are words spoken to me or about me in my youth that I am still fighting to recover from and break free from today. So, with the last week that is left in this peaceful war, maybe we can remember to love our enemy and stop with the hate. Hate is not healthy, spiritually or physically.
November is about health, if you believe whoever designates the months as this or that month of awareness of whatever. Here is what we're supposed to be aware of for the entire month: Diabetes, Lung Cancer, Pancreatic Cancer, Alzheimer's, Epilepsy, Diabetic Eye Disease, Mental Health, Child Mental Health, Melanoma and Healthy Skin. It's also the month of the "Great American Smokeout," which I won't be participating in and always makes me want barbeque. Still associated with health, but maybe not quite the same as the above, it is the National Month of Family Caregivers, National Home Care Month, National Hospice Month and Prematurity Awareness Month. Finally, something not health related, it's the American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month. And those are just the month long things. Like we don't have enough we need to be aware of, each month has long lists of what we are to be concerned about and focused on, most have week long things and then there are many individual days for causes and concerns as well. I'm not going to take the time and space to list all that mess here. I've more than made my point, but I hate to deprive you, Dear Reader. If you are truly interested or even just mildly curious, I will provide the link to the awareness page for each and every month of the year at the close of today's Unshackled Moment.
The point is that we see mostly health issues as the focus of the month. Hate is not healthy, but I don't think it causes diabetes or lung cancer. Still, if we are going to get all health conscious before we turn ourselves into over indulging gluttons at the end of the month and selfishly eat all the candied sweet potatoes and potato salad before our brothers get a chance for seconds, in the name of thankfulness of course, then let's look at the health that matters. We get a 24 hour reprieve from insanity and bondage contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
That means when we are spiritually healthy we get to live a life more closely resembling sanity and free from the things that control our lives when our thinking isn't right (sane). We have a God who can restore us to sanity just by spending time in conscious awareness of His presence and seeking relationship with Him. It's awesome. But the flip side is that when we get off track with that relationship, sanity begins to slip away. And, not trying to be mean here, seriously, but if you've been SCREAMING at people, cutting people out of your life and generally treating the other side of whatever side you are on like the enemy, then it's time to evaluate the old spiritual health monitor before sickness sets in or gets worse. If you are angry at a person because they think and believe differently than you do and therefore won't associate with them and yet you call yourself a Christian, then you are out of line with maintaining proper spiritual health.
I say this because I care, and I want us all to be as spiritually healthy as possible. I want us all to be walking deeper into love with Jesus, not breaking His heart, and not pushing people who haven't met Him yet further away because they're afraid that our sickness is contagious. We like to talk about how Jesus ate with the sinners, the prostitutes and such. He touched lepers and hung out with outcasts. But do you know who else He ate with? Pharisees.
First, that ought to encourage us when we stop to think about how often we make the love of Christ conditional and dish it out or withhold it in an attempt to manipulate behavior or morality. In other words, while we love to associate with the grateful outcast, we who are Christians, on a general and broad scale, have far more often been guilty of acting the part of the Pharisee and doing the casting out of people we deem unfit, unworthy, and, by our actions, unloved of God.
It's sinful. Jesus got harsh with the Pharisees because they were supposed to understand that even the Old Testament scriptures were about God's love, that the central core of the law is. was and always will be love. But they weren't healthy. They were sick. Jesus said their insides were stinking death. And when we treat people like enemies, then we are walking the path of the Pharisee, not the path of Christ. I'm not saying that what the other side wants, whichever side is opposite yours, is going to be a good idea for the country. They may very well be enemies of the United States with the policies that they want to put into place.
But guess what, Dear Reader. You weren't called to be a good American. I love this country, and I respect those who want to defend and protect it, with guns and with ballets. Vote your conscience and do what you believe is best. Preferably pray about it. If you are passionate about what you believe, then by all means share those thoughts. Maybe your words can help change the country. But before anything and all else, you were called to follow Jesus. And Jesus told us to love our brothers and sisters. And Jesus told us to love our enemies. He said to pray for those who are mean to us and use us. He said to turn the other cheek and respond to unkindness with love. He showed by refusing to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery that He is about mercy and not judgment until the time for mercy is over and judgment must rise up (by the way, you and I will have nothing to do with that judgment part...He is the Righteous Judge. We're just being jerks when we hold people to a standard that we ourselves can't keep without grace).
Jesus ate and fellowshiped with traitors to the chosen nation of God and with the religious fools who had taken God's chosen people from the relationship of love with their Creator and led them into a system of self-righteousness. He ate with both. He loved both. He died for both. He died for me, and I have been both traitor and hypocrite.
People are not the enemy. Our fight is not with flesh and blood. So if you want to be spiritually healthy, the first thing to remember is that love is the answer. Love made it possible for us to have relationship with God. Love died in our place. Love accepted us, completely, as we are, even when we were at our darkest point, in our deepest sin, and when we were enemies of God. Wait, didn't you say people aren't enemies? I did. And I can say that because of Love. We were enemies of God, but God didn't treat us as such. He treated us as kidnapped children who are greatly loved. Instead of waging war with us, His enemy, He paid a huge ransom to bring us home to Him. I didn't say people couldn't be enemies of God. I said those who follow Jesus can't treat people like enemies, because God's response to His enemies was to make a way to restore relationship.
He loved us when He had every right and reason not to, and if we have nothing else in our life, that is more than enough to inspire gratitude for life. And that, I'll try to wrap this up Dear Reader, is the second key to being spiritually health conscience, thankfulness. Gratitude matters. Gratitude can change our life. Understanding God's great love for us and all that He's done and responding with thankfulness helps us remember that He is our source, our refuge, our strength, but most of all, He's our Daddy who loves and cares for us. Thankfulness is so important to us spiritually. It can help us keep from relapsing back into our addiction to self. When we remember all we've been forgiven with gratitude, it makes it easier to forgive others. When we see how little we deserve God's love and yet how much He loves us and are truly thankful for it, it makes it possible to love those who are still dancing in the dark.
Maybe after all the non-love it is so easy to get wrapped up in during election years we all need a good dose of remembering the love of God and all that we have to be thankful for. Maybe that's why Thanksgiving is at the end of November, to give everybody time to calm down and realize we need to show some gratitude. It's not historical. The first Thanksgiving was in February. Some have taken the idea of Thanksgiving further.
Like Advent prolonging the focus on the coming of Love to walk among us and take our place, some make the entire month of Thanksgiving about being thankful. Trying to remember something specific to be thankful for every day for thirty days. Now, of course we should be thankful daily and year round, but we should also remember that Christ was born to take our place year round. There's nothing wrong with a special focus from time to time, especially if and when we've been living in fear rather than gratitude. So let's be extra grateful, extra thankful this month. Let's be spiritually health conscious and start fighting some of the sickness. Let our thankful hearts produce and spread love, the antidote to all that we have to be ungrateful about.
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