The center cannot hold…but love can win
The body of a four year old boy washes up on a Mediterranean shore.
Elementary school children are shot in their classrooms while we share “thoughts and prayers” which do not deter other school shootings.
Some say that we should arm teachers.
Proxy wars starve hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and the civil wars in Syria dislocate similar numbers of innocents.
World leaders draw lines in the sand with inflammatory words and actions. We close our borders to the asylum seekers, hunker down and begin to see others as different from ourselves, as the enemy.
It portends a fiery finish to a world caught up in violence and despair.
There does feel like there is no place to hide, no safe place, no sense of peace to cling to.
It’s the words in Yeats predictive “things fall apart. The center cannot hold…”
On May 19 the British showed us something that we had forgotten.
As Prince Harry and Megan Markle joined in the ancient ritual of marriage, those of us who witnessed this pageant were prompted to recall that there are places and times where the center is strong, where dedication to moral and ethical standards, old ones at that, can show us the way.
This young couple were predictors of what might be.
Joining in what was a magnificent ceremony that blended the very old with the new, English with American sensibilities, we saw that the world can be kind, even exuberant.
Bishop Michael Curry, the homilist at the wedding, reintroduced us to the concept of love.
He reminded us that the world can be lead with love. Even the “red carpet” of guests, dressed in their finery, the exquisite carriages, the show uniforms of Harry’s army unit the Household Cavalry’s Blues and Royals, the excitement of the hundreds of thousands of well wishers gave credence to that assertion.
It was all to celebrate a wedding. To share in a show of love
Even more important is the idea that a wedding is a community event.
A couple pledges to be faithful not only to each other but to the community as a whole.
The community in its witness validates that union. And in this lovely Anglican ceremony, this couple acknowledged their bond before God and these witnesses, as the words of the marriage service proclaim, “it enriches society and strengthens community.”
It is the community acknowledging the power of love, of commitment.
That power of love as described by Bishop Curry is universal, powering the good of the world. He quoted Teilhard de Chardin who, as both a scientist and cleric described fire as the great human revolution that has made modern life possible.
Teilhard then tells us that when we harness the redemptive power of love we will have reinvented fire, a fire different from that generated by aggression, sabre rattling, name calling and building fences, a fire that burns hotly for the benefit of humanity.
Love cannot be measured the way we count tanks or missiles, but only in its actions.
It is as Bishop Curry said, redemptive.
And in today’s world where we have become separated from each other, we need that redemption, we need to believe that it is possible for people to put others first, to build community, to see others as family.
To reinvent fire means that there will no longer be the barriers that have caused children to die on Greek beaches or in American classrooms.
To reinvent fire means that civil discourse will become possible, that we will be able to see each other as part of a community, a family that has similar goals if different ways of achieving them.
What is the budget for love?
Does it exceed the budget for defense, for military spending?
Or can it be found in those things we do for each other when we acknowledge that we are one. According to the news reports, the wedding cost $43,000,000.
Money well spent.
