Finding Some Peace in a Hectic Time

With one week until the election, I've got a lot on my mind -- hopes, concerns and comments about what we may see in the first 100 days of the next administration. But rather than try and sort it all out tonight, I instead want to focus on something peaceful -- something to calm my mind and get me to regain some balance. It's a photo I took a few years ago of a place where I go often to seek peace and solace - Washington National Cathedral.

Discerning My Path

Coming to a point - THE point - in your life where you begin to take a good, hard look at your faith and your beliefs is an overpowering and humbling experience. In recent months, I've realized that I am now at that point.

Truthfully, I've felt "nudges" for quite some time -- many of which seem to be directing me in what I think is a new direction in my life. But some of these "nudges" have caused me to take a closer-to-home look and reexamine the core of what I believe. I was talking to my wife last night about our experiences in Sunday school as a child, most of which sadly I don't remember. There are brief flashes of learning the creeds and the commandments, and of putting my nickle in the plate in the mini-service that our teachers had in the church undercroft on many Sundays. What I do remember from that point is that Christianity for me seemed to be very familiar and very comfortable -- Jesus healed the sick, Zacchaeus climbed the tree to get a better look at Jesus, Noah took the animals on the ark, etc.

I can even recall getting my first Bible from the church -- a small, black "Good News" edition that included some very simple sketches throughout of different scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and with my name embossed in gold on the front cover. The sketches were very basic and had no definition, something to which I never paid much attention.

In thinking about that one little point, though, in recent days, I don't half wonder if the fact that sketches had no faces and no set form could imply that they represent every man and every woman. It could have just as easily been one of us who was seeking to be healed, or one of us who was climbing a tree to get a better view of Jesus, or one of us who was watching as the ark was loaded. The lessons in the Bible can certainly apply to all of us.

One of the most challenging things about my personal examination, though, is that it's not limited to something as small as what a sketch means. The Spong lecture I discussed earlier, and a similar lecture by N.T. Wright which I attended last week at the National Cathedral, have made me realize that there are an infinite number of things to think about and pray about during this process: the literal versus the allegorical aspects of the scripture; the role of the church in the world; the influence of modernism and post-modernism on church development; the most effective way to pray -- the list is endless.

The sheer number of resources to use is nearly endless as well: Wright; Borg; Crossan; Pagels; Spong; Kung; Tillich; Ehrman -- and this is only touching on those I'm going through now. There are also numerous scholarly websites and journals to use. There are the works of the early church fathers and church historians. And there is the Bible itself.

As someone who loves to learn and loves the challenges of learning -- as well as the thought of having my childhood beliefs challenged -- this is a really exciting time. I look forward to going through this process and in sharing it with my family and friends.

Jack Spong at the National Cathedral

As many opportunities as there are in the D.C. area for great lectures, concerts, and other cultural events, it's not too often that I'm able to get out and enjoy any of them. However, I was able to go out last week and attend a lecture given by the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Newark (NJ), which was hosted by the Cathedral College of Washington National Cathedral. He's definitely been a controversial figure, and I really wanted to take the chance to hear what he had to say. I didn't have any opinions already formed before I went, since I've read little of what Jack has written and only knew him from what my parents told me about him from his time as rector of St. John's in Lynchburg (VA).

There was a fairly sizeable crowd in attendance, and I was curious from the outset to see how folks would react to what he had to say. I sat next to a young, second-year seminarian from Virginia Theological Seminary with whom I had a very pleasant chat. While we agreed on much -- the importance of outreach in the life of Episcopal congregations being the largest topic of discussion -- I could tell that we had a difference of opinion regarding the recent ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. In fact, Jack's position on the ordination of gay and lesbian priests over the years has been the source of a great deal of controversy. I was pretty sure that some folks in the audience might seize on that when it came time for questions and answers at the end of the lecture.

I was amazed by Jack's lecture, the topic of which was billed as "The Promise of Jesus: Abundant Life for All." He had said that he was going to take examples from three of his books, but in fact he focused a lot on his life and on those points where he wondered whether the church was headed down the right path (points that he referred to as pebbles in his shoe). He definitely made some powerful points -- talking about how he was raised in a time and in a place where people were anti-Semitic, anti-women, homophobic, and racist. The "pebbles" to which he referred were points where he began to confront each of these -- both through incidents in his own life as well as in the life of the national Episcopal church.

I do have to agree, after having listened to him, that undoubtedly many of the folks who have criticized him over the years have never taken the time to read what he has written or listened to what he has to say. I've been prompted to buy several of his books (aside from the ones I already owned and which were sadly gathering dust on my shelves) and intend to read more fully his opinions on a variety of topics that I know are impacting the church. I may even decide to chat more about some of that in future posts. But there was one really powerful statement that I took away from all of this: "If truth can destroy faith, you never had any to begin with."