It has been a hot week in White Bear Lake with little rain and only the scant promise of such in the days to come.  Our friends in Europe and other parts of the world are experiencing record temperatures, historic fires, droughts.  The trendlines are clear, the scientists are right, climate change is real and here.  What is historic today will be commonplace and seasonable in the not too distant future.

And yet the political machines of the world in whatever form or shape they may come, seem unable or unwilling to take on this issue (or most other substantial issues) with any serious intent.  It is all so discouraging and overwhelming, leading to unending commentary by most of us on what could be done, what should be done.  And so, most often what happens is that sides are drawn, words are said, egos are bruised, and little gets accomplished.

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan spiritual teacher, has said, “the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.”  I think that may be the key to a way forward.  Less drawing of sides, fewer words, a greater attempt to understand the other.  And then, actually doing something.  The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.

Isn’t that what we’re about as the People of God?  Wasn’t much of Jesus’ own earthly ministry precisely that?  And if this “practice of the better” resulted in reconciling the world to God, doesn’t Christ invite us into the same work?  Isn’t at least part of what it means to walk in the Way of Christ allowing God to heal up what is broken in our lives and then doing what we may to do the same?  Or at least isn’t that what and who we are when we’re at our best?

What if we, as the people of St. John in the Wilderness, were known as those folk who “practice the better?” What if our fellow townsfolk described us as those strange and wonderful people who, day by day, week after week, year upon year, practice the better?  Perhaps the most courageous and faithful and effective thing that we as followers of Jesus may do today is simply to practice the better by rolling up our sleeves, by getting our hands first dirty, then blistered, and eventually calloused, by not giving up, and by doggedly doing something for the sake of this beautiful but broken world.

~Father Art