America's Spiritual Problem Part 2: What's Missing

Summary

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe discusses the spiritual problems facing America today, emphasizing the importance of love, mercy, and justice. The conversation explores how societal divisions and a lack of compassion hinder our spiritual growth and the need for collective lamentation and healing. She also encourages listeners to reflect on their own hearts and seek a deeper understanding of their faith in the context of community and justice.

Takeaways

Our faith calls us to a loving relationship with God.
True love is profound and beyond death.
All of us need redemption and humility.
We must seek God's way and love our neighbors.
Mercy is often misunderstood as weakness.
Justice should focus on restoration, not punishment.
Lamentation is essential for true healing.
Grief is an expression of love and should be honored.
We are interconnected and impacted by one another.
Spiritual healing begins with acknowledging our own issues.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:53 The Spiritual Problem of America continued
05:48 The Role of Mercy in Justice
09:03 Lamentation and Collective Grief
11:56 The Importance of Spiritual Healing
15:11 Closing Thoughts and Encouragement

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (00:00.024)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. In this podcast, we talk about our faith. We learn to talk about our faith and we take this as an opportunity to be more intentional about how we live our lives in concert with our faith. So I welcome you to this podcast. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, our Director of Communications.

And I'm so glad that you're joining us today. Wherever you are in your faith journey and whatever your faith may be, you are welcome in this place as we speak about our faith. I will be speaking from a Christian perspective and particularly an Episcopal perspective as a bishop, but I welcome you to be part of this conversation, to send us questions and let us know what you'd be interested in speaking about.

Today, my topic is going to be about the spiritual problem of America. And when I say the, as if it's singular, it I think kind of is singular in a way, even though it has many branches and many tributaries to it. Our faith calls us to a reliving, loving relationship with God, with one another and with ourselves. And so when I speak about love, a lot of times people think of it as weak or

insignificant or kind of trite or emotional. But true love in the sense of God and in our lives is something that is profound and beyond death itself. An eternal love that is constantly bringing us and calling us into relationship with our deepest self, with God and one another. And so a spiritual issue, what does that even mean? Well, when we're looking at one another as if

those people are the problem or someone else is the problem or we're just an innocent victim always, then we're not able to see God's love and to see the reality and the truth of our lives. All of us need redemption. All of us can be selfish or act in ways that are harmful to ourselves and others. And so all of us need that humility and the grace to know that God is God and we are not.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (02:23.682)
that God is loving us and offers us redemption, not only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but also in how we live. That when we are at odds with another person, it is not the end of the story or doesn't have to be. And when we're at odds with ourselves, or all we feel is fear, isolation, loneliness, that we may feel cut off from all of those things that we hope to find.

that in that moment that God is with us and that we have opportunities to make a difference, not only for ourselves, but for others. So when I consider this moment in America, and especially if you read the news or watch the news, I will confess I don't watch the news anymore because I want to read, I want to look at what's happening without sort of music and voices and all. I want to hear it in a different way.

But when we look at the news around us, often it is filled with derogatory comments about this person or that person, where someone has separated from another person. There's so much anger, so much fear, so much hatred, so much division centered around whose team are you on, what side are you on, everyone kind of angling against one another. The spiritual problem with that is,

There aren't teams. There's no such thing as another person being other than who we are. We're humans on this planet. We're impacted by each other positively and negatively. And so to look at any group, person, platform, issue, as if there's them or us, we right away are out of alignment with God's grace and mercy and calling.

Our faith calls us to look at our own hearts and say, am I seeking God's way? Am I loving my neighbor as myself, as Jesus commands us? Always important to say it's not the golden rule to do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. That is actually a commandment of Jesus. If you want to know peace, if you want to know the grace of God, it begins with looking through the loving heart for another person.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (04:49.922)
That can be so hard because we have a good case built up why those people, whoever that may be in your life, whether it's a family member, friend, neighbor, or someone in another place, why those people should change so that if they only would do what you wanted, then everything would be okay. But in fact, the spiritual problem with that is we don't know enough to know how someone needs to change. We hardly know how we need to change.

most of the time, to be honest, because we just know how to fight so well, but how to forgive so hard. We know how to be selfish, but how to be compassionate. I mean, how many days do we wake up and think, I just don't want to. I don't want to care about those people. I don't want to be concerned about this or that. Our ability to love our neighbor begins with our ability to receive the love of God, to be healed by the love of God.

And whatever faith tradition you may have, whatever religion you may aspire to, our most major religions begin with a sense of God as love, as God as a creator, inviting us to be part of creating a new reality. A reality where there is peace, where there's justice, where there's mercy and compassion. That these things are not weaknesses, but actually the greatest strength of all.

As Dr. King would say, love is the only power great enough to make a friend out of an enemy. That when we are loving and compassionate, we will experience a new aspect to life. So when life kind of pushes us around and we start feeling so afraid and isolated and lonely in our hearts, we begin to act in fighting ways with others. So our spiritual issues begin with that disconnect.

between our best deepest selves and what God is calling us to be. And that part of us that also is selfish or self-seeking. I listen to people talking about, I wish we could all get along. And then they say derogatory things about their neighbors. I wish we could just find a better way forward than this. And then they rail about how something is happening in the world. We kind of like that fight.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (07:16.43)
It sort of gives us a sense of an edge, but God is calling us to be part of the kind of person who's at peace. He was seeking God's way. He wants to love and seek mercy and restoration rather than vengeance and greed and selfishness. So just like every human down through the ages, whether we're talking in the Hebrew scriptures and with Moses.

and in the wilderness or we're talking about the crusades or we're talking about slavery or present day. Whenever in the depths of our heart we're able to look at our neighbor and see them as unworthy or less than ourselves, to see them as expendable for our own greed or security or sense of safety, then we need redemption. Then we need to repent that

Wonderful word I like to talk about all the time. We need to change our mind. We will not find peace. We will not find safety until we seek to be about the things God's commanded us to be about. To love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. To love our neighbor as ourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So those are a lot of pretty weighty things. I don't know, Adam, if you have any comments or questions or if we have questions from our listeners, but in this space, I would like for us to be invited to speak about the spiritual issue that's all around us that we've kind of corrupted by, where we're so focused on outward things that we've lost track of that inward work of being about love and compassion and mercy.

Absolutely. And it's really apropos, Bishop, that you use that word, mercy, because one of our listeners, James, who hails from Utica, has a question for you. And James asks, it feels like our society is always asking for justice, but I feel like what they actually mean is punishment. Where does mercy fit in to our national conversation about justice? And then a second part to that question. So it's a big one.

Adam Eichelberger (09:31.97)
How do we keep mercy from being seen as a weakness?

Wow, such a great question, James. And I invite you listener to think how you might answer these. I think I'll actually start with the second question first, is mercy weakness? And what does it mean to have mercy? You know, that is one of those in a world that sees mercy as weakness, as giving up or as relenting. That means that we haven't learned yet or haven't had the spiritual experience yet.

of what happens when we extend mercy. There's a wonderful story, and I hope it was true, about Corrie Ten Boom. You can read about this, listener, if you haven't heard of this story. Corrie Ten Boom's family was killed in the concentration camps in Germany or Poland. I'm not sure where the camp was located, actually. She became a Christian and became a speaker and writer about the power of forgiveness in our own hearts to free us.

Well, the way the story goes is one night she was speaking at a gathering and afterwards she's in the line and shaking hands and meeting people. And she sees in the line coming forward, one of the guards who she remembers for the concentration camp that annihilated her family. And as this guard came forward, she started internally praying. She writes, Lord, I can't do it. I can't forgive him. I can't do it. Don't ask this of me.

And of course, as the lines moving closer and closer and this man finally comes to the front of the line and looks at her and says, Do you think God can even forgive me? And he holds out his hand and she said that God seemed to just take over. She just suddenly grabbed his hand and said, Yes, God can even forgive you. And she said when she said it, it freed her heart that she was made lighter.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (11:27.212)
because God's ability to forgive and to have mercy on one another frees us from the, really the damnation we place in our own hearts, that we too can be restored, that God loves us and desires our companionship and wants to heal us. And so to show mercy may be one of the greatest strengths. Like love is a tremendous strength. To see Jesus on the cross is not a weakness of him laying his life down.

but rather that his extension of mercy in that moment and grace to die for the sins of the world is a power beyond power that to stand so resolute in our commitment to the restoration of another, it heals all of us and we're freed then too. Now about the punishment and justice, I think you're absolutely right, James. A lot of times we talk about there needs to be justice for that.

What we mean is somebody needs to be punished. But what is justice really when you think about the things that are done, and we're not talking about, for those who may be worried, kind of anything goes mentality that, well, a bad thing happened, can't do anything about it. No, justice would be more profound than punishment. It would be the actual restoration, the ability that life can happen beyond death.

I think when we go for punishment, we're locking ourselves in a temporal realm where there's no possibility that love or mercy or grace is bigger. But in fact, in God's economy, God is always bigger than the challenge before us. God is always greater than the brokenness within us. And so justice truly means that all persons are made whole.

And this can be complex. It's hard to figure out what justice would mean in a situation. Our legal system, for instance, is set up about fairness, not necessarily justice. know, some have argued that rather than someone being sent to prison, they should have to help the family they've harmed if they stole them from them or something like that. And to think about what does justice mean in terms of the restoration and justice rolling down like waters. If we think of it like a healing.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (13:51.284)
a realignment of wholeness. What an incredible thing it would be if we truly sought restoration and wholeness rather than just punishment which continues to bolden us to brokenness. It continues to keep us bound. We want to be freed, not continually bound.

Absolutely. And I think that just in my own experience, in my own observations, if you will, those kinds of cycle, it creates a cycle. know, punishment comes down and because we are less concerned with the restoration of a person and the real total healing of a whole person and more about like what you have talked about, like what am I getting out of this? It perpetuates itself.

Because loving your neighbor as yourself isn't a transaction. It isn't you love your neighbor as you love your, like we're ticking boxes. It's reciprocal act of reciprocity where when I'm loving, I feel loved. When I'm giving, I receive generosity. In doing, we become. If we're feeling cut off from a person where we're having a conflict, doing something that's truly kind or considerate for the person brings

out a new whole realm of kindness. And the way that we love someone is reciprocal and intrinsically linked with our deepest soul. And so one of our spiritual issues in America is we've lost that understanding. We think that someone could be harmed and it doesn't hurt me. But in fact, it really does because it weakens our sense of ourselves. It weakens our trust in our community.

And it means that we now are part of the problem and not part of the healing. So when we look at loving your neighbor as yourself, as a reciprocal relationship of creating a new reality, it changes it. It's no longer about being kind to someone hoping they'll be kind back. It's I am kind to someone because that is how we experience Jesus.

Adam Eichelberger (16:03.286)
One of the things that I was thinking about as you've been sharing Bishop and listeners, you guys have been incredible with your feedback is I think another component of America's spiritual issue. And I think that maybe we got to reframe that as spiritual issues, because I think that we're identifying that there's a lot of work that we need to do, is that there's an issue with spiritual fatigue. think that we just feel so overwhelmed.

with everything that's going on around us. think that we feel so beat down. I think one thing that really stood out to me when I went to our questions from our listeners this week, we got one from David in Courtwind and David has obviously been paying attention to the podcast because David asks, you have spoken about the power of lament, which we did talk about in a previous episode.

Yeah. Hey, David. Good job, David. How?

How can the church help others in their collective grief and guilt when we often want to skip straight to healing?

well, you know, one of the reasons we skip past it is it's not comfortable. You know, we as humans often seek comfort. We'd rather be comfortable and wrong. We'd rather be comfortable than actually be at peace. We seek comfort above all else. Lamenting to live into the space and feel it, in order to break a cycle, a therapist will tell you, you have to feel how bad it felt for some that happened.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (17:33.678)
We often look, there are events in our lives that were so painful and we quickly try to get over the pain or act like it didn't really hurt or stuff it down. And we're so busy stuffing things down and then later in life they come back and then there are issues we then have to deal with. And what a therapist will often do is take us to that place where we can in a safe space psychologically feel how we felt and how bad that felt.

And until we feel how badly we have felt, we can't truly come out on the other side of it. We have to really literally go through the valley of the shadow of death as the psalmist would tell us. We have to go through and feel to really lament. And lamentation to lament is an intrinsic part of repentance. How can we repent of something if we're not really acknowledging how it was or what it is?

And so lamenting is really a deeply important part of repentance. It's an intrinsic part and really important to repentance because to feel the weight of what we're handing over to Jesus, to say this is a hard thing and then to change our minds and let it go. It's so essential. Otherwise we're pretending or otherwise it's sort of performative or empty.

of any true value. Things that really are hurtful are heavy to hold. so lamentation is one way of holding those in a sacred way of grieving and allowing ourselves that space to grieve. That's also a sacred part of our life. So recognize that grief is an expression of love. And so we grieve things we love and to allow that grief to

inform how we can love even better? So it's so essential, David. Really good question.

Adam Eichelberger (19:31.49)
Last question comes from Andrea in Syracuse wants to know Bishop, and this is kind of another palate cleanser when we're talking about big topics. If you could have dinner with any saint, ancient or modern, who would it be and why?

Ooh. my goodness. I'd have to go with Mary Magdalene first. The apostle to the apostle.

A great pick, in my opinion.

I mean, I just think she comes to mind, you know, there's of course like Julian of Norwich comes to mind, you know, and yeah, you know, Peter, but I have to say, I Mary Magdalene would be first. There's so many, you know, Dr. King, I mean, there's a lot of people I would want to have dinner with.

I feel guilty because I feel like I ambushed you with that one because there are so many, but I think that that's a great pick.

Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (20:21.826)
Well, friends, we are just getting started on this, you know, the spiritual problem with America. My encouragement to you is to lament what is broken in our world, to really feel it, and then hold that sorrow before God's mercy and grace to seek that restoration and the peace that passes all understanding, God's ability to bring us peace in the midst of what can be a challenging and hard time. And if in this time you're finding great joy,

or you're feeling really encouraged in your faith, let's speak of those things together too, to share our faith and talk of our faith that our lives will be informed by what we value most. So may you be blessed and be a blessing. And I look forward to speaking with you soon.