Dear Members and Friends,

What is happening to us as a people:  depression, wars, flu epidemic and rising unemployment.  Every seven seconds a house is foreclosed increasing homelessness and despair.  During the Great Depression of 1929, these conditions brought forth compassion, a sense of community, a shared burden and hope.  The current depression brings hardness of heart, greed, indifference, and a deep resentment against the rich and the privileged.  This is obvious in Michael Moore’s most recent film “Capitalism:  A Love Affair.”

Are we having an epidemic of Cotard’s Syndrome just now?  This disease was named by a French physician, Jules Cotard, in 1893 when his patients complained of numbness, and having lost the capacity to feel the self.  Now one patient reports “each of my senses, each part of my master sense has lost control over the five senses.  I can’t find myself.”  This medical condition is called Cotard’s Syndrome.  Another patient reports “the functions and acts of ordinary life are left to me, but in every one of them there is something lacking, that is in the sensation that is proper to my proper self, and I can no longer feel any sensation.  This impossibility seems to depend upon a void which I feel in the objects that I touch.  I no longer experience the internal feeling of the touch.”  Why are we seeing a return of Cotard’s Syndrome right now?  Are we so overloaded with hideous and overwhelming experiences that in self-defense we simply shut down our feelings to avoid the pain of the emptiness.  This numbness will not let us feel our feelings.  Soldiers returning from World War I reported a strange malaise, a peculiar condition in which they could no longer feel their pain, a deadness of spirit.

Now we have our epidemic of swine flu for which we have medicine and treatments.  There is, however, no pill or potion to cure Cotard’s disease.  As witnessed by therapists and healers of many kinds this condition is more and more causing suffering and depression.

In contrast to the Great Depression, this new poverty and deprivation has not given birth to a feeling of community.  There is no concern for the common good, nor is there the feeling that we are all in this together.  There is a consensus that we need understanding, patience and love in the midst of this spiritual disaster.  By contrast people put their own private concerns first.  We have become self-centered and incredibly selfish.  You remember God’s question to Cain, “Where is your brother?”  Cain answers, “How should I know?  I am not my brother’s keeper.”

This seems to be the real world, from the dishonest banks down to the poorest street beggar.  How we meet the challenge of this disease reveals what kind of people we are.

Today we have a multitude of issues to face.  We are involved in two unpopular wars, we have 10% unemployment and the prophets of doom say it will increase as we move into 2010.  High school students are killing each other in senseless struggles over drugs or imagined insults, with no regard for the sacredness of human life.  What has the recent tragic incident in Richmond, California, in which a ring of students watched the abuse of a 13-year-old girl for more than an hour taught us.”  No one showed compassion, not an ounce of mercy.  Richmond is not alone in such incidents.  There are daily occurrences in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles as our daily newspapers report them.

Surely the church is called upon to address these conditions and this deterioration of concern for the neighbor.  All high religions teach “love your neighbor.”  In our own faith, our first principle is the worth and dignity of every person.  What can we do when so many of us are suffering from hardness of heart?  No one can force you to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and release the prisoners.  We should be thinking on what kind of country we want to be.  Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that the arc of history bends towards justice.  How much of our personal energy and treasure will we put into our bending the arc?

As the holiday season approaches, we will receive the usual avalanche of begging letters.  We will be urged to contribute to the local food pantries and to drop coins into the Salvation Army buckets.  It is the season of good will, celebration and music.  Even our small towns feature a do-it-yourself Messiah where citizens of all faiths and no faith join in song.  They give praise and thanksgiving for the great celebration of love and courage.

It is possible for each one of us to be an incarnation of love.  This possibility releases our feelings and helps us feel the pain, the suffering, and the possibility of transcending the selfishness and greed which corrupt our common life.

I wish for you a blessed Christmas and all the joys of the holiday season.

Love,