The True Vine

" I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. . . I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me, you can do nothing." -[John 15: 1-8].

Several years ago, when my life turned upside down, I came to realize fairly quickly that I needed some rock-solid support if I was to get through this period in one piece.

I had, in a span of two years, lost my father, my best friend, a long-time friend of my in-laws (like an aunt to their kids), my mother-in-law, then my own mother. At that, everything I thought to be True went upside down.

After much prayer and meditation, I ultimately joined my church - where for decades, I had been sitting literally on the sidelines, not daring to walk up the aisle to receive the Eucharist, not daring to become more involved in any of the beautiful ministries at the church - packing medicines for Haiti, knitting for the ill or the homeless, decorating the altar, etc.

The parting blessing from my pastor, after I had undergone my initiation, was, "Stay in community."

At the time, I thought that was odd advice. I didn't even understand what "stay in community" meant!

Growing up, everyone in my family was out for themselves. My mother was emotionally fragile and remote, unavailable to my sibling and me, let alone to my dad. Unless she suddenly lashed out, usually at me, in an angry attempt to control her world . . . . I learned to stay away from her. My dad became angry at my mother's unavailability, and took his anger out on me. I learned to stay away from my dad. My sibling, sensing that in a backwards way, I was the center of attention, began to grab whatever resources he could - more food, more toys, a more expensive bike. My sibling also began to take his anger out on me. I learned to stay away from my sibling. Then my dad lashed out at my mother for "favoring" my sibling.

"Stay in community"? - I had never experienced such a thing!

In fact, very soon as a child, I figured out that I couldn't trust any human being to be connected to me, in a safe and loving way.

I have heard unsolicited advice from near strangers over the years, admonishing me, "You cannot expect God to rescue you. You need to rescue yourself!"

That advice to glorify my independence is a quintessentially American notion. We believe in, and live by, the ideal of the Pioneer setting out with only a compass and some meager supplies, to make it in the world alone.

But, the truth is, when I hit rock bottom in crisis that time several years ago, I could not have rescued myself alone. I still say, today, Do NOT ask me to rescue myself!

I remember, after I officially joined my church, that I began a two year program of Biblical School. The nun who taught us was erudite in knowledge of the Bible, but also, truly wise. She used to say to us, IF you look back at all your hard times, you may say that God was missing; BUT, He was there, I know He was there!"

I look back over those traumatic childhood years, and I remember the neighbors who fed me. That was God, right there. I remember the mothers who gave me rides to school in the rain. That was God.

I remember the librarian in my grade school library who told me what a beautiful smile I had- on a day when I was believing what my family told me, about how ugly I was. That was God, right there, seeing me as I truly was.

I remember my girlfriend in high school, who let me keep an escape kit in her bedroom closet, "just in case."  That was the Love of God, promising to keep me safe.

Some today want to claim that we are all the same. Maybe then, we hope that if we erase our differences, refuse to talk about them or acknowledge them, then we will be safe and we will have Peace. But, we are not all the same.  We are just willfully blind.

Some today want to claim that if we highlight our differences, then each group will finally get recognition and get "what is theirs." But identity politics to the extreme has become War : Black vs. white; women vs. men; one religion pitted against another. That is not Peace, that is everyone for himself.

Christianity is just as distrusted as always. But, that is a shame. Because, Jesus taught that we BELONG to each other. We are all part of the same vine. IF we stay in His Commandment, to Love one another, we stay together. If we pull, each in our own direction, the vine falls apart.

Martin Luther King said, "We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be, until you are what you ought to be. This is the way God's Universe is made."

What King said, here, descends directly from John 15!  We revere what King said, but so many today seem threatened by what Jesus said. Yet, the message is the same, "Love one another, as I have loved you. Love your neighbor as yourself."

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