Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

It seems like we’ve been in something of a spiral of negative retaliation in our culture. When one “side” does something then the other “side” must do something more drastic as either payback or, as they may see it, to rebalance things. It’s always interesting to listen to the litigants in political or cultural disagreements—both are often arguing for similar core elements.

Often questions of fairness, security, liberty, and rights come up but they are obviously held in tension with the competing claims of either side.

However, our discourse has moved far beyond basic human values into a kind of nasty scorekeeping where one side lies in wait to get back at the other. We see this in churches, too. One church describes itself as liberal or conservative or progressive or Bible-based or forward-thinking or inclusive or whatever. The adjectives get used to communicate where that church fits in the limited spectrum of political religion so people don’t accidentally end up worshiping with the wrong people.

I suppose I’m trying to figure out how to short-circuit the anger and confuse the simplistic narratives that make disregarding our neighbors far too easy. I’m trying to figure out ways to tamp down the quickly rising heat.

I just saw a video about a man who was getting tired of packages being carelessly lobbed onto his porch by delivery people. On camera you’d see them just toss boxes up with hardly a thought about what might be in them.

The customer could have called supervisors, or waited to berate or scold the delivery folks.

Instead he got out a cooler and filled it with ice and water with a sign that said “Thank you! Please take some water and cool off!” Overnight the tossed packages stopped. The drivers took extra care with some telling the camera on the front door “thank you!”

A small act of compassion, empathy, and decency short-circuited what could have been a silly and petty conflict. I’m going to spend my week looking for a chance to share some cool water in a too-hot world.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert