The Book of Proverbs is traditionally attributed to King Solomon and his students, but in fact, it was a collaborative effort over an extended period, written by some pretty wise folks. In recent weeks, I have shared thoughts about my feeling overwhelmed by our shared ‘metaphorical and existential wilderness.’ However, I have found both solace and encouragement in the scriptures. Specifically, there is some incredibly wise stuff contained in the prose and poetry of Proverbs. The passage below made a difference in my life:
A tender-hearted person lives a blessed life;
a hardhearted person lives a hard life.
15 Lions roar and bears charge—
and the wicked lord it over the poor.
16 Among leaders who lack insight, abuse abounds,
but for one who hates corruption, the future is bright.
17 A murderer haunted by guilt is doomed
—there’s no helping him.
18 Walk straight—live well and be saved;
a devious life is a doomed life,
Work your garden, you’ll end up with plenty of food;
(Proverbs 28: 14-19)
I am trying ‘to work’ my garden and live as a tenderhearted person of faith, but it is not easy.
The challenges are numerous and significant. Lions, bears, corrupt and unperceptive, even witless leaders abound, as does abuse.
On February 10, 2025, a contributing New York Times opinion writer, Margaret Rankl, who writes from Nashville on flora, fauna, politics, and culture in the American South, authored a poignant column titled: Tenderness as an Act of Resistance. (NYT, 2025) Drawing upon what she learned from an interview with the internationally renowned children’s author, Kate DiCamillo, at the time of the tragic Uvalde school shooting, Rankl saw what shredded optimism about the plight and prospects for children looked like. DiCamillo now considers it her job “to stay heartbroken” for the children around the world. Margaret Rankl deems it hers as well. Maybe you and I might sadly, but still gladly, add our names to the list of the ‘broken hearted for the children.’
However, these days she has more on her plate and in her heart and she confesses to having succumbed to anger. She is furious with this administration and makes it clear in her column, articulating what so many other Americans feel:
…every hour of every day now, another cause for keening grief has erupted from a presidency built entirely for destruction. (I would add revenge and retribution.)
What kind of president dismantles and threatens to shut down an agency that feeds hungry children? Or appoints as health secretary a crackpot vaccine skeptic at a time when avian influenza may be on the verge of human-to-human transmission? Or abandons efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even those that are more cost-effective than fossil fuels, just as climate-driven weather disasters are worsening?
What kind of president targets religious groups urging compassion toward immigrants and working to resettle refugees? Or rounds up people who came here to find work and puts them in a prison camp built for terrorists?
(my additions) What kind of president proposes to resettle 1.8 million Palestinians in a grotesque act of ethnic cleansing to reconstruct Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East?’ The Geneva Conventions — which both the United States and Israel have ratified — prohibit the forcible relocation of populations. Forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is defined as a violation of international humanitarian law, a war crime, and a crime against humanity. (What kind of president? His bobblehead advisors are applauding, saying: “Creative-out-of-the-box” thinking!”
What kind of president, who promotes his own bible, and promises to have the back of Christians (some Christians, that is), authorizes immigration enforcement agents to make arrests at places of worship? (Twenty-seven organizations representing Jewish and Christian faiths have now sued to protect immigrants from Ice raids at churches.)
How do we work our garden and live out our faith, especially within a cultural context so cruel and immoral? Rankl admits to her own confusion and conflicts:
Now we live in a country governed by a party of cruelty, and often it feels as though the only thing left to do is rage against the dying of the light. We have to stay heartbroken about this.
Fury is a powerful motivator of resistance, but there is only so much rage a person can harbor without nurturing something cold and still and hard in the place where a warm, living heart once beat. Already I am exhausted by my own fury...,
Frank Bruni, in his bestseller, The Age of Grievance (Avid Reader Press: Simon and Shuster, 2024) shares these thoughts:
The twists and turns of American politics today have become nearly impossible to predict, but the tone is a troubling given. It’s one of grievance. A perilous share of Americans across the full breadth of the political spectrum respond to every big disappointment, every little frustration, every way in which the world doesn’t hew precisely to their liking by deciding that they’ve been wronged, identifying the people responsible for that and raging at the injustice of it all. The blame game is the country’s most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb.
Alarming but accurate.
I got an email the other day from my good friend, George, who like Margaret, is deeply frustrated by these ‘twists and turns’ in life and the pervasiveness of grievance in our society. Like Rankl, he draws inspiration from nature and insights from the behavior of those in the wild. He feels and shares the anger she feels. He wrote:
“I was going to touch base anyway, but responding to that last blog is a place to start. Regarding the Pastor’s words at Yale: my drive to make my contribution through the endangered natural world, plus my experience being on the front lines of the ‘60s, taught me that talk is cheap. How do we get people to DO something? The most effective blows for goodness come with unceasing peaceful mass demonstrations of some kind – see Gandhi and MLK. They are a threat to the status quo, strong, moral, not a violent one. Any efforts that don’t follow the love/sacrifice of Jesus will fail in the long or short run. DOING something involves sacrifice. Who’s willing to endanger their future career path? Who’s willing to get arrested? I’d point out that the word “sacrifice” has been missing in Christian and other dialogue for a while now.” (Included with permission)
Talk is cheap, but working the garden is not. Making a difference through large demonstrations or through small acts of kindness, compassion, the insistence of justice and forgiveness are equally effective when done with a powerful and visual sense of sacrifice for the greater and inclusive good.
I am truly indebted to Ms. Rankl for the beautiful ending to her column, an endorsement of ‘tenderness as an act of resistance’ to the consuming threats of grievance and rage. Please read these words and become engaged in their imagery.
All around us, too, is beauty — art and music and stories, like the brave mouse in “The Tale of Desperaux,” that make us feel brave, too; evergreens that shelter singing birds and hardwoods trembling on the verge of green; lighted planets lined up in a parade across the night sky; glowworms hiding deep in the leaf litter, waiting for warmth to turn them into fireflies; ponds with clouds scudding across their shining surface, and turtles sleeping deep in their soft mud.
Anger lets in too little beauty, but heartbreak? A tender heart feels the fury and the fear, the sorrow and suffering, the beauty, and the bravery alike. In the years ahead, we will need them all.
One final note:
Since God chose you to be the holy people he/she loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.