Not to see or to know, but to act

A lot has been on my mind as I prepared to enter the season of Lent this week. Do I give up something like sweets, or add something like cooking a meal at the Catholic Worker House, perhaps both? And all of this seems trite to another part of my mind more preoccupied with the growing violence around the world: the Islamic State across the Middle East, interstate machinations in Ukraine, the ongoing violence along the U.S.’s border with Mexico, and the string of shootings of unarmed black men by police in cities across the country, just to name a few.  It is easy for me to compartmentalize these two parts of my life, the liturgicaly grounded spiritual practices, and the political animal that longs for justice.  This happens despite my knowing that God exists in the world and for the world and that my calling as a Christian is to unite my divided mind toward the single purpose of the Kingdom of God; any belief held only in the mind and not embodied in action hardly qualifies as a belief.

Luckily for me, the world if full of people who help me keep my actions rooted in what I believe.  Amidst all the news stories passing through my mind last week was a piece about Kayla Mueller, a 26 year old aid worker who died while being held captive by ISIS.  (http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/kayla-muellers-encounter-suffering-god) Her story stood out because before dying she had written so eloquently about why she took the risk of doing humanitarian work in a warzone. In 2012 she wrote, "I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I've known for some time what my life's work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering." I admire her ability to look into the eyes of our suffering world, recognize God there and allow that knowledge to move her hands into action.

The Saints are held up as role models for communities, to help them get from knowing to acting.  In the last days before Ash Wednesday, as I vacillated between committing to daily mass, giving up meat and volunteering with SLU’s winter outreach, Kayla’s words and more importantly her actions struck me as a powerful witness of how I might respond to the world around me.  I am not spurred to leave my work and travel to Syria as she did, but I am reminded that again and again that the great spiritual task for me is not to see or know, but to act. That has made all the difference as I entered into this season of Lent and the tension of living the faith of Easter in a world that still longs for the resurrection.

John Burke is the Campus Ministry Faith and Justice Coordinator.