Blue Fox Shaman

“Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” -Psalm 96:2

[Before we dive in, dear reader, some of you have told me that my method here may need a bit more explanation. This is Fox’s blog and I ask her what to write by casting lots (aka divination) and share with you insights that we gain from our subsequent dialog. That’s why you may see me quote an I Ching hexagram, Tarot card, Rune, or our own divinatory system using Greek words. And so, onward…]

Hexagram 28 “Greatly Surpassing” (Lake::Wind).

In “The Original I Ching” by Margaret Pearson, the commentary on this hexagram quotes Confucius: “if the Way does not prevail, we should be ashamed to be honored and enriched.” That, along with the our understanding of the two trigrams here as Destiny (Lake) informed by Wholeness and Beauty (Wind) reminded us of the Psalm quoted above. To put it another way, this is a call to conform our lives, our way of being, to the beauty of wholeness in community. This wholeness comes through justice and the acceptance of all members of the community, in all their diversity. This holiness allows the beauty of God’s creation to be seen and lived in us, and through all of us.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose this destiny. He became a lightning rod in a time of storms. He attracted the aspirations of those who longed for justice, but had been denied it. He also attracted the anger of those who should have been ashamed of their own unjust power and enrichment. And ultimately, as we know, he made the ultimate sacrifice for this choice.

And so, we seek to honor him and to enlarge and enrich his legacy, but not just through words alone, but by laying our own lives on that same altar where the Beloved Community is formed. His birthday has become a call to seek that wholeness and to rededicate ourselves, in our choices and in our actions.

As we look back through time, not only at Dr. King’s legacy, but at the origins of the Beloved Community in our culture, a conundrum appears–how can this understanding exist side by side with the oppression and bigotry that have been the stock-in-trade of so much of religion and politics? Jesus preached a radical version of it and drew the ire of Rome and Rome’s lackeys. But once that community that he founded found themselves as the insiders (under Constantine), this vision had to sit in the back of the bus, giving way to the interests and teachings of those with an interest in maintaining their own power.

What is needed is a constant renewal of the dream. Those who are, and who become insiders to power must constantly be on guard, not to maintain the status-quo, but to ensure that the voice of the dissenter, the outsider, is granted fair and equal consideration. That those who strive to live are rewarded with life, and that abundantly! That the needs of the poor and disadvantaged are met–met fully, never grudgingly, with a fair distribution. We must value that over profit, power, or even the continuation of that power in our own hands.

Is that scary? Of course it is! The true call to repentance, and the baptism into that Community, is an image of the death of our own egos, our own interests. our own advantage. Those who would fossilize the notion of morality into the following of certain absolute laws related to sexuality, political forms, diet, religious observances, or any such things, do so in an attempt to also fossilize the power structures of which they are beneficiaries. The first law is to love God, and the second to love one’s neighbor, and these can never be reduced to the following of forumulas or formalities, because God is the Ever Becoming One and his people are a riot of diversity and innovation, of need and generosity.

What must survive, above even our own lives, is the life of that Blessed Community to which we should all have access, as a human right. That Law is Holy which seeks to discover, ever anew, the principles which uphold the glory of God in the dignity of his creation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find my sackcloth and ashes…