I Still Believe...

Well, I’m sitting at my desk, writing this on my birthday, reflecting on the years that have passed, wondering how I got here. For those of you who may not know, I just became a seventy year old and in many ways just as naïve as ever:

I still believe that laughter is the best medicine for curing what ails you emotionally.

I still believe in magic even though Penn and Teller have tried to convince us otherwise.

I still believe that it’s possible for dreams to come true, especially when it comes to love.

I still believe that finger painting is the most fun of all the art forms I’ve ever tried (though sadly I haven’t done it since kindergarten).

I still believe that most people are nice, and those who aren’t, are just afraid to be so.

I still believe that there’s such a thing as Heaven, but that we don’t have to wait to get there to be happy.

I still believe that taking a walk in the woods on a beautiful spring day is one of the most spiritual experiences you can have.

And finally (though not really), “All work and no play truly makes Jack a dull boy.”

Please take note of the picture included with this post and you will see an owl’s face in the sky looking down on me as I walk the labyrinth that we made in the field just after the hay was mowed a couple of years ago.  That’s just one of the many reasons why I still believe after all these years of walking this planet. “A very happy unbirthday to you,” (Alice In Wonderland, Walt Disney Productions, 1951)…unless, of course, it is your birthday, in which case, Happy Birthday!

Instant Internet, Instant Coffee, Instant God?

I was thinking about a time when I was sitting at my desk in my office in Cranbury and a woman called and told me that she was about to leave town. In fact, she said that the moving van was in front of her house at that very moment and was about to head out to her new destination. Then she told me that I had 5 minutes to convince her that there was a God.

Needless to say, I was more than slightly taken aback! Five minutes to convince someone that there was a God wasn’t covered in any of my classes at Princeton Theological Seminary. That’s a kind of slam-dunk style of ministry that is about as realistic as asking me to walk on water, which, by the way, wasn’t covered in any of my classes either.

I told her that it’s highly unlikely that anyone could do that, but I knew for sure that I couldn’t. And she responded rather sarcastically with, “I thought so.” And just when I was about to ask her what was going on for her, she hung up. I don’t know who she was. I didn’t recognize her voice, but I wondered if she had ever come to my church and if so, if something I had said misled her or disappointed her. We members of the clergy often feel terribly inadequate in helping people to experience God.

One thing I do know, though, is that everyone wrestles with his or her faith from to time. It’s not as if suddenly one day you never have any more doubts. Sometimes it’s because something has happened in the world at large or in our personal lives that raises the question, “Where is God in all this?” Sometimes it’s because we become disillusioned by something or someone we trusted.  Sometimes it’s because we have discovered some truth that is contradictory to what we were taught long ago. In one of his sermons, the great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick told the story of his grandmother who said that if she discovered that Jonah wasn’t really swallowed by a great fish, then she couldn’t believe in Christianity any longer. He was pointing out that faith is a very delicate matter.  And, of course, it’s all due to the fact that we are human.

Within our human nature, though, is also our spiritual nature, waiting to be nurtured throughout the days of our human experience.

There is an indigenous story that goes like this:

            A grandfather was talking with his grandson one day and said, “I feel as if two wolves are fighting in my heart. One is vengeful, angry, violent, and the other is loving, compassionate, and strong.”

            The grandson asked the grandfather, “Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”

            The grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”

                                                                        [Sandra Ingerman, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts]

That one line—“The one I feed”—is perhaps a clue to nurturing our spiritual natures.  Just a thought.

3 B's Plus One

Nine of us went out for lunch on Sunday at El Tule in Lambertville. The occasion was a celebration of my upcoming birthday. What was great about it was that all of my boys could be there with their significant others, plus my stepson (whom I also consider to be one of the "Foster Boys") came up from D.C. to join us. Afterward we came back to the house and celebrated some more with cake, butterscotch pudding, sugar cookies, a game, music, and hanging out by the fire. A great time was had by all and I can't think of anything I'd rather have done for my birthday than that!

As I'm getting older and am aware that I have more years behind me than in front of me, times like that have magnified in their significance and meaning to me. The aging process seems to emphasize the importance of relationships with family and friends. Being surrounded by all those young people with their youthful energy and laughter, without a word being said about it, their hopes and dreams for their lives emanated from their presence. The word uplifting does not capture the full essence of it!

Of course, I hope to have many more years on this planet myself, and as far as I can tell at the moment, I will. But my hopes and dreams are different at this stage of life than they were when I was younger. In fact, I’ve managed to come up with a simple formula that I call “3 B’s Plus One.” I shared it with the group on Sunday. It goes like this: Be happy! Be healthy! Be nice! And the plus one is Be rich! (though I’m not sure how that one can work out).

But on the other hand, dollars and cents aside, I am rich! I have a great wife, a great family, great friends, a great place to live, great health and well-being, a great church in which to continue to use some of my professional skills, great opportunity to live out the gift of a contemplative life, and great memories of many wonderful people, moments, and events!

So maybe any of you reading this might want to think about how rich you are too.

I’ll leave it at that. 

Spirituality Is Reality

                Several years ago I was asked to preach at St. Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton Square. There were about 1,000 people there who had been invited to a special service for those who had lost loved ones throughout the year. Those who invited me to speak didn’t ask me what my sermon theme would be and left it up to me to decide how best to bring words of reassurance to the congregation.

            As a conclusion for my sermon I chose to use a story that I have used many times for occasions like that. It’s a metaphor that tells of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly, meaning, of course, that that’s the same as our transition from this life to the next. Again, neither I nor the people who invited me to speak consulted with each other about the particulars of the service. As it turned out, when the service was over, everyone was invited to go outside the church where they released hundreds of butterflies. To the delight of all, the butterflies landed on peoples’ shoulders and arms and flew off into the air right before the eyes of all of us watching in wonder and amazement.

            Sometimes that’s how things work. Moments like that are like a window into the spiritual realm of life. They are meant to point out the fact that what we experience in the physical realm isn’t all there is in the grander scheme of life. I believe they are intentionally provided for us as a source of reassurance and hope. The French philosopher and priest, Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

            I don’t know why I thought about that this morning as the world around me is covered with snow. It’s certainly not the weather to bring butterflies to mind. Maybe it’s because winter sometimes seems like a chrysalis in which life seems to be in a dormant stage before it breaks open into the rebirth of nature. Yet that can’t really be it because the world seems very much alive at the moment. Or maybe it’s because next Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season which leads us through a period of self reflection in a kind of spiritual wilderness and ends with the celebration of Easter. I’m not sure.

               I guess in part I’m feeling a personal need to make sure that I don’t take things for granted spiritually—that I make the effort to deepen my sense of the truth that the spiritual life is real, not just some creation of the imagination of those who want it to be true. When I accept its reality, then I am able to more fully open myself to all it has to offer in hope, healing, joy, peace, and love in this life as well as in the next.

Mother Goose Vists the Farm

               We recently had an incident in which a fox chased a chicken and a dog chased the fox. It was quite Mother-Goose-like and exciting at the same time because everything turned out okay.

                We have an old hen named Henrietta. She’s the only one left of our original flock of chickens. She gets to roam the yard all by herself, pecking at the ground at her leisure, which she primarily prefers to do around the area of the bird feeder. She can be feisty at times, but she does have some winning ways about her. She follows me around when I’m out in the yard and sits on the arm of the Adirondack chair while I read or write. She will greet us when we come home, running up to the car almost as if she’s asking, “Where have you been?”

                She was out in the yard a few weeks ago while we were in the living room. We heard a commotion and dashed out the front door to find that a very large red fox had gotten hold of her. Chris yelled at it and the fox turned and looked at her, and went right back to attacking Henrietta.  But Mr. Fox didn’t see Faye, our dog, who made a giant leap from the porch and began a hot pursuit, chasing the fox across the field, across the driveway, into the woods and down into the picnic area.

                Faye came back looking a little sheepish at first because she isn’t supposed to go that far from the house, but when she heard us cheering her, she began to look quite proud of herself. We used to call her “an old Carolina squirrel hound.” Now we have dubbed her “the fox hound.” She’s a rescue dog from a kill shelter down south. She’s mostly a Chesapeake lab and has a bit of a stubborn streak in her, but she’s a great dog.

                So let’s see, how’s that John Denver song go about “Grandma’s Feather Bed?”

“It’d hold eight kids, four hound dogs and a piggy we stole from the shed…” Well, we don’t have a feather bed but we’ve got a dog and a cat and eight laying chickens and an old hen that lives in the garage. And maybe in the spring we’ll be adding a beehive (not the hairdo, but real live honey bees)!

                One thing I know at this stage of my life that I will say over and over: There is a natural flow to life: Fox chases chicken, dog chases fox, and all turns out just the way it’s supposed to if we don’t get in the way. Life events will carry us along with a steady sense of well-being, even though things can get disrupted from time to time and upset our equilibrium. But if we don’t spend all our time focusing on what’s wrong, but celebrate what’s right, and especially what turns out right, we’ll not only make it through difficult times more easily and peacefully, but find more acceptance of the natural flow of living on this planet.