Can't We All Get Along?

 Pope Francis was buried this past week, surrounded by thousands of people, including many of the world's leaders.  Apparently everyone behaved themselves. 

Back in 2015 Pope Francis visited the United States, an unusual thing for a pope to do.  We all embraced him and he embraced us.  My friend Nancy, who was ill, said she'd love to have the pope visit her and kiss her on the head but she would have a better chance if she was a baby. 

He kissed a lot of babies on the head. 

The next year, 2016, Pope Francis did something truly remarkable.

In the year 1054, a group of Catholics broke up with the church.  Like all bad breakups, the family suffered most, mostly due to lack of communication.  The breakout group was the beginning of the Orthodox Church.  This was known as the "Great Schism."

So, in 2016, our Pope Francis (the People's Pope,) after 962 years of not speaking to each other, invited Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to meet in Cuba and forge a way forward.  This was called the Havana Declaration.  

They hugged and kissed (three times on the cheek) and then had a two hour-personal conversation.  They had a number of differences, just like us regular families do.  But they worked it out. 

I, myself, am neither Roman Catholic nor Russian Orthodox.  I'm a United Methodist.  John Wesley was the inspiration for the Methodist Church and he had similar ideas about how people who think differently about things - can also love each other. 

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?  May we be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?  Without all doubt, we may - John Wesley. 

***

 

Pope Francis Died Today

 Like millions of others, I was (and always will be) a huge fan of Pope Francis.  I remembered, this morning, that I'd written a couple of blog posts about him along the way.  When I looked them up, to my surprise, I mentioned him in 14 postings.  

I've decided to repost six of them over the next few days, starting with the oldest.  

The following was written on December 16, 2013

*******

Last month a popular talk show host called Pope Francis a Marxist.  

Pope Francis was just voted Time Magazine's "Person of the Year."  While I'm not a Catholic, here are some of the names I like to call him:

Francis the Humble.  He chose his name to identify himself with one of the greatest but most humble saints of the church. 

Keeper of the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Again, I'm not a Catholic but I know this became his title when he inherited the throne of St. Peter.

The People's Pope.  Francis is wildly popular among Catholics around the world and has the approval of 58% of non Catholic Americans. 

Francis the Peacemaker.

Francis the Compassionate.   While he is holding the line on women's rights and gay rights, he's expressing compassion for all of us.   His most famous recent quote:  "Who am I to judge?"

While Pope Francis is most definitely not a Marxist, he was, as a young man, a nightclub bouncer.  This may help him as time moves on. 


***

Me and TB

 Best selling author, John Green, is famous, in part, for his young adult novels, like "The Fault is in Our Stars," a tear-jerker about two teenage cancer patients. And now his brand new book, "Everything is Tuberculosis," is out.  

In it he's asking us to care about tuberculosis.  Why should we care?  Few of us folks in first world countries get TB these days, and even if we do, it's now curable.

So, again, why should I care?  

I've shared my TB story a couple of times in this blog.  My mother and her two brothers all had TB.  She was diagnosed when I was a pre-schooler and my brother, Paul, was a toddler.  She was shipped of to a sanitarium where she existed for seven or so years, until she finally drowned as her lungs filled with her own blood.  By the way, my brother, Paul, was named after his Uncle Paul, who too, died  with TB. 

 Years ago we, as a society, had a strange fascination with TB. Many of our most creative people had it, like all the Bronte' family, D H Lawrence, Thoreau and Doc Holliday.  But, back then, we called it "consumption" and romanticized it.  

But that was then and this is now.  So why should I care about this disease that still kills over a million people a year, more than any other infectious disease?  

How can we help others when we're having the bejeebers scared out of us every single day by just watching the news?  

I think, in part, Green is using tuberculosis as a metaphor.  And it's timely.  We're in the season of Lent, a time of deep introspection for many of us. 

Some folks I don't know, and some I love more than life itself, are suffering  Not from TB, but from other cruelties.  It's an honor to suffer with them.  I will stand with them as long as I'm here. 

For me, today, Everything IS Tuberculosis.

***