Negative Influence

When one lives just a few miles west of our Nation's capital, the term "influence" has a different meaning than in more "normal" parts of the country and world. Within the Beltway, the term influence is usually employed to connote the power of money to move the political wheels. Lobbyists influence the House and Senate, the power of the DoD influences budgets, etc. Today I want to talk about a different kind of influence - that of negativity and its pervasive presence where we live, work, play and pray (to coin the phrase from the health initiative of the same name). It would be hard to argue that we are living in a stressed out and highly negative time. One only has to review the lead stories in the news cycle, pick up the newspaper and scan the headlines, watch the "breaking news" reports, listen to most "popular" music, watch the halftime show at the Super Bowl, suffer through the political campaign rhetoric...the list seems endless. All of the noise which competes for our attention is negative - constantly telling us how bad things are and then turning around and telling us to get our share of the good while it still exists (time's running out, buy now!!). Even in our mainline churches the conversations are about how many members we're losing, how big our deficits are, how few people we're bringing to G-d, how our children are walking away from church because they don't hear the message above the distractions in their lives. The negative influence is winning - no doubt about that. Or is it?! I was blessed this weekend, however, to witness to an age old passage rite - the Bar Mitzvah. The ceremony in which a young boy begins the transformation to responsible adulthood within the Jewish faith. Our neighbor's son who we've watched grow to this point, celebrated this event during the Shabbat service on Saturday. The scripture that he had learned dealt with the dimensions of the Tabernacle and the details of how to build it. (For those who wish to find it, it begins in Exodus 35.) The young man was honest when he said he was disappointed with his scripture (he wanted something with deceit or miracles) but as he stayed with the text, it worked on his showing him the importance of the Tabernacle within the community of faith. It was the centerpiece of the life of the community - the first thing they saw when they rose and the last thing they saw as they went to sleep. At one point, all faith communities had this place in our lives - now what is the first and last things we see as we rise and fall? This week, take a long look at the negative influences on your life and in the lives of those around you. Take a fast from those negative influences that you find during these 40 days of Lent. Watch for the transformation of your worldview and of your attitudes. You might be quite surprised at what can come from a more positive influence. Peace for the journey, Dan