Until I got ordained, people rarely asked me theological questions.
Now it's
different.
Almost every day
somebody wants to get into some God-talk with
me.
And I love it!
Does God exist?
Did Jesus really rise from the
dead?
Is there really life after this
life?
______________________________________
I don't KNOW the
answers.
But I have faith.
And my faith, like the faith of those disciples
heading to Emmaus,
comes from a lifetime of asking myself those very
questions
and coming up with answers
that led to more and more
questions.
It's been a lifetime of seeing and thinking
and praying and
feeling
and loving and doing,
with points of serious awe and wonder at the
Holy Mystery
we call God.
______________________________________
I have
faith that God is.
Along the way I have learned some things that God is
NOT,
and that every idea or description or concept of God
that I am able
to form
is way too small.
And I have faith that Jesus rose from the
dead.
I have learned some things that does NOT mean,
but, again, any words
I use
fall short of the experience
of his continuous and unending presence
among us.
And I have faith that there's life after life.
I have learned
some things that does NOT mean,
and I have found my idea of what it does
mean
grows more and more expansive
with every discovery of science
and
every experience of the impact of people I have known,
even after they
died.
______________________________________
One useful thing I've
learned
is that it's important to explore
the definitions that give rise
to these God-talk questions.
We're bombarded by assertions of atheists like
Richard Dawkins
who say there's no God…
and of course there isn't, not a
God like Dawson has in mind,
that white-bearded ancient male
sitting on a
throne somewhere up there in the clouds.
It's easy for Dawson—or for that
matter, any eighth grader—
to debunk literal interpretations
of
descriptions of spiritual experiences of people
who lived thousands of years
ago in another culture.
It's not so easy to jump into the process
of
understanding the meaning of those experiences
for us
today.
______________________________________
Those disciples on the road
to Emmaus,
those followers in the Upper Room,
and each of us make a leap
of faith,
just like those other leaps we make
every time we jump into the
unknown.
We leap (or stumble) out of bed in the morning
with faith that
our feet will land on a floor that will hold us up.
We reach out for that
morning cup of coffee
with faith that our eyes are telling us the
truth
about it being right there on the table.
We take a leap of faith
when we confide in a friend,
choose a vocation,
get
married.
______________________________________
And sometimes we find
ourselves
hanging out there on a shaky limb,
flapping in the
breeze,
finding our secrets laid bare to the world
on our friend's
Facebook,
hating the job we thought would be good for us,
finding our
spouse in an affair or abandoning us and the kids.
Whether it's a personal
catastrophe or a crisis of faith,
we usually reel around for a
while
before we are able to grab onto the hope
that leads us to action and
change.
We eventually find that we still believe
that true friendship is a
good thing
and that it exists.
We still believe that we can find a
job
that will really fit our skills and preferences.
We still believe that
good relationships exist
and that we will get through this
to enjoy the
company of many people
whom we can love and who will love
us.
______________________________________
The longer we live,
the more
we see that, over and over again,
we need to re-define ourselves and our
world,
our experiences and our hopes,
especially when it comes to the most
important things,
like love and God.
Sixteen hundred years
ago
Augustine of Hippo talked about
how human beings grow in
God-consciousness.
He said, “What wonder is it that you do not
understand?
If you do understand, then it is not God.”
So even though we
don't have the answers, it's okay.
We rest in confidence that the Holy
Mystery is always beyond,
always more than anything we could have
imagined.
______________________________________________
We have all been
on that road to Emmaus many times in our lives,
heading in the wrong
direction out of fear and disappointment.
Then the Spirit breaks in and we
get turned around.
We find Jesus alive,
with us on the way,
making
God's word clear to us once more.
And we give thanks
and celebrate that we
once again
come to recognize him
in the breaking of the bread.
--
Holy Spirit Catholic Community
Saturdays at 4:30 p.m./Sundays at 5:30
p.m.
Holy Thursday, March 24, 5:30 p.m.
Holy Saturday, March 26, 5:30
p.m.
at 3925 West Central Avenue (Washington
Church)
www.holyspirittoledo.org
Rev. Dr. Bev Bingle,
Pastor
Mailing address: 3156 Doyle Street, Toledo, OH 43608-2006
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