Tag: Kazantzakis epitaph

Truth that Frees Us to Resist Evil

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, hope, purpose, Saviors of God

“Whoever is paying our bills and giving us security and status determines what we can and cannot say or even think.” Fr. Richard Rohr

The quote above recently appeared in Fr. Rohr’s daily meditations from his Center for Action and Contemplation. It struck me as particularly poignant and relevant right now when freedom of expression in the U.S. is under attack. The power of those words is in the very fact that there is truth in them even under the best of conditions. Women can understand that truth better than we males because throughout patriarchal history they have not been free to express themselves.

In my lifetime women could only get a credit card if it was in their husband’s name. In my grandmother’s generation women did not have the right to express themselves through voting until the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.

A clergy colleague of mine was forced out of his church in the mid-twentieth century for expressing his opinion about an issue on an election ballot, and in this age of social media the number of people who have lost their jobs because of an opinion they expressed on their personal social media account is too many to count.

This quote reminded me of another one that has intrigued me for over 40 years. “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” Those are the words written on the gravestone of Nikos Kazantzakis in Heraklion, Greece. Kazantzakis was the author of “Zorba the Greek,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” several other novels, and “Saviors of God,” a book of “spiritual exercises” that are often as challenging as his epitaph.

Is being free of fear and hope the secret to having no constraints on what we say or think? Some might say being filthy rich so one does not have a boss or anyone else to report to would be the ultimate freedom, but I suspect that those who are not accountable to anyone because of their ultra-wealth are far from free. I base that judgement on the fact that the vast majority of billionaires we see in the media are never satisfied with what they have and continually strive for more wealth and power instead of enjoying what they have.

When Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32) what is the truth he is speaking of? Verse 31 sets some context for the more familiar 32nd:

“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples.” It is to those believers that he promises the truth that will set them free. That narrows things down a bit, but still raises questions, like free to do/be what? Or freedom from what?

The clue to those answers are found right in these verses. Jesus is talking to those who believe in him, and he says they need to continue in his word to truly be his disciples. In other words they are set free to be true followers of Jesus and his way of peace and justice. And later in John’s Gospel in the farewell discourse (chapter 14) where Jesus is preparing his disciples for life in a post-crucifixion/resurrection world he tells them he is going to prepare a place for them. Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:5-6)

Jesus himself is the truth that sets us free, and if we know that truth, not as a doctrinal belief but as a deep, in the gut, all-in personal relationship and commitment to follow Jesus’ way no matter what crap the world throws at us, then we are free from fear and even from hope because in that abundant life in Christ there is nothing to fear and nothing more to hope for.

That is the truth that give us the courage to be, to borrow a phrase from Paul Tillich. It’s the courage described by Bertram Cates in the play “Inherit the Wind” when he is on trial for teaching evolution in a small southern town where almost everyone is against him. At one point Cates says, “It’s the loneliest feeling in the world-to find yourself standing up when everybody else is sitting down.”

But those who know the truth that is Jesus’ message of peace and justice understand that we must fear nothing and stand up against the forces of evil and injustice. I like the way our United Methodist Baptismal ritual says it. One of the questions asked of adults being baptized is this: “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”

Most of us go through the motions of this ritual by saying the prescribed “I do,” but in times like we are living in now it is incumbent upon all of us who know Jesus as our truth to fear nothing and stand up and say a resounding “Here I am, send me!”

Who Do You Say You Are? Reflections on Identity and Life’s Challenges

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, hope, self-care, Wellness

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” Nikos Kazantzakis’ epitaph.

Those words from the Greek Author and philosopher, Nikos Kazantzakis, have both inspired and haunted me since I was first introduced to them as a twenty-something seminary student 53 years ago. Kazantzakis, most famous for his novel, “Zorba the Greek,” wrote many volumes full of such deep and baffling sayings. Many of them have stuck with me my entire adult life, and I was reminded of again of them when my wife and I had a chance to visit Crete on a cruise to several Greek Islands last spring. Crete is both the birthplace of Kazantzakis and where he is buried.

 The epitaph in particular has been on my mind recently as my awful, terrible, no good, horrible summer of 2024 has continued right into the fall. [Please read my posts from August 4th and 12th if you want all the details.]. Quite frankly I do know that my little problems the last 4 months can’t hold a candle to hurricane destruction, people living in war zones, people starving from famine and climate change, people suffering from chronic pain, grief, persecution, broken relationships, addiction, homelessness, and so many more. Is it possible for any of us to truly hope for nothing and fear nothing?

My most recent personal challenge is undergoing chemotherapy for a rare form of lymphoma in my blood. I’ve known this day was coming sooner or later since my oncologist has been tracking the slow increase of a monoclonal glutamate in my blood for over a decade. I was personally hoping for later, like much later. But of course this was the great summer of my discontent, and what better time for my IgM antibodies to set off a siren alerting my doctor that something was wrong. This alarm was as loud as our home security system when I accidentally set if off. When the IgM jumped from around 2000 in January to 6500 in July it was such a loud warning that even my denial mechanisms were overpowered.

Technically I have been a “cancer patient” for about 13 years now because I was diagnosed with a mild prostate cancer in 2011. But that cancer has never needed any kind of treatment. Being told I needed to start getting chemotherapy ASAP for this lymphoma was a whole different ball game. One of my first challenges after this diagnosis was a debate within about how I wanted to think about myself going forward. Naming something helps give us some agency over it.

I knew I didn’t want to think of myself as a “cancer patient” because I am so much more than any diagnosis or label or title can convey. We are complex and complicated beings who defy narrow definitions of ourselves. In other words, I have cancer; it doesn’t have me. But knowing what I didn’t want to identify as didn’t answer the harder question of finding a name for this new, added dimension of my being. I toyed with “victor” (maybe too ambiguous depending on how one defines what victory even looks like. Jesus certainly didn’t look like a victor on the cross, but how our ideas of victory change on Easter morning! Don’t like “survivor” either. I want more from life than just surviving. As an aside, it has taken me 6 weeks or so to reach sporadic bouts of peace where I can live into the words above. In fact I hadn’t been able to express those thoughts and feelings like this until I started writing them. One of the many reasons writing is so therapeutic for me.

At those many other times when I don’t feel good at all about my new blood brother, I have caught myself recalling the title of a 1995 movie, “Dead Man Walking.” As time goes on I have had fewer of those DMW moments and more of the positive ones. After writing this, I’m pretty sure that ratio will continue to improve. Because as I wrote this post I realized that I have a simple and maybe fun way to embrace and integrate my cancer into my “Stevenness.” You see, my cancer has a pretty cool name. It’s Waldenstrom, named after a 20th Swedish Doctor who first described it. But Waldenstrom is a very heavy handle for my little cancer. It sounds like a cousin to Frankenstein. So I have decided to christen my cancer with the nickname, “Waldy,” and that seems like a name I get arms around.

One final thought (or two): Throughout this naming/identity dialogue with myself there was a biblical scene that kept coming to my mind. All three synoptic Gospels (Matt. 16:15, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20) recount the time Jesus gave his disciples a pop quiz. Like all good teachers Jesus starts with a safe, impersonal question. He asks, “Who do people say that I am?” After the disciples respond with several Hebrew heroes from the past, Jesus stops them and asks the zinger: “and who do you say that I am?’ Jesus went from preaching to meddling in a hurry.

Simon Peter as usual jumps in with the answer: “You are the Christ, the Messiah.” Peter knows the right words, he just doesn’t yet understand what those words really mean or will mean to him. Far too many of us today know “who” Jesus is, but that’s only half the equation. It’s one thing to answer the catechism, or recite the Apostles’ Creed, but quite another to know what those words require of us who claim the identity of Jesus’ followers.

It occurs to me that the unspoken question that Jesus leaves hanging in the air for his disciples to discover for themselves is this: “Who do You say that you are?” Have you wrestled with that question recently? Who do you identify with/as? What name do you give to the totality of the amazing God-created being you are? We humans are more than the sum of our parts. Be gentle with your being. But remember to ask yourself occasionally: “Who do You say that you are?”

The answer to that question is never final; it is dynamic and ever-changing. But the closer we get to an answer we can live with, the closer we are to fearing nothing—not even my new friend Waldy or whatever other demons with which we have wrestle.