Tag Archives: faith

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

We human beings want to know why.

Recently I was driving home with a bright four-and-a-half-year-old in her car seat behind me. We stopped at an intersection.

“Why did you stop?” she asked.

“Because the light turned red.”

“Why did it turn red?”

“Because it’s telling us to stop and wait so other cars can go.”

“Why?”

“Because if we don’t stop, we’ll bump into other cars. It’s their turn to go.”

“Why is it red?”

“Because that’s the color the grown-ups agreed on.”

“Why?”

Eventually you reach the point of surrender: “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Wanting to know why things happen is a basic human instinct. It has been invaluable to our survival; we have flourished as a species by being curious. But finding all the answers we want can be a challenge.

Last spring I was listening to a Lenten podcast about why things happen in life. At one point the speaker quoted a comedian: “Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is you’re stupid and make bad decisions.”

That certainly explains some events in my life, like the coffee stains on my shirt after I decided I could take a sip while accelerating from a green light. Or why I recently showed up for a doctor’s appointment only to have the clerk tell me I had the right month and day, but I had booked it for 2027.

For many ordinary events, there are common-sense reasons for why they happen. In the big picture, I believe most human behavior can be understood through our evolutionary inheritance, shaped by culture and personal experience. Our ailments are often the result of biological chance, genetics, and the inevitable effects of aging. Most accidents come down to simple physics compounded by human judgment.

For centuries, people have wondered whether an unseen force is intentionally making things happen. Spiritual traditions have offered a variety of answers.

Some say everything that happens is divine will, and it is our duty to accept it; numerous passages in sacred texts support this view.

Others say we are caught in an eternal struggle between good and evil.

Others say we carry karma from past lives that predisposes us to certain fates.

The Romans believed in the goddess Fortuna, who was blind. Without rhyme or reason, she brought about events that could make or break a person’s life. By the Middle Ages, this belief had evolved into an all-powerful Wheel of Fortune that turned and turned, raising some up and bringing others down.

Still others say our fate is written in the stars.

I have come to believe that many events can be understood as natural processes. But I also believe a subtle divine spirit can work through and in the midst of these forces, drawing out unforeseen possibilities and experiences of grace.

In many Gospel stories, Jesus encounters people who assume that their condition must be God’s will. But he reminds them that God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. And, embodying the divine spirit, he sees each person for who they are and who they can become. If someone is sick, he reaches out to heal them. If someone lives on the margins of community life, he invites them in. If someone feels they have no future, he says, “Follow me.” Rather than telling people to passively accept their situation as fate, he offers them the choices for a new direction.

I have seen amazing things happen when people are open to divine possibilities: when we accept our present condition for what it is, seek guidance about where to go next, and then follow as best we can.

I also believe many good things in our contemporary life happen for a very clear reason: people have chosen to do things that make a difference.

“Why were so many of us able to survive the COVID pandemic?”

“Because teams of dedicated scientists worked together to develop vaccines, just as scientists before them used their skills to prevent cholera, polio, measles, and many other diseases.”

“Why are so many people coming together to defend our democratic system?”

“Because our ancestors lived under rulers who abused their power for personal gain. Our ancestors created a political system meant to limit personal power and to treat every person and our institutions with respect. And generation after generation has taken its turn to preserve and advance that system.”

“Why are there groups of people who have come together to create food banks, medical clinics, recovery programs, preschools, and crisis centers?”

“Because people choose to care for one another.”

We may not be able to answer all our “Why?” questions. But we can answer many with confidence.

My Brown Bag Lunch with a Nobel Scientist, Quiet Time in My Backyard, and Faith as a Signpost

When we first came to Santa Barbara in the early 1990s, I was finishing a leadership program through Seattle University. One of our assignments was to interview leaders from different disciplines: the arts, education, business, and science. I didn’t know any scientists, so I asked one of my parishioners who worked at UCSB for suggestions. “You should interview Walter Kohn,” Hank said. “People say he may get the Nobel Prize someday.” It was also known that, despite his fame, he came to campus every day on the city bus.

I called Professor Kohn’s office and left a message. He called me back and agreed to meet. “I bring a brown bag lunch every day and eat in my office,” he said. “Why don’t you bring your own lunch and we can talk?” We set a date.

I don’t remember what food I prepared, but I made sure to bring it in a brown paper bag.

I found his office and knocked. He invited me in and offered me a chair.

What remains vivid in my memory is his description of growing up in Vienna in a close Jewish family in the 1920s and ’30s. He was also grateful for the excellent public education he received, including the study of Greek and Latin. He said he gained a lasting appreciation for how Roman civil society and traditions put a high value on personal integrity and public service, which he sought to embody in his life and career.

After the Nazis took control of Austria in 1938, he was separated from his parents, who were later killed in the Holocaust. He made it to England, then Canada, and finally the United States. Along the way, he took advantage of every educational opportunity that came to him. He eventually found his calling as a scientist and came to UCSB in 1979 to become the first director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics.

As is often the case, what we remember from meeting a person may not be the details of what they said but the feeling we gain for who they are. I was struck by Professor Kohn’s modesty, his graciousness, and his desire, born of the suffering he had seen as a young man, to make the world a more just, caring, and peaceful place.

Five years after our lunch, Professor Kohn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in quantum mechanics. He died in 2016 at the age of 93.

The memory of that lunch came back to me recently as I was reading a compelling account of the intellectual and cultural legacy of Vienna in the 1920s and ’30s, much of which was brought to America by émigrés after World War II.* I realized Professor Kohn was one of those remarkable people, and a living embodiment of that world.

Looking for more information about him, I found this quote:

“I am very much a scientist, and so I naturally have thought about religion also through the eyes of a scientist. When I do that, I see religion not denominationally, but in a more, let us say, deistic sense. I have been influenced in my thinking by the writing of Einstein who has made remarks to the effect that when he contemplated the world he sensed an underlying Force much greater than any human force. I feel very much the same. There is a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery.” **

A few days later, I was having my morning quiet time in our backyard. When I first become still, my mind is flooded with thoughts and feelings about what happened yesterday and what I’m anticipating in the day to come. When that flow settles, I try to get out of myself and observe my surroundings. I want to notice anything new: Have the leaves of the sycamore tree changed color again? Are any agapanthus still blooming? Is that squirrel running across the top of the fence the same one I saw yesterday?

But this time all was still, and nothing stood out. Then I became aware that just because I don’t see anything dramatic doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of life going on. Every tree and plant is quietly processing its life in response to the changing environment. Every spider is caring for its web or planning the next one. Every blade of grass is growing cell by cell. The children in our neighborhood, getting ready for school, are growing and changing every day. And as I am processing and planning and growing (and letting go), I am part of all that: “an underlying Force much greater than any human force,” as Professor Kohn said.

I want to remember what his family and so many like them went through. Like him, I want to be part of the ongoing effort to let the impact of our lives be rooted in reverence, not destruction.

Faith is not about having everything figured out. It is a signpost pointing in a direction we want to go, a direction that leads to discovery, delight, hard work, and service.

Professor Kohn wrote an eloquent account of his life story for the Nobel Prize award which you can read at  Walter Kohn Life Summary for Nobel Prize

* Vienna, How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World, by Richard Cockett

**https://todayinsci.com/K/Kohn_Walter/KohnWalter-Quotations.htm#google_vignette

Dolly and Wendell

In the closing days of August, two great Americans died: Dolly Parton, age 80, and Wendell Berry, age 92. 

In some ways, they had much in common.  They were from the same part of the country — Dolly’s roots were in the “hollers” of Tennessee and Wendell’s in the hills of nearby Kentucky.  They both carried with them an appreciation of rural values and a powerful blend of humility and pride.  And they both expressed personal truths in a way that spoke to us all.

As best as I can determine, they never met.

I never saw Dolly in person, but like so many, grew to appreciate her art, her persona, and what she stood for.  She honored her upbringing and used her fame and fortune to help others.  She welcomed every person she encountered.   She always took the stage with joy and purpose.  As a music critic friend of mine noted this week, “The nation — nay, the universe — has lost one of its great lights and levelers.” [i]

In contrast, I knew Wendell Berry to be a shy man.  I saw him in person on three occasions: in 1986 at the Campbell Farm in Washington where we were volunteers, in 1993 at the dedication of a local community-supported agriculture project, and several years later as part of an “Environmental Poetry” series at UCSB.

There have been many tributes to each of them in recent days.  I have nothing to add to honor Dolly.  But I do want to offer something to honor Wendell.

This week I looked back over my blog posts and discovered I’d written about him eight different times.  I decided to share two selections.

What Young People Need 

When he spoke at UCSB, he read from a novel he was working on, Jayber Crow.  This was followed by a question-and-answer period.  Someone asked if, given his dedication to family farms, gardening should be a required subject in high school.  Berry paused for a minute, then said, “No, students should read Homer and the Bible, because they need to know the problems they are facing are not new.” 

What Jayber Crow Understood 

I bought the novel Wendell had read from soon after it came out in 2000. Jayber grows up in the small town of Port William.  Early in life, he felt a possible calling to ministry and attended seminary but became disillusioned and left.  He returns to Port William and becomes the town barber, gravedigger and church custodian.  From these vantage points he witnesses people’s lives unfolding.   In one passage, he’s sitting at the back of the church during a service. The young visiting preacher is a fire-and-brimstone kind of guy, and Jayber reflects on those he’s encountered who see the world from that perspective:

…They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works — although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself.

What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest. They had imagined the church, which is an organization, but not the world which is an order and a mystery. To them the church did not exist in the world where people earn their living and have their being, but rather in the world where they fear death and Hell, which is not much of a world.  To them, the soul was something dark and musty, stuck away for later. In their brief passage through or over it, most of the young preachers knew Port William only as it theoretically was (“lost”) and as it theoretically might be (“saved”) and they wanted us all to do our part to spread this bad news to others who had not heard it — the Catholics, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists, and others — or else they (and maybe we) would go to Hell. I did not believe it. They made me see how cut off I was. Even when I was sitting in the church, I was a man outside.

In Port William, more than any place I had ever been, this religion that scorned the beauty and goodness of this world was a puzzle to me. To begin with, I don’t think anybody believed it. I still don’t think so. Those world condemning sermons were preached to people who, on Sunday mornings, would be wearing their prettiest clothes. Even the old widows in their dark dresses would be pleasing to look at. By dressing up on the one day when most of them had leisure to do it, they signified their wish to present themselves to one another and to Heaven looking their best. The people who heard those sermons loved good crops, good gardens, good livestock and work animals and dogs; they loved flowers and the shade of trees, and laughter and music; most of them could make you a fair speech on the pleasures of a good drink of water or a patch of wild raspberries. While the wickedness of the flesh was preached from the pulpit, the young husbands and wives and the courting couple sat thigh to thigh, full of yearning and joy, and the old people thought of the beauty of the children. And when church was over they would go home to Heavenly dinners of fried chicken, it might be, and creamed new potatoes and creamed new peas and hot biscuits and butter and cherry pie and sweet milk and buttermilk…

…The people didn’t really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that sooner or later the world would deprive them of all it had given them, but they still liked it.  What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another’s help and company and divine gifts, their hope and experience of love surpassing death, and their gratitude. (162-163)[ii]

The first time I read this passage, it brought tears to my eyes. It captures why I have felt privileged to serve all my congregations.  It’s never been about promoting any particular doctrine or instilling fear.  Instead, it’s been about practicing a down-to-earth reverence for all of us “ordinary” people trying to live our “ordinary” lives with grace and care.  Wendell described what I have always felt but did not have the words to express.  I think Dolly would know exactly what he was talking about. I’m grateful to them both.

[i] “Goodbye, Dolly,” Joe Woodard, Santa Barbara Independent, September 3, 2026

[ii] What Jayber Crow Understood

Playing the Cards We’ve Been Dealt 

 

Recently I’ve known several people making important decisions in their life.  Take a new job or keep the one you have? Stay in your small town or make a move to a big city?  Folks who are getting on in years wonder, “Can I keep doing this activity or do I need to give it up?” “Shall I go forward with this recommended surgery or wait?” Meanwhile, I’m facing some of my own decisions. In the process, an old country song started playing on my inner personal jukebox: “The Gambler,” which was major hit for Kenny Rogers back in 1980.   Here’s the chorus:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em

Know when to fold ’em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you’re sittin’ at the table

There’ll be time enough for countin’

When the dealin’s done.

Investigating the song’s history, I learned about the scene it imagines.  Two strangers are riding a lonely train at night.  The older fellow offers to tell the younger one the secret of life in exchange for some whiskey.  The young guy accepts and hands him the bottle.  The old timer tells him that getting through life is a lot like playing poker.  “The gambler states that every situation can be played for better or worse. The trick is to recognize what is worth keeping, choose one’s battles, and not dwell on losses. After he finishes talking, the gambler crushes the cigarette out, and dies in his sleep during the night, leaving the narrator to ponder his wisdom alone.”[i]

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em

Know when to fold ’em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run…

I have limited expertise playing cards.  I mastered “Go Fish” by age 5 and later learned how to keep up with “Uno;” more challenging games such as bridge were beyond me.  But my older brother taught me how to play poker when I was young, and when I got to college I enjoyed playing with friends.  I appreciated the blend of luck, strategy, and acting that made for winning poker hands.  

One of the life truths revealed in poker is reflected in the saying, “You’ve got to play the cards you’ve been dealt.”  We say that when we look at a situation and realize we can’t change the facts, as much as we’d like.   But a skillful poker player over time makes the best of whatever cards they have.  

We know some people are born into families and situations with many advantages – financial and emotional security, for example.  Others come into life with factors that make it difficult to feel safe or believe they’ve got much of a chance to do well.  We also see examples of people born into wealth, privilege, and fame who have difficult and sometimes tragic lives.   We don’t get dealt the same cards as everyone else — we all get different cards and must learn how to play them as best we can.  In that truth, the old gambler was right.  “The Gambler” meets the standard for every great country song: “Three chords and the truth.”

But as much as I like the song, I kept thinking about the message.  For me it’s missing some key bits of wisdom.

One is the value in having a higher purpose beyond just playing to win for ourselves.  Our personal experiences and strengths can help us find our way.  But we can also use them to benefit other people.  

I think of the many hospice volunteers I’ve known.  Often, they have been through personal losses and tragedies and, over time, were able to heal.  Having been through that, they felt a calling to help others who are facing the uncertainties of life and experience of grief.  They don’t try to fix people but instead care for others with patience and reverence.  They take the cards life has dealt them and play them in a way that helps others, and in the process find a sense of satisfaction not possible if they focusied only on themselves.  

The same is true in recovery and mentoring programs, and many kinds of service.

Another missing element is the power that comes from being known and cared for by a force beyond ourselves.  In many Gospel stories, Jesus is traveling from village to village, encountering a wide range of people.  Some have an illness that makes them socially unclean and untouchable.  Others have made poor choices in life and have assumed those decisions will define them forever.  Others feel they are of little worth due to their gender, age, or ethnic background.  Each of these characters hold certain cards in their hand and assume their disappointing lives are the product of bad luck and fate; these are the cards they deserve, and they’ll never have another chance.  Why not “fold em” and give up?  But Jesus comes, sees them, and engages them. He touches and heals people who are ill.  He gives women and children honor and respect.  He sits at tables to break bread with social rejects.  In his actions and words, he offers each person a spiritual wild card — the wild card of grace.  With this new card in their hand and heart, they can see new possibilities in their life and a new community where they are welcome.  They discover that, “when the dealin’s done,” a winning hand is not how many chips we have stacked up for ourself, but how we’ve played the game and why.

Lead image: keepnaturewild.com

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambler_(song)

Shaped By Life

Last week we took the Amtrak Coast Starlight for a 32-hour journey to Washington State.  Our goal was to visit friends we’d made when we lived in the farming community of Wapato in central Washington from 1985-1992. 

Once we got settled on the train, I downloaded Pope Leo’s new encyclical on AI to my iPad. While some of it was dry, other parts were compelling.  One section impressed me. I pasted this paragraph to my Notepad:

… we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth…[i]

We arrived in Seattle at 10 PM.  The next day we visited a friend who lives north of the city, then drove our rental car over Snoqualmie Pass to the Yakima Valley.

The first night a group of friends gathered at a winery to celebrate our memories and relationships. 

The next morning, we drove eight miles south to Wapato, which has 3,000 residents and an 85% poverty rate. 

We began with a visit to the apple farm and retreat center where we lived the first year.  We took photos, including one of the 10 x 50-foot trailer we lived in that is now abandoned.  We drove into town and saw the church I served for six years; the congregation I knew dispersed years ago, and the building is now owned by a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal congregation. 

We drove two blocks past the Dairy Queen to the church-owned house we lived in for six years.  Later we visited a Filipino couple who are dear friends and godparents to our younger daughters.  We spent two more days in the area before driving west over the mountains.  We spent one last night in a downtown hotel in Seattle and boarded the train back home. 

On the way south, I began to sort out my feelings and thoughts. 

I value all my life experiences. Living in a small town few people have heard of amid the poverty was not easy.  But we did it.  We endured because we were embraced by the people in my congregation and those we met through the schools, community, and the local swim team.  We grew to love our new life, the people, the land, and what we were learning. 

Becoming aware of that on the way home, I took my iPad out and looked again at the excerpt from the encyclical.  I was drawn to two sentences:

So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.

…and…

It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity.

I enjoy using Claude, my AI tool.  I appreciate Anthropic, the company that created Claude, which has from the beginning established strong ethical guidelines and whose co-founder was invited to speak at the encyclical’s presentation.

Speed, clarity, ease, amazement:  AI gives us these experiences. 

But life can’t always go quickly. Sometimes it takes a long time to find clarity.  Sometimes the easy way is not the best way.  And sometimes the most lasting sense of appreciation comes not from a device, but from personally experiencing and living through joy and pain and discovering from within the value of “love, work, friendship, and responsibility.”

Living seven years in the Wapato community taught us in a lasting way what love, work, friendship and responsibility mean.  Our life there shaped us for the good.  We will always be grateful for what we learned and the people whose lives became intertwined with our own.  And I am grateful to Pope Leo for reminding us what really matters as we live into the future.

[i] Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 99

Lead Image: Farm in the hills near Wapato, Washington

“London Calling, Part 3: Handel and Hendrix Under One Roof”

Last year I read “Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah.”  It’s a fascinating account of Handel’s life in London –-the scandals, fundraising challenges, political tensions and personal drama that surrounded him while he composed “The Messiah.” When I began planning my recent trip to London, I wanted to visit the house where Handel lived.  When I Googled it, I discovered that Handel’s house adjoins an apartment Jimi Hendrix rented between 1968 and 1969.  The two residences recently became one museum: The “Handel Hendrix House.”

I was fascinated to consider that two legendary musicians – separated by time and culture – had literally lived under the same roof. Both had been important touchstones in my personal musical experience, and it became a priority to visit.  I want to share the thoughts I had after visiting the site. But I’ll begin with some reflections on what each artist has meant to me.

When I think of Hendrix, I hear the opening chords of “Purple Haze,” which came out in 1967. I was 15 years old, and whenever it came on my car radio, I always turned the volume up.   Like so many of my generation, music had become central to the feeling that a new and exciting era was being born. It had begun with the Beatles and the Beach Boys.  Then the Rolling Stones and so many other groups emerged.  Then came Jimi Hendrix.  What he offered was much more than “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “I Get Around.”  He was taking rock music into highly imaginative and psychedelic realms…

” Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky…”

There were the three studio albums: “Are You Experienced?”  “Axis Bold as Love,” and “Electric Ladyland.” In 1969 he closed Woodstock with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He became a global sensation.  A year later, he died of an overdose. 

Jimi Hendrix was a visionary creator, a brilliant musician, and one of those human comets that rise high into the sky before burning out.  When I was 19 and living in my first apartment in Isla Vista, we had a large poster of Hendrix on our living room wall.  Listening to his music and seeing him perform evoked awe.

In my early 20s, my youthful abandon was calming down and I began to buy fewer rock albums.  For the first time, I learned to “hear” classical music. Before then, I thought it was meant to be just pleasant and pretty.  But I discovered human spirits from the past were sharing with me passionate, sublime and profound truths they had experienced.  I latched on to Beethoven first, then other composers. When I finally began listening to Handel’s “Messiah,” I learned why it has been treasured by millions of people for more than 250 years.  The most well-known selection is, of course, the “Hallelujah Chorus.” When we hear it sung well, it feels as if the heavens have opened and we join all humanity celebrating something gloriously greater than our self. 

Like Hendrix, Handel created experiences that evoke awe. Both artists have their place in my life.  I couldn’t wait to visit the place they both lived.

My sister and I followed the Google maps on our phones. We got to 23 and 25 Brook Street. It looks like this:

You enter the red door of the gray building on the right and you are in Handel’s house.  You go upstairs and come to a drawing room where Handel composed and rehearsed for many years.  It was in this room that he famously composed the complete “Messiah” in 24 days.  There is a replica of his keyboard:

Some days they have guest musicians playing.  We heard a cellist performing pieces from Handel’s era:

You next pass into his bedroom. 

A sign says: “Here Handel could find privacy and tranquility in his sometimes busy home…It is here that Handel slept, dreamt, recovered from illnesses and wrapped up warm amidst some of the coldest winters on record…He never married and we know nothing about his romantic liaisons while he lived here…In this bedroom, his sanctuary, he may have drawn his last breath.”

You go to the top floor and pass through a door into the Hendrix apartment. There’s a spare room where people such as George Harrison and Billy Preston gathered late into the night…

Then there is Hendrix’ s bedroom…

…and a room where you can view his stereo and collection of LPs…

…nearby is this display, noting that Hendrix apparently was inspired by listening repeatedly to a recording of “The Messiah:”

In one of the rooms, a guitarist was playing blues:

And then you’re done.

Completing the tour and heading outside, I was left to wonder what it meant.

The two men could not have been from more different backgrounds.  Handel was nurtured in the courts of 18th Century Europe; Hendrix had to make his way through the “chitlin” circuit of segregated night clubs in the turbulent 1960s.  Handel lived to be 74, Hendrix died tragically at 27. But both found great success and fame. Both entertained friends and musicians late at night in their Brook Street residence.  Both are gone.  But both have given us the great gift of their artistry and music which continues to inspire feelings of awe.

In the movie “Sinners,” the character Annie says: “There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true, it conjures spirits from the past and the future.”  Handel and Hendrix seem to have that power.  And for that we can be grateful.

“London Calling, Part 2: That Turbulent Priest”

There is no shortage of monuments to saints and martyrs in England.  This past week I joined the countless pilgrims who have gone to Canterbury Cathedral for 900 years to honor the memory and witness of Thomas Becket. I happened to be there when a top story in the news was “an exchange of perspective” between two powerful world leaders — one, the President of the United States, and the other, Pope Leo. 

Thomas Becket had been a friend and advisor of Henry II.  Henry appointed him to be Archbishop of Canterbury expecting Thomas would support whatever Henry wanted to do.  But Becket took his vows seriously, and spoke out whenever he felt Henry was going astray.  At one point, Henry expressed his frustration in the presence of four of his supporters and was heard to say: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”  On December 29, 1170, the four men rode to the Cathedral, entered the area where Thomas was alone at prayer, and murdered him with their swords.  Becket had stood firmly for spiritual principles in opposition to a willful ruler.  He was made a saint.

For centuries Becket’s tomb was on display at the end of the cathedral, where countless people came to pay their respects.  I first visited that part of the sanctuary. I then came to the small side room where the actual murder occurred; his name is written on the floor:

There is a sculpture above the spot consisting of a metal cross flanked by two swords with red tips representing blood.  Light descends from above in such a way that the two swords create four shadows, one for each murderer:

On the wall nearby is a plaque:

Speaking truth to power is a tradition that goes back 3,000 years to the prophets of Israel. Willful leaders don’t like it, and more than once have wanted those who speak up to be silenced. But it is an essential element of spiritual integrity and of democracy. It is inspiring to stand in this sacred place and know the tradition continues in our own time through the voice of Pope Leo and others.

Something to Rest On

Gospel music was not something I heard in my home growing up.  But I did know of a singer named Mahalia Jackson, who appeared on television shows and sold millions of records.  She performed at many civil rights demonstrations and before European royalty.  President Kennedy chose her to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at his Inaugural Ball in 1961.  She sang “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” at Dr. King’s memorial in 1968. She died in 1972 at the age of 60 and left a legacy of inspired art.

Mahalia Jackson was orphaned at an early age.  She heard gospel music coming from the church next door; it drew her in and she embodied it the rest of her life. 

Many successful gospel singers began in church choirs and later made a career singing the blues, which had a broader audience.   But she never did. She once said, “When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what’s wrong. But when you are through with the blues, you’ve got nothing to rest on.”

Ms. Jackson knew pain well and she could express it in her music.  But at the heart of every song was the conviction that reaching out in faith offered “a cure” – “something to rest on.”

Imagine coming upon an old-fashioned water well.  Leaning over the stone wall that surrounds it, we look down to see if there is water.  But the sunlight does not reach far enough for us to know. So we pick up a small stone and drop it down into the well.  If we hear nothing, we might conclude the well is dry.  But if we hear a plunk, we know water is there.

Spiritual belief is like that.  We wonder if there is something beyond us. We drop something down into our inner well — maybe a hope, a prayer, a question, or a plea for guidance.  Sometimes we get only silence. But sometimes we get a response; it may come as a word, a phrase, an image or a conviction.

When we do receive a response, we recognize it is not something we could create on our own — it feels fresh.  When we claim it, we find our life opening to new possibilities.  We have “something to rest on” as our journey continues.

A spiritual well is not a magic wishing well — it’s not about getting what we want every time.  Sometimes we receive prompts that invite us to face and bear challenges we would rather avoid. But the direction we receive always leads to embracing life.

Mahalia Jackson knew a great deal of personal suffering.  But in her faith and in her singing, she found something to “rest on.”  It didn’t make all the problems in the world miraculously disappear. But what she found within herself, in her music, and in her community gave her light, courage and the ability to endure, and she shared that with the world.

We are in the season of Passover and Easter.  The rituals and stories include times when people felt alone and without hope.  But then something happens that opens a way beyond the darkness into new life.  We are reminded we are not alone.  There is a living, divine presence down in that well. We are reminded we have “something to rest on.”

 

Getting a Peek at Heaven

Let’s say someone asks you, “Got any travel plans?”  Imagine saying, “Yeah… I’m going to the place where heaven and earth meet, poke my head through, and see what I can see.” This is how one artist imagined someone doing that:

(The caption reads: “A missionary of the Middle Ages recounts that he has found the point where heaven and earth meet.”)

For thousands of years, people looked to the skies and imagined what might lie beyond – and wondered if there’s a heaven out there.

Then science came with those telescopes, star charts, and rocket ships.

Years ago, I was teaching an adult class.  The passage we were studying mentioned heaven. One older lady raised her hand.

“You know,” she said, “I’m mad at those astronauts!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, when they got up there into outer space I thought they would see heaven.  But they didn’t find it.  Now I don’t know where it is. It makes me angry.”              

I have a friend who was a nun before becoming a doctoral student in mathematics at UCSB before becoming a Jungian therapist.  We used to go to public lectures at the Institute for Theoretical Physics on campus.  I appreciated having her with me because she could explain some of the concepts to me. I once asked her what she thought of the possibility of “worm holes” in space. She told me she thought it was an exciting theory, adding it might explain where heaven is hidden.

In spiritual traditions, “heaven” can be a reality beyond this one, but also accessible now.

In the book of Genesis, Jacob is alone in the middle of nowhere and lies down at night to sleep.  He has a dream in which he sees something like a ladder or staircase leading from earth to heaven with angels traveling back and forth.  He hears the voice of God promising that he will always be with Jacob.  Jacob wakes, remembers the dream and pours oil on the stone on which his head was resting and names it. He says, “This is the house of God, the gate of heaven.”  The story suggests that such an opening can exist in the most unlikely of places.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks often of the “kingdom of heaven” and the “kingdom of God.”  And while some passages suggest a realm beyond this life, others suggest it’s a reality available to us now: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among (or within) you…”

I once led a retreat with the theme of how paradise has been envisioned in different spiritual traditions and popular culture.  I showed a clip from the 1935 movie Top Hat in which Fred Astaire is wooing Ginger Rodgers.  In one scene, he invites her to dance with him as he sings the Irving Berlin song “Cheek to Cheek.” Here’s the chorus:

“Heaven, I’m in Heaven, And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak; And I seem to find the happiness I seek When we’re out together dancing, cheek to cheek.”

After seeing the clip, I asked the group to suggest how the scene expresses ideas of heaven.  People noticed that the set was full of light and beauty.  Ginger Rodgers had feather boas on the arms of her costume that floated like angel wings as she moved. We also saw both dancers moving effortlessly with each other, yet each retained their individuality.

And we watched the last scene of the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.”  It’s a baseball fantasy in which Ray Kinsella has inherited a farm in Iowa and is raising his family.  Ray hears a voice in the corn field calling on him to build a baseball field. He does. Soon players from the past start walking out of the corn to play the sacred game one more time.  As one of them is leaving for the day, he asks Ray if this is heaven. “No,” Ray says, “This is Iowa.” As the story continues, the voice prompts Ray with new tasks, and he follows not knowing where it’s headed or what it means.  The last player to appear turns out to be John Kinsella, Ray’s father; they were estranged years before at the time John died. Ray introduces his father to his wife and daughter.  They begin playing catch.  They have this conversation:

John asks, “Is this heaven?”

Ray: “It’s Iowa.”

John: “Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.”


Ray: “Is there a heaven?”

John: “Oh yeah. It’s the place where dreams come true.”


Ray: “Maybe this is heaven.”

I’m not sure where heaven is to be found. Maybe it’s somewhere out there in outer space. Maybe it’s somewhere here in inner space.  Maybe it’s both. I welcome those moments when we seem to catch glimpses of it in our everyday lives, and remain open to the healing and beauty it might hold.

(Dear Reader: Not being satisfied with the way I ended this, two hours after posting I’m adding one more thought…)

I like to think of the fellow in the engraving and imagine what his life would be like when he came back from his journey. I’m guessing he’d be like most people who have had near-death experiences and profound spiritual encounters: he’d feel less fear, more peace, and a fresh committment to making each day matter.

(The lead image is an engraving from The Atmosphere: Popular Meterology, by Camille Flammarion, 1888; featured in Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time, by Michael Benson)

Maybe Prayers Are Like Snowflakes

One early spring afternoon years ago, I was making the three-hour drive on Interstate 90 from Seattle to our home in central Washington.  The highway passes through Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains.  There had been plenty of snow that winter and there were only a few cars on the road as light flurries were falling. I was alone. I heard a loud crashing noise.  On the right side of the road ahead of me I watched a large snow-covered branch fall to the ground from a tall pine tree .  As I continued driving, I wondered how much weight it must take to break that branch off from the trunk of its tree.  How many snowflakes were required to make that happen? Did just one last snowflake tip the balance?

As I continued driving, I wondered if prayers might be like snowflakes.  Individually, they are virtually weightless.  But can they accumulate over time to make something tangible and unexpected happen?

There have been many theories over the centuries about how prayer might actually “work.”  There are many spiritual traditions encouraging people to pray. Many people share stories of how prayer has led to some remarkable outcomes. 

At the same time, many people can remember times when what they prayed for did not come to be.  Much has been written trying to understand “unanswered prayer.”

I have had colleagues in the medical profession recount experiences when they were working with families and individuals who were facing serious health challenges who put all their faith in prayer, sometimes to the exclusion of good science.  If the malady did not disappear, the family was faced not only with the loss of a loved one but questioning their faith as well.

I no longer expect to come up with a definitive answer to what prayer is and just how it “works.” But some stories come to mind. I’m going to share one this week and more in a future posting.

When I arrived to serve my congregation in Goleta, one man who became a friend and mentor was Hank Weaver.  Hank had recently retired after ten years at UCSB in the Education Abroad Program. He was a faithful Mennonite and a lifetime pacifist. Hank was a warm, engaging and brilliant man who walked with a slight limp.  I soon learned his story.  Just two years before, he had been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer in his lower spine.  The initial prognosis indicated he might not have long to live.  He decided to learn as much as he could about what he could do.  He had a PhD in chemistry and, as a dedicated scientist, worked carefully with his oncologist to begin the chemotherapy. 

At this time, people were beginning to use visualization as part of cancer treatment; the idea is you use your imagination in meditatation to visualize the chemo overcoming the cancer.   Hank was told one common example was to imagine cancer cells as small fish swimming in your bloodstream, and the chemo is a shark eating them up one by one.  Hank thought about it and said that wouldn’t work for him due to his belief in nonviolence.  He developed an alternative. He imagined a catfish swimming through his bloodstream, bottom feeding on things his body no longer wanted. 

Hank asked anyone who was willing to pray for his healing to do so, and many did.  One particularly dedicated member (in church speak, a “prayer warrior”) told me she had created an image in her mind of Hank entering the sanctuary fully healed, and many times prayerfully held that image in her mind and soul.  Hank also did all the right things in terms of diet and physical activity.

Months passed.  Slowly, the cancer began to disappear.  Eventually it went into remission.  The damage to his spine meant that his walk would always be impaired, but that was a small price to pay for the outcome.  (He did tell me one benefit of his impairment was the handicapped placard he had now had for his car – he began to get invitations from friends asking to go with him to Dodger games to take advantage of his hard-earned status for a premium parking place.)

Hank ended up self-publishing a book about his experience, Confronting the Big C.  Eventually he and his wife moved to Indiana where he served as interim President of Goshen College before retiring.  Hank had experienced a remarkable healing, and he believed it was the combination of good science and open-minded spirituality that led to his outcome.  He lived twenty-five more years until dying at the age of 93.

I believe Hank would say there are no guaranteed outcomes in this life.  None of us are getting out of here alive, and death will eventually take every one of us. But when facing serious challenges, we can choose to gather and employ all the best resources to increase our chances for a desired outcome.  We may never know how all these different forces – medical, spiritual, social, emotional – might interact with each other.  Some effects we can see and measure. But others, like prayer, may involve forces that are small and subtle.  But that doesn’t mean they can’t make things happen.

Image: Fineartamerica, Tera Fraley