Elevation

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With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  James 3:9

Perspective is everything.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I travelled to Colorado to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary.  At sunrise on the morning of our anniversary, we climbed into the basket of a hot air balloon and floated on a seven-mile journey.  This was our first balloon ride, and we were surprised at how quiet and peaceful it was. But it was the view that caught our imagination – it was breathtaking and it gave us a new perspective on the landscape we had been traversing for several days.

Unfortunately, you can’t float above the earth forever and after an hour and a quarter we came back down.  Since then, we have been hit with an avalanche of bad news:  an upswing in Covid, wildfires in the West, hurricanes in the South, flooding in the Northeast, and legislative decisions that make no sense.  At times it seems like we’re living through the apocalypse. 

But, it’s all about perspective.

A couple of days ago we attended the traveling Holocaust exhibit “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away…”  This certainly put our problems in perspective. Here was the story, told through artifacts and videos, of people who truly lived through the apocalypse.  To say it was hell on earth is not a strong enough metaphor.  They were victims of unimaginable hatred, unimaginable evil.  Going through the exhibit was a somber experience to say the least.  It brought up a number of emotions, one of which was hatred for the Nazi perpetrators of this horror.  Seeing this quote didn’t help –

“My family had it good in Auschwitz, every wish that my wife or my children had was fulfilled.  The children could live free and easy.  My wife had her flower paradise…There was always something new and interesting in the garden.”

Rudolf Hoss, Kommandant of Auschwitz (1947)

Nor did this –

“I was a German engineer and key member of the Topf works and I saw it as my duty to apply my specialist knowledge in the construction of crematoriums to help Germany win the war, just as an aircraft construction engineer build airplanes in wartime, which are also connected with the destruction of human beings.”

Testimony of engineer Fritz Sander (1946)

Again, it’s all about perspective.  These men had a twisted perspective about what they were doing.  From their perspective they were just doing their jobs.  From my perspective, they were worthy of my hatred.

Then I thought about the perspective of “my mystic” Etty Hillesum.  Etty was a victim of the Holocaust, murdered at Auschwitz.  She never gave in to hatred for her abusers.  To have done so would have been to betray who she was at the core of her being.  To have given in to hatred would have been to betray the God she had come to love so completely.

I keep returning to this quote by Etty –

“I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.”

Hating Nazis is cheap and easy.  Hating what they did is one thing, it is quite another to hate the Nazis themselves.  Hatred diminishes us.  Hatred betrays who God created us to be.  Hatred is a product of our false selves.

I was recently made aware of an English mystic named John Butler.  You can find his videos on YouTube.  John, like Etty Hillesum, strives to live authentically.  And like Etty, he sees that our struggles arise not from external circumstances, but from our internal reactions –

Within each of us shines a similar sun
Dependent on nothing, beholden to none,
In all things sufficient, with freedom and bliss,
It’s there from our birth, and it’s what a man is.
Now that you may query, but look and you’ll find
How your sun gets hidden by clouds of the mind.

Clouds of the mind, as he puts it, skews our perspective.  We must be free of them if we wish to see clearly.  What clouds are you dealing with?  Prejudice?  Hate?  Fear?  None of these are from God.  None of these belong to your true self.  They weigh you down and keep your spirit from soaring.  Let them ago.  Who knows what you might see from a different elevation.

Grace and peace.