Our Search

I am re-reading a book by Elizabeth Johnson* who is one of my favourite authors in the context of spiritual enquiry. In the part I want to quote from she starts by asking the question: 'What is human nature?' One of the qualities that she suggests in answer is that we ask questions:
  
This is a universally human thing to do...Asking a question is a characteristic of human beings, as unique to us as a species as is laughing.  Elizabeth then goes on to question what this might reveal about us. She says, ' It shows first of all that we do not know some thing and yet want to know it: we have a desire for this truth...It also means in some significant way that we do have a hunch that something is there to be known...How many questions can we ask in a lifetime? It is without number. No one answer will ultimately satisfy us.

Think of the children you know. Aren't they full of questions? Why? why? why? Though it can be rather annoying at times, it is part of the gift of new life. Certainly, as the child gets older, 'because I say so' is not an answer that will be accepted. So the child's questioning forces us to look more deeply at life and what makes the world the way it is.


Think of yourself. How often each day do you ask questions? Many will be  practical questions like, 'where is this?' or 'what is that' or 'how can I do this?' but sometimes the questions are deeper. 'Why does he or she act that way?' 'Why am I doing this or saying that?' 'What meaning does this all have anyway?' Surely Elizabeth is right that there is no end to our questions and to our questioning.
 

I don't know who took this photo but it says something about the hugeness of the questions we ask.

What is the point of this need to question in our lives? I believe it has something to do with a deep and constant searching for understanding and for meaning. We seek to understand ourselves and the others in our life, we want to know about this world in which we live and the cosmos in which it exists. Ultimately, we want to know what purpose is at work in existence? 

Surely we are seeking in the totality of our questioning that which brings all the pieces of our life together, that which makes us whole, that which is peace and healing. Thomas Merton says it this way: At the center of our being is a point...which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God...*. Can this be the goal of our questions?  
Lent is a special time set aside for the big questions and the big answers. 

*Elizabeth A. Johnson: Consider Jesus, Crossroad Publishing, 1990. 
*Thomas Merton: Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. 

The cry of the heart

I was at a church service recently and, because it is Lent, it began with an acknowledgement :

Before God, with the people of God, I confess to my brokenness, to the ways I wound my life, the lives of others, the life of the world.
I always find it good to remind myself that I and all those around me are not yet 'there'.

And in that vein, the other day I was reading something written by the spiritual writer Henri Nouwen and it is, I thought, a really vivid example of how we do or don't care for one another. The excerpt is from his book *Gracias!. Nouwen had been spending time in South America living and working with some very poor people and these were some of his reflections in the early days of his visit:

*How little do we really know the power of physical touch. These boys and girls only wanted one thing: to be touched, hugged, stroked and caressed. It seems that without such a safe place. No human being can be truly free, can truly think boldly and live courageously.

Probably most adults have the same needs but no longer have the innocence and unselfconsciousness to express it. Sometimes I see humanity as a sea of people starving for affection, forgiveness and gentleness. Because they receive so little, if anything of it all, they make pistols, guns, rifles, missiles and similar toys instead, to ask for attention.

Everyone seems to cry: 'Please love me'.

Of course, there are many people who would say, 'but I was loved'. But love is the gift we all thrive on and yet so often we fail to give it or show it or say it. And when we are hurt or feel alone and in some sense abandoned we lash out sometimes either against another or against ourselves.

Can't we try and change this? Won't this, slowly, transform our world?

*Nouwen, Henri: Gracias!: A Latin American Journal, Harper and Row, N.Y. (1983) and Orbis, Maryknoll, N.Y. 1993.

Power and the House of Cards

I'm not sure I want to admit this, but I will. I have, from time to time, been watching 'House of Cards' on Netflix. For those of you who don't have access to it, it is a drama made especially for Netflix about American politics... except I hope that is not quite true because if it is then there is not much hope for America.

The main character is a Congressman who is his party's whip in Congress and is therefore quite 'powerful' but he wants more power. He is also totally unprincipled and ruthless and intends one day, sooner rather than later, to be President. The reason I am somewhat ashamed to admit to watching this is that I find it very gripping to watch. This man, charming, lethal and indeed evil, is amazing to watch as he uses and abuses the people he needs. He knows how to use the power he has - or what passes for power in most governments I suspect.

So, the other day I began to think about power as it is often perceived in our societies. This is generalizing I suppose but I think I may not be far wrong. For instance, we think money confers power: it buys things and people and influence; we think position confers power: it influences big decisions, it also buys people, it has 'importance'. I could go on but you will know yourself some good examples.

I would think that almost all of this kind of power brings with it the ability to manipulate, to regulate, to overwhelm, to use. This implies, of course that there are many other human beings who are then the used, the abused, the manipulated, the powerless, the throw-aways. It is not a very pleasant picture of humanity.

My further thought then took me to Jesus and his relationship with and use of whatever power he may have had. I am for instance, presuming he had the power of a certain personal charisma or he would not have attracted people's attention. But he certainly didn't have position or money, that is made clear all the time. He also did not have the power to stop people putting him to death - or at least he chose not to stop them. He could not - indeed still cannot - force people to believe in the truth he speaks or the message he brought - and still brings. So, by our standards he was one of the really powerless people.

And yet, though his message is often abused or misused (as it was when he was alive in the flesh) he still has a power far beyond that of anyone else who ever lived. It is a power we all appreciate I think, whether we believe the dogmas or doctrines, because it is a power that speaks to our hearts. It is the power of love and forgiveness and compassion and care. We all want to be loved, to be forgiven, to experience compassion and to be cared for. We know its healing power and we know how awful life is when all this is missing. This kind of power is what we are meant to live with one another, not the power that Frank Underwood and many - too many - people try to achieve.

All these people are the powerful powerless.

Learning about this is part of the journey of Lent.

Lenten thoughts

It is also of course, a time to remember that we - pretty much every one of us - act badly,hurtfully and perhaps worse. We can be part of the greed and fear that torture our society and there are no doubt, other things that we do that do not make our world a better place. Lent is a time not only to try to recognise those but to try to work to make them less powerful in our lives. That is why it is good to know in our deepest selves, how dear we are to God because from that love we can move forward.

 

The following are from the Insight magazine of Rosedale United Church in Toronto of several years ago. I have printed them before and have no idea who originally wrote them. They express something of what we can try to do to make ourselves and our world better. It is called, 'Do it anyway' and I reckon we also need to remember that there are two sides to the equation and we can be both!

People are often unreasonable, irrational and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.
 
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. 

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
 
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

From the bulletin at church today: We know the sting of temptation; the desire to abuse power. hoard your gifts, abandon faith. But you God, you love us as we are. You gave us Jesus to show the way.  
We should trust our good instincts no matter what we think others will say or do. Goodness in our world is built out of very small acts that in the end will triumph.  

The Earth

 I have been away so I have not been able to write anything. However, I have been reading a lovely book that a friend sent - another of Thich Nhat Hanh's books called,* 'Love Letter to the Earth'. If I read this correctly he is trying to remind us that the earth, our planet and we, are one and if we destroy mother earth, then we destroy ourselves. Then there is something from Annie Dillard.

One of TNH's letters is entitled, Heaven On Earth says some beautiful things but here is one I like very much:
    
 

In deep contact with the Earth and wonders of life, I touch my true nature. The exquisite orchid flower, the ray of sunshine, and even my own miraculous body - if they do not belong to the Kingdom of God,

     what does? Contemplating the Earth deeply, whether a floating cloud or a falling leaf...we are carried into eternity.

    
      



The Kingdom of Heaven exists, not outside of us, but within our very 
own hearts. Whether we're able to touch the Kingdom of God or not at every step, depends on our way of looking, our way of listening, ourway of walking. If my mind is calm and peaceful, then the very ground I'm walking on becomes a paradise.

“At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same.*Annie Dillard

*Thich Nhat Hanh: Love Letter to the Earth, Parallax Press, P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, Ca. , 2013
* Annie Dillard: Teaching a Stone to Talk, HarperCollins.