Responsible For All?

Are we responsible for everyone and everything?

That question comes from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

In Book Five, Chapter Two, Father Zossima recalls the last days of his elder brother Markel. Falling seriously ill, Markel went through a conversion experience, and as the end approached, Markel became extraordinarily sensitive and kind, even to the point of questioning why the servants should take such good care of him. "Why do I deserve to be waited on? I should wait on you."

His mother thought it was the illness that made him talk like that, but the insights Markel shared from his deathbed suggest something more. He told her, "Everyone of us has sinned against all men, and I more than any."

When his mother objected, he explained, "Mother, little heart of mine, believe me, everyone is responsible to all men for all men and for everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully even."

Dostoyevsky often writes like a mystic, wrestling with the mystery of God and searching for the meaning of life. Markel's observation sounds like the insight of a mystic, someone who has caught a momentary glimpse of life's meaning in a wordless encounter with God.

Those of us unskilled in the ways of mysticism often think the wisdom of mystics borders on the absurd. For example, Meister Eckhart said, "Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us." And we ask, "What does that mean?"

Teresa of Avila wrote, "The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it." Such insight challenges credibility.

When Francis of Assisi called the sun his brother and the moon his sister, some rolled their eyes. Was he speaking poetically or should we question his sanity? But in his Praise of the Virtues he went further:

Obedience makes us submissive
to all persons on earth,
nor just to humankind
but to all animals
and wild beasts, too,
that they may do as they please with us
as far as God so permits them.

Is that absurd, or are we responsible to everyone for everything?

Jesus insists that we are family. "He who does the will of my Father is mother and brother and sister to me. What you do to the least of my brothers you do to me. Love one another...love your enemies."

I realize that I stand only on the edge of understanding. The mystical experience eludes me. And yet I am not absolved from the responsibility I have toward the world around me.

When I do what is right, good and loving, I am making the world a better place and I send out a tiny ripple of faith, hope and love. When I fail to do what is right, good and loving, I am, in effect, damaging the world and failing the people who live in it.

Looking at the birds in the garden, Markel begged forgiveness, "Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me, for I have sinned against you too. Yes, there was such a glory of God all about me; birds, trees, meadows, sky --only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and the glory."

There is a wisdom there, even if most of us cannot explain it or choose not to acknowledge it.

Henry David Thoreau saw it. That's why he would write, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

John Ruskin saw it. That's why he insisted that we have the duty to delight in nature and receive strength and hope from the stones, flowers, leaves and sounds of natural earth.

Jesus saw it. That's why he said, "Consider the lilies of the field...the birds of the air."

Every Sunday we acknowledge our belief in the communion of saints. We gather as God's people, we pray for the deceased, we remember the saints in heaven, we pray for the world around us. We are acknowledging responsibility.

I may not yet be able to explain how we are responsible for everyone and everything, but I think this bit of mystical wisdom must be at the heart of what it means to be Church.

The insights of mystics warn me not to be too quick to think of anyone as being outside the Church, the people of God. Some may be better members than others, but some how, in God, we are all in this together.

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I can explain it, I am then responsible for everyone, and for everything.

The Problem of Truth

I took offense at something someone said to me recently.

Instead of humbly accepting his remark, I let resentment dictate my response. I told him I did not like what he said.

He replied that he meant no offense, but I let him know that his words were indeed offensive.

I thought of him as a man with a gun who, shooting randomly and without aim, hits someone and then apologizes, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shoot you. That was never my intention."

Whether he intended it or not, he fired and his bullet struck me in a fleshy, weak, too-sensitive part of my being, and I challenged the shot.

Later I was upset, not so much by being hit, but for my making an issue of the pain. Jesus' words in the sermon on the mount kept coming to mind: Offer no resistance...Turn the other cheek...Love your enemies...Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Once again I failed to respond with Gospel values.

Finally in prayer I asked first to forgive and be forgiven, and then to discover the lesson I was to learn from this incident.

God took me at my word. Within hours of my prayer, while I was reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, I had to pause over what I take to be God's advice.

In the novel the holy man Father Zossima explains how important it is for people to be honest with themselves, "The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others."

He goes on, "The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of molehill --he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness" (Book II, chapter 2).

I just hate it when God answers prayer.

So then, the lesson of my incident returns me to the problem of truth.

The advice of Polonius to his son Laertes comes to mind, "This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

There I have it. Three rather significant witnesses: Jesus, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare!

In today's political climate, too many public servants are eager to take offense, or at least make offensive something their opponents have said or done. The culture of political correctness has run amok.

But I must be careful not to become distracted by the sensitivities, vindictiveness, and pleasure of resentment prevalent today in politicians, pundits, and members of the press. The lesson of my incident is a lesson for me.

So Jesus and I are going to have to put our heads together and formulate for me, again, his sage observation of 2000 years ago, "I am the way and the truth and the life."

If the truth will set us free, maybe it will free me from taking offense at the words of even random shooters.