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The Friends Who Helped Me Become More Human

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By Roger Talbott

Two of my teachers died this past month. Orlando was a cat with less than half a tail. Henry was a delightful dog. *
 
Orlando, a yellow cat, belonged to Doug and MaryAnn Kerr, who live across the street from us. “Belonged” means Orlando granted them the privilege of feeding and housing him. He let them pay his veterinary bills when he got into fights.  But he roamed the neighborhood like he owned all our yards. Age finally caught up with him a few weeks ago. We are already seeing an uptick in the number of squirrels and chipmunks since he died.
 
Henry was a golden retriever. Henry lived up to that breed’s reputation for being friendly and playful . There was no question that Henry loved Jim and Cathy Stentzel more than anything in the world. We met Henry about a year after Cathy and Jim brought him home  as a very young dog.
 
Orlando seemed much the same right up until the end. We did not see much change in the 15 years we lived across the street.
 
We saw Henry only once or twice each year, so we noticed how he grew and changed and, eventually, aged. As a young dog, he ran circles around the slower humans who took him for walks. His size and stubbornness made him hard to resist when he wanted to go one way and you wanted to go another. His good-natured enthusiasm for his quest was even harder to resist. Over the past couple of years, we saw Henry slow down, take shorter walks and longer naps. But he never stopped beating his tail on the floor with joy when Jim and Cathy would arrive home.
 
It is only when Henry and Orlando died that I realized what they had taught me. When I learned of their deaths, I felt sad. That feeling of sadness amazed me. It told me something deep inside of me had changed. 
 

Learning to Be Tough

I grew up on a dairy farm surrounded by animals. We had a dairy barn full of Holsteins. We also raised chickens and hogs. We always had a cow dog that helped us move the cows from the pasture to the barn. We had cats running around the barn to keep the mouse population under control. The dog had a name, Queenie. My sisters gave some of the cats names. I did not learn to love animals on that farm.
 
I learned to take care of the animals because our living depended on them. I tossed bales of hay down a chute from the mow to the barn below. I climbed a silo in the dead of winter and forked chopped corn into a feed cart three stories below. I shoveled manure into a manure spreader. So, I cared for their needs. I also learned how to milk the cows, gather the hen’s eggs, feed the hogs, and how to help butcher cows and hogs and chickens so we could eat them.
 
I know people who grew up on farms and people who live on farms who love animals. I do not think farming is completely incompatible with compassion. But, I never learned how to love animals and kill them.   I chose to think of animals as commodities. I measured their value in dollars and cents per pound, like milk and eggs and oats and hay. I was like the kids who have spent two years raising a steer that wins the Grand Champion ribbon at the fair. As a reward, they get a big check from the owner of a local restaurant. Some city-bred reporter will ask them if they are sad that their steer will be turned into steaks. The kids usually say, “Are you kidding? Why do you think I went to all that trouble in the first place?” I was tough and realistic.
 

How What We Believe Hardens Our Hearts

My mother’s theology further justified my attitude toward animals. When, as a little boy, I asked her if animals went to heaven, she explained that they do not because they do not have souls. She taught me to read the Creation story as a story about how human beings are special and different. We have souls. Animals do not. We commune with the Lord. Animals do not. We go to church and to heaven. Animals do not. She was in line with traditional Christian theology. I did not know it then, but those teachings hardened my heart.
 
When I was a pastor, parishioners would tell me about losing their beloved pets. I sensed that they were grieving, and I hope that I said appropriate things, but I admit that, inside, I did not get it. I empathized when they grieved for a relative or a friend. I did not understand the grief they felt for a pet they had recently put down.
 

Finding the Center

In my two years of retirement I have been practicing meditation. I supplement my life-long practice of prayer centered on Jesus with Yoga classes. I read books on Jewish spirituality recommended by my daughter-in-law, a Rabbi. I read books on Buddhist meditation recommended by Henry’s owner, Cathy.
 
I see a common thread running through these writings. I have learned what several wise observers mean when they say, “The theologians all argue. The mystics all agree.”
 
These books and practices lead me to a warm place in my heart. I believe that place is in every heart and at the heart of the universe. In that place is profound stillness and immense power. It is the Truth. It is Love. The New Testament calls it “God.”   
 
People of all faiths and no faith encounter this Truth and Love.  They may meet Love in deep meditation. They may meet Love when they hold a newborn baby. They may meet Love when they connect with a friend. They may meet Love when a slender ray of hope penetrates despair. When they speak of it, I recognize the same Love Christians meet in Jesus. 
 
We also call this Love, “Truth,” because Love shows us that all our reasons for not loving are based on lies. I can see how the “terrorists” and “bigots” twist their religious beliefs to justify not loving. A hard heart can turn any scripture into a lie that explains why it is OK to kill some people, or animals, and not others. It is harder for me to see how I do the same thing with my hard heart. 

Getting Past the Hard Heart 

Hard hearts even argue with the Bible. Yes, the Creation Story says humans and animals are all made from the same dust on the same day. But, said my hard heart, look at how much longer the author lingers over the creation of people.
 
I know the breath that God breathes into humans making them “souls” is callednephesh in Hebrew. I know that the same nephesh gives all beings life. But, said my hard heart, “nephesh” means “soul” in some places and “breath” in others.
 
Arguments did not work. It was Orlando and Henry who wore me down. Henry did it as he danced around Jim’s legs.  Orlando did it when I caught sight of him silently hunting in our hostas. I did not know that I learned to love them until after they died. Orlando and Henry changed me in the way Carl Jung said happens to us in the second half of life.
Before I retired, I did a series of sermons on the Beatitudes.  “Beatitude” means “happiness”. So, the second Beatitude always stumped me, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  How can grief be happiness? We only grieve those we love. Now I understand. I mourn Orlando’s and Henry’s deaths. I am comforted by feeling that sadness, because it means that I am in touch with Truth and Love.

And, in the Real World

Yesterday, my sister told me that her son and his wife had their first baby, a little boy. Mom is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.
As I got this news, news about how our country is separating the children of illegal immigrant children from their parents at our borders was playing in the background.
I was reminded of a story Christians tell each other every December. You may have heard it. It is about a baby born into a world in which there was no room for him. The story tells how his parents, like so many people in Central America today, feared for their child’s life. They, too, headed for the border and they somehow got across without losing their baby.
Jeff Sessions is a devout and faithful member of same denomination that I served as pastor. He hears the Christmas story every year. That story is in the same Bible that he quotes to justify his draconian policy of tearing children from their parents. After all, he and millions of Americans agree that we have no more room for such people. I drove across Wyoming, Idaho, and Eastern Oregon two weeks ago, and I think we could squeeze in a few more people. But if you agree with Jeff Sessions, you have already come up with good reasons why I am full of B.S.
The Christmas story does not argue with you or Jeff Sessions. The babies that God keeps sending us do not argue either. The merciful God will not beat you or me into becoming the full image of Love and Truth. But sooner or later, I pray that Love will appear to you and me and Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump. I pray that we may be worn down by Love when it appears in a new baby, a golden retriever, or a cat with less than half a tail. Then we will stop being “tough” and start being as human as Jesus.
*This is an update of an earlier version published on June 12.

How a Cat and a Dog Taught Me to Be Human

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Two of my teachers died this past month. Orlando was a cat with less than half a tail. Henry was a delightful dog. 
 
Orlando, a yellow cat, belonged to Doug and MaryAnn Kerr, who live across the street from us. “Belonged” means Orlando granted them the privilege of feeding and housing him. He let them pay his veterinary bills when he got into fights.  But he roamed the neighborhood like he owned all our yards. Age finally caught up with him a few weeks ago. We are already seeing an uptick in the number of squirrels and chipmunks since he died.
 
Henry was a golden retriever. Henry lived up to that breed’s reputation for being friendly and playful . There was no question that Henry loved Jim and Cathy Stentzel more than anything in the world. We met Henry about a year after Cathy and Jim brought him home  as a very young dog.
 
Orlando seemed much the same right up until the end. We did not see much change in the 15 years we lived across the street.
 
We saw Henry only once or twice each year, so we noticed how he grew and changed and, eventually, aged. As a young dog, he ran circles around the slower humans who took him for walks. His size and stubbornness made him hard to resist when he wanted to go one way and you wanted to go another. His good-natured enthusiasm for his quest was even harder to resist. Over the past couple of years, we saw Henry slow down, take shorter walks and longer naps. But he never stopped beating his tail on the floor with joy when Jim and Cathy would arrive home.
 
It is only when Henry and Orlando died that I realized what they had taught me. When I learned of their deaths, I felt sad. That feeling of sadness amazed me. It told me something deep inside of me had changed. 
 
I grew up on a dairy farm surrounded by animals. We had a dairy barn full of Holsteins. We also raised chickens and hogs. We always had a cow dog that helped us move the cows from the pasture to the barn. We had cats running around the barn to keep the mouse population under control. The dog had a name, Queenie. My sisters gave some of the cats names. I did not learn to love animals on that farm.
 
I learned to take care of the animals because our living depended on them. I tossed bales of hay down a chute from the mow to the barn below. I climbed a silo in the dead of winter and forked chopped corn into a feed cart three stories below. I shoveled manure into a manure spreader. So, I cared for their needs. I also learned how to milk the cows, gather the hen’s eggs, feed the hogs, and how to help butcher cows and hogs and chickens so we could eat them.
 
I know people who grew up on farms and people who live on farms who love animals. I do not think farming is completely incompatible with compassion. But, I never learned how to love animals and kill them.   I chose to think of animals as commodities. I measured their value in dollars and cents per pound, like milk and eggs and oats and hay. I was like the kids who have spent two years raising a steer that wins the Grand Champion ribbon at the fair. As a reward, they get a big check from the owner of a local restaurant. Some city-bred reporter will ask them if they are sad that their steer will be turned into steaks. The kids usually say, “Are you kidding? Why do you think I went to all that trouble in the first place?” I was tough and realistic.
 
My mother’s theology further justified my attitude toward animals. When, as a little boy, I asked her if animals went to heaven, she explained that they do not because they do not have souls. She taught me to read the Creation story as a story about how human beings are special and different. We have souls. Animals do not. We commune with the Lord. Animals do not. We go to church and to heaven. Animals do not. She was in line with traditional Christian theology. I did not know it then, but those teachings hardened my heart.
 
When I was a pastor, parishioners would tell me about losing their beloved pets. I sensed that they were grieving, and I hope that I said appropriate things, but I admit that, inside, I did not get it. I understood when they grieved for a relative or a friend. I did not understand the grief they felt for a pet they had recently put down.
 
In my two years of retirement I have been practicing meditation. I supplement my life-long practice of prayer centered on Jesus with Yoga classes. I read books on Jewish spirituality recommended by my daughter-in-law, a Rabbi. I read books on Buddhist meditation recommended by Henry’s owner, Cathy.
 
I see a common thread running through these writings. I have learned what several wise observers mean when they say, “The theologians all argue. The mystics all agree.”
 
These books and practices lead me to a warm place in my heart. I believe that place is in every heart and at the heart of the universe. In that place is profound stillness and immense power. It is the Truth. It is Love. The New Testament calls it “God.”   
 
People of all faiths and no faith encounter this Truth and Love.  They may meet Love in deep meditation. They may meet Love when they hold a newborn baby. They may meet Love when they connect with a friend. They may meet Love when a slender ray of hope penetrates despair. When they speak of it, I recognize the same Love Christians meet in Jesus. 
 
We also call this Love, “Truth,” because Love shows us that all our reasons for not loving are based on lies. I can see how the “terrorists” and “bigots” twist their religious beliefs to justify not loving. A hard heart can turn any scripture into a lie that explains why it is OK to kill some people, or animals, and not others. It is harder for me to see how I do the same thing with my hard heart. 
 
Hard hearts even argue with the Bible. Yes, the Creation Story says humans and animals are all made from the same dust on the same day. But, said my hard heart, look at how much longer the author lingers over the creation of people.
 
I know the breath that God breathes into humans making them “souls” is callednephesh in Hebrew. I know that the same nephesh gives all beings life. But, said my hard heart, “nephesh” means “soul” in some places and “breath” in others.
 
Arguments did not work. It was Orlando and Henry who wore me down. Henry did it as he danced around Jim’s legs.  Orlando did it when I caught sight of him silently hunting in our hostas. I did not know that I learned to love them until after they died. Orlando and Henry changed me in the way Carl Jung said happens to us in the second half of life.
Before I retired, I did a series of sermons on the Beatitudes.  “Beatitude” means “happiness”. So, the second Beatitude always stumped me, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shallbe comforted.”  How can grief be happiness? We only grieve those we love. Now I understand. I mourn Orlando’s and Henry’s deaths. I am comforted by feeling that sadness, because it means that I am in touch with Truth and Love.

Retirement Grief

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Reading Time: 1 minute

I found this journal entry that I wrote on April 19, 2016, ten months after I retired. I’ve edited it for readability, but I offer it hoping it may help someone else. It is, after all, part of living the Second Half.

Grief at Loss of Profession

I realized this morning that I am feeling grief. I suspect that I am like a spouse who has nursed their beloved through a long last illness. At first, I felt only relief. but as time goes on, I have more and more good memories and just as the widow or widower feels the loss of their “other half,” so I feel the loss of the job that meant so much to me.

Just writing this allows the feelings to flow.

The widower who has watched his beloved suffer says, “I would not wish her back”.

No, nor would I ever want to go back to the stress I felt trying to care for a church that was undergoing so much change, and they felt with me. But I loved my job. I loved being a pastor, preaching, caring about people, thinking about the big issues in life, starting things that would continue without me. I loved the Church.

This is a good discovery.

A year later, I can say that the grief is much less, although not gone entirely. Grief is, after all, a measure of how much someone or something has meant to us

Tourist or Pilgrim?

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When I retired almost two years ago, I had a fear of becoming the kind of retiree you see getting off a tour bus or a cruise ship in his shorts and Hawaiian shirt, with a camera strapped around his neck, heading to the nearest shop to buy a T-shirt that says, “I have been here and I’ve done this”.

That was not going to happen to me.

But, here I am in Miami Beach and this is my hat.

So,what is wrong with that?

After all, the temperatures this week have been gone down to the low teens in Cleveland and the highs here have been in the 70’s. Anybody could understand what brings us to South Florida.

I’ll also admit that I feel free here. I spent so many decades in a vocation that I loved, but even if I did get away from it physically for a few days, I was never far from it mentally or spiritually. There were always people to pray for and problems to be solved whether I was on the beach, in the mountains, or at my desk.

I am finally free of that, but I can have that same feeling of freedom when I wake up in my own bed, now. So, why travel?

When my parents retired, they intended to travel. Both of them had spent their lives working and raising their family within fifteen miles of their respective birthplaces. They were going to see the world and they did. They drove around the British Isles, took river cruises through Central Europe, and rode tour buses through the Cascades and Rockies.

Then, as their five children scattered from the coast of Maine to the edge of the Mississippi, just visiting them and taking winter trips to Florida to see my mother’s sisters seemed to suffice. The rest of the time, my mother tended her garden and refinished chairs, and my Dad worked in his shop and drank his morning coffee with men he had known since they all were boys.

It’s a pattern I have seen many people follow. Most people who are lucky enough to retire in good health with some resources, say that they are going to travel. They do, at first, and then. . . . , not so much.

I recently learned that the word “travel” is related to the word “travail” that means “suffering”. You either have to have a good reason to travel or you need to travel in a way that minimizes your suffering. The air-conditioned coach and the tourist stops where everyone you meet speaks your language help with the latter. I am not against things that can make life easier on the road. I like those little wheels on my suitcase and my cellphone. But it is possible to get so hermetically sealed inside the tourist bubble that we never encounter anything that changes us. After awhile, I think most people conclude that taking another tour just isn’t worth the trouble.

That is why tourism fails and pilgrimage succeeds in the second half of life. Tourism is just another form of acquisition. We buy the trip, the souvenirs, and the little book of photos that Shutterfly or Snapfish will put together for us.

Pilgrimage, on the other hand, is part of the spiritual journey. When I get to the end of my journey, I am going to have to leave my Miami Beach hat on top of the casket, but I hope I will be able to take with me the wonder I felt as I watched the Super-Blood Moon shining over the sea. That wonder was definitely worth running the gauntlet of flu viruses that knocked me flat for 36 hours. We have also learned on this trip that we can live just fine in 450 square feet of space for more than a week.

I think the impulse to travel in the second half of life is an outward sign of something going on deep inside. In Hindu India and Orthodox Russia, the old sometimes give away all that they have and become pilgrims, people who take to the road on a spiritual journey. Then, assuming they survive, they come back and settle down with family and friends to become . . ., sages, I guess. They are people who have a perspective on life because they have seen how other people in other places live, they have a sense of how little we need to carry on life’s journey and they have seen wonders they can barely describe to those who have not seen.

This time of life affords us the opportunity, and may present us with the necessity to turn our lives into a pilgrimage.

I am going to be posting about how the second half of life is becoming a pilgrimage for me, but I am curious about how it is a pilgrimage for you? What are you leaving behind? What are you heading toward? What are you looking for? What do you hope to find? What have you learned in your travels? When did you decide you had traveled enough?

The Pyramid and the Manger

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How can you and I make the world a better place in 2018? By questioning the pyramid and pondering the manger.

The world’s oldest structures are pyramids. Some, in places like Kazakhstan and Brazil may be even older than the ones in Egypt.

Pyramids are also a symbol of human civilization. It took a very large and well-organized population to build a pyramid; a population that was organized much like a pyramid. A massive number of workers at the bottom did the actual work.  A smaller number of slave drivers made them work. A smaller number of overseers supervised the slave drivers.  These people all served the interests of a tiny group of people, call them the “One Percent,” at the top.

This system worked because everyone believed in a great myth that said the people at the bottom depend on the people at the top for their existence. Yet, one look at the average pyramid reveals that the bottom holds up the top.

5,000 years later, we still believe the myth. All civilizations, from Ancient Egypt to the USA, are pyramids. In every society, the people at the top of the pyramid have better schools, lawyers, and roads. They breathe better air and drink purer water than the people at the bottom.

The Christmas season turns the pyramid upside-down. The King of Kings is born in the lowest place on earth. His first cradle is a manger. And three “kings” come to kneel before him and offer him gifts.

There have been times when Christians understood this. In some places during the Middle Ages, Christmas turned the social order upside down. The servants became lords and the lords became servants between Christmas Day and the Feast of Epiphany (January 6). Indeed, this often put the celebration of Christmas in a bad light for those who need a lot of order in their lives. It may have been one reason why the Puritans made celebrating Christmas illegal.

As we put away our decorations for another year, we can ask how the pyramid has been working out for us.   We can ask, are we better off when rich people get tax cuts and poor children lose their health care? Are we better off when the One Percent see their stock portfolios rise and the federal minimum wage is the same as it was in 2009? Are we better off by blaming the people below us on the pyramid for all our problems? 

Those are scary questions. They often lead to revolution, but all revolutions do is build a new pyramid.

That is why the image of the kings bowing before the Christ Child contains the answer to the world’s problems. The world will be a better place when the people at the top of the pyramid serve the ones at the bottom. The world will be a better place when  the powerful revere the miracle of every birth and honor the sacredness of every life.

If you can read this, you are above the people on the bottom who cannot read. During this new year, you will make decisions at the store, at work, and in the voting booth. I leave you with a question from Robert Greenleaf’s book, The Servant Leader. “Will this decision benefit the weakest and most vulnerable? Or, at the very least, will it not make their condition worse?”

If we let that question guide every decision, we, too, shall become wise.

Pyramid Photo via: on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/7dbdb8″>Visualhunt.com</a>

Manger Scene Photo credit: <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/author/b01f52″>RdpC</a> on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/2550be”>Visual Hunt</a> / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”> CC BY-NC-ND</a>

The O Before Christmas

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I am writing this as the sun is going down and the longest night of the year is closing in around us. It is a gloomy moment. My next door neighbors and those across the street who have done such a nice job of decorating their outside trees have not yet switched them on. It matches the mood of too many people on this night. The darkness and the push to “celebrate” combine to make the sad sadder,

I recently learned that it was an ancient Christian practice to begin worship services on the days of the week before Christmas, this week that has the longest nights of the year, with the O Antiphons. If you have ever heard the hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” you know what the O Antiphons are.

It would take all this long night to explain the extraordinarily deep meanings of symbols like “Emmanuel” or the “Root of Jesse” that the Antiphons sing about, so I just want to focus on the word “O”. Recently, I crowdsourced the question, “How many ways can you say, “O”?

What is amazing about the word in our language — and I suspect in other languages — are the ways the same word can have opposite meanings. We can say “O” to express wonder or disgust, relief or frustration, sadness or joy, excitement or disappointment.

During this week the ancient Christians used the word “O” to express their longings; longings for wisdom and light, for justice and righteousness, and for God to be with us. It comes out of Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) in which she expresses her hope that the child she will bear will bring about a world in which the voiceless will be heard, the hungry will be fed, and the nobodies will become somebody.

The O of longing.

We fall into despair, not because we feel longing, but because we have become numb to it. Opioids are only one way of inducing numbness. The incessant playing of “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas” from department store speakers, is another. The commercial Christmas that has become the norm in America is preceded, not by people singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” in darkened churches, but by an orgy of consumption. It is no wonder that the life expectancy of Americans has gone down for the second year in a row, what do we have to live for?

But I do not want to induce more despair. I want even the least religious person in the world to find fulfillment. And the only way to find fulfillment is to experience longing first. And the way into longing is through that simple vowel, “O”.

Yoga classes often end with the class chanting the sound “Om” together. The Hindus believe that this sound is the foundation of creation — an ancient belief that not only is in harmony with our modern insight that vibration is at the heart of creation, the vibration of atoms, hearts, planets and galaxies, but it also enriches our understanding of the Gospel of John’s Christmas story, “In the beginning was the Word. . . . ”

Everything begins with “O”. It is the beginning of a sentence. It is the beginning of feeling. It is the dawning of recognition. It is the cry of pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow. “O” is the opposite of numbness.

When you say it on these long dark nights before Christmas, what longings come up for you?

The numb will look into the manger on Christmas morning and see another plastic doll. Those who feel the longing expressed by “O” will see a Child, New Life, Promise, Wisdom, Light, Fulfillment of Hope, the answer to every longing.

How Many Ways Can You Say “Oh”?

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This is not an idle exercise. It will have a serious purpose. Here is a list I composed this morning. Can you add more?

Ways of Saying “O”
Oh! — I understand
Oh! –Disappointment
Oh! — Pain
Oh! — Ecstasy
Oh! — Frustration
Oh! — Honor (as in O King)
Oh! — Longing
Oh! — Love
Oh! — Compassion
Oh! — Disgust
Oh! — Discovery/Surprise

The Path to Enlightenment: The Election as Spiritual Practice, Part 2

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Quickly! List 3 things that you really hate about the Presidential candidate you are voting against:

1.

2.

3.

That wasn’t too hard, was it?

I made two assumptions in asking you to do that:

  1. Although you may or may not be voting enthusiastically for a particular candidate this year, you are almost certainly voting against someone.
  2.  I am betting that all three things you listed are personal qualities and not policy positions.

Certainly the candidates in this year’s election have policy differences — and skill set differences  — but my personal polling indicates that we are making our choices largely on personal qualities like honesty or the lack thereof, to name the one that seems to come up most often for both the major party candidates.

OK, writing down those personal qualities you dislike the most in the candidate you dislike the most was step one — pretty easy.

Step 2: Write down one quality in your most-disliked candidate that is deplorable, but you could live with if that was his or her only fault.

1.

That may have been a little harder, but I’ll bet you managed to come up with one.

Step 3:  Ask yourself how those first three qualities reside in you.

I know.

I know.

There is NO WAY any of those three qualities have ANY place in your life. YOU have NEVER said or done ANYTHING remotely like the PERFECTLY AWFUL things that despicable excuse for a human being has said and done!

Take a deep breath, and ask yourself why you get so worked up about those first three things, but you could live with the fourth thing.

Most people will just hit “delete” right now.

That’s because most people (including me) don’t really want to put into practice one of the deepest spiritual disciplines — one that would bring us all closer to what Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven:

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged.  For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? Matthew 7:1-3.

This portion of the Sermon on the Mount is not telling us to abandon our moral principles. Immorality, lying, arrogance, and whatever else you wrote down will still be bad things. Jesus is  asking us to focus our moral laser vision on ourselves rather than someone else. 

I’m asking you to ask yourself:

What  is there about those three things that gets to me?

How are they different from the one thing I could live with?

I admit that I found this incredibly hard to do. I did not want to find those qualities in myself. But they really are there and I work really hard to cover them up — at least from myself.

You will note that I am not about to share publicly what they are, less because I am ashamed of them than because I don’t want to see in the comments section: “Oh yeah, we knew that about you all along.” 

However, I was astounded at the release of spiritual power that I felt when I faced them. We put a lot of energy into fear and loathing that could be used for improving ourselves and the world around us. 

I was heartened by the fact that the fourth quality — the one I could live with — really is kind of despicable, but it doesn’t bother me because I really don’t have that fault. Such a rare thing — a fault that I don’t have. 

Pro tip: Treat this as a game. Be playful about it. Buy a post-Halloween-discount Hillary mask or Donald mask and mentally wear it for a few minutes and imagine yourself acting out those despicable qualities.

Imagine the mask you wear every day that covers up those qualities in you. How much work do you have to do to keep people from seeing those things in you?

The work we do to remove the beam of wood from our own eyes will go a lot further toward making the world a better place than another Facebook posting about how terrible candidate _____ is.

Try it.  It will change your life and, no matter who wins on Tuesday, your transformed self will be making the world around you a better place — in fact, you will be making it the Kingdom of Heaven.