HomeGood morning!
This weekend marks the celebration of Christopher Columbus’ “Discovery” of the “New World”.
Columbus had set out to find a westward passage to India, something of great value if found. Most of us know by now that Columbus believed he had found that passage, and had actually voyaged to India. The cynic in me wonders whether he really believed that or whether he thought it perhaps imprudent to return to Spain, report to Ferdinand and Isabella and tell them that he had failed.
However, all indications are that he truly did believe he had traveled to India.
Modern historians, and modern Americans, like to say that Columbus discovered something much more valuable than a path to India, but I am not sure he would have seen it that way.
The point I am focusing on here is that he thought he had found something which he had not. He held to a false truth.
Stones
Yesterday afternoon, Genie and I were standing in our kitchen, and Genie turned to me and asked, “Why do we have a bowl of rocks on our kitchen table?”.
I looked at the bowl she was referring to, a small bowl filled with rocks, and I remembered the day that my daughter and I had wondered along the beach in Westport, just the two of us, talking and being together. We had seen a beautiful rock shining in the wet sand, and we picked it up, admired it and decided to keep it. Pretty soon we had quite a collection of rocks, selected because they were beautifully colored or had an unusual and pleasing shape. Heather was probably nine years old at the time, give or take a year or two. She is twenty two now, so some years have gone by. All that time, that bowl of rocks has been sitting on our kitchen table, a reminder of that afternoon of adventure and discovery.
These rocks, when we saw them on the beach, had been shiny, or were bright red, or near blue. Now the interesting thing about rocks found on the beach is that when you get home you often discover that the rocks change when they are no longer wet. The bright reds fade to dull rust, the near blues fade to a drab gray, and the shininess disappears. That happened with these rocks. And yet we had kept them all these years. That was because, although the rocks were really not intrinsically beautiful, although their colors had faded, they represented much more than themselves. They represented that time of being together of mutual wonder and discovery, of the shared search for beauty. More than that, they represented that time of being together, whether it resulted in finding rocks or not. And so we had kept the rocks for years. So when Genie asked me yesterday “Why do we have these rocks on our table?”, and then asked, “Can we get rid of them?”, I was hesitant to say yes. Not because of the beauty of the rocks, but because of what they represent.
Then Genie said she would like to use them in planters that we have around the house, so they would still be in our home, would still be visible. I would not be tossing them away, which would feel to close to tossing away that afternoon on the beach. That is silly, of course; the rocks are not the afternoon. But they do represent it.
That points to something important for me: It is okay to throw away the rocks of we hold on to what the rocks represent. The danger we often face in life—and clearly I am speaking metaphorically now--is that we will keep the rocks, will make them special, will glorify or even worship the rocks, and will throw away what it is that they represent.
People
As an aside, I was thinking about people and those rocks. How often do we come upon someone and say Look how beautiful this person is. Look at how they gleam in the sunlight, look at the bright colors and inherent beauty. And then, after a while, the colors fade, the gleam disappears, and what is left looks drab and uninteresting.
Conversely, true gems in the rough that appear often appear rather dull. It is only when they are cut and polished that their real inner beauty shines forth. How easy it is to pass by the people or the things of real worth.
Now I must say that I do not believe that anyone is really, truly drab or ugly. The facets of two people must fit together well for the true beauty to shine forth, and the person who is not right for me is perfect for someone else. So really I am just talking about beauty for the individual, not some eternal standard of beauty.
Ramadan
The Muslim month of Ramadan begins later this week. During Ramadan, it is said, the Angel Gabriel first began to recite the Qur’an to Muhammad. Ramadan is a month of fasting during the daylight hours and feasting after sundown.
Like most religious time of fast or feast or mediation, it is not just a time of worship, it is also a time of search. One searches for religious meaning in the experience of fasting, one searches for a deeper spiritual connection to God, to Allah. One searches for a deeper appreciation of the gift that life is. That intentional search is often crucial to the experience of religiosity and of spirituality. Now, spirituality can strike one almost any time or any place, and while one is doing almost any thing. But it is also true that we build Cathedrals for a reason, that we set aside times for prayer and reflection for reason. These aid us in our search.
Spiritual truths
As I reflect upon that spiritual search—regardless of which tradition one follows, I think of Columbus and how what he thought he found was not what he actually found. How often do we stumble upon or find some deep meaning some deep religious truth, only to discover later that it was not what we thought it was. Some people have followed great religious leaders only to discover later that they were false Prophets. Jim Jones, Guru Maharaji, and many others.
Some people have “known” that the end of the world was coming and have actually chosen a date when the end would occur; and yet the time passed and the end did not happen.
Some of us have held to doctrines or dogmas that no longer full us with peace or comfort or joy or awe, or whatever it was that they first gave to us.
The danger with spiritual truths is that we will sometimes hold onto them long after the beauty has faded. We will sometimes hold onto them and protect them and cherish them long after we have let go of or lost sight of whatever it is that they represented for us; yet we keep them in the bowl on our kitchen table.
As we grow, as we change, religious truths and values change. The stories that we once believed to be literally true become metaphors for human life and for the human spiritual journey, unless we insist upon keeping them as stones. Religious laws are like stones; they point to spiritual truths. But we can lose sight of the spiritual truths and worship instead the religious laws. We can lose sight of the experience and hold onto the stones. When I say “we”, I mean each of us individually and all of us collectively.
In the Bible, stones are used to represent many things, but one thing is significant to me this morning. In some Bible stories, stones are a means of killing people. They become a means of death. How often do we forget spiritual experiences and instead use religious laws to stone people? In any tradition, we ought always look beyond the religious laws to the spiritual experiences they are meant to help us achieve.
Sister Doris – “Stones”
Years ago when I served as a summer chaplain in a hospital, I was asked in the group of chaplains to describe my theology. I started out by saying that I was a Humanist. This was both confusing and disappointing to the other members of the Chaplain group, especially, I think, to Sister Doris. As I continued to describe my theology, speaking of the oneness of the Cosmos, of our connection to it, of our arising from it and returning to it, of the importance of sensing the pulse of the universe and aligning our lives with that, Sister Doris began to smile. The more I spoke, the wider was her grin, the more beaming was her face. When I finished, she blurted out, “I knew it! I knew it! I knew that atheists believe in God!”.
I didn’t tell her that she was wrong. I didn’t tell her that for two reasons. First, I didn’t want to burst her bubble of happiness. And, second, I knew that she was right. I don’t mean that I actually believe in God in the traditional sense, but Sister Doris had listened to what I was saying. She listened to my words, but really she listened through them. She did not allow the words I used to get in the way of the truth I was stating. And in my truth, she heard the resonance of her truth. Not truth at the level of words, not truth at the level of doctrine but deeper truth; truth at the level of experience, of awe, of wonder, of a kind of blissful rapture when staring at the face of the Cosmos.
Sister Doris heard me speaking of planets and stars, of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, she heard me seeing those and through them seeing into eternity; through them seeing the great mysteries of existence, of life, of all that is. And she names that “God”.
Had I rejected her claim, had I rejected her statement, had I rejected her word, the word “God”, and her application of it to my theology, then I would have been losing the sense of shared experience with her, and would have been focusing on the stone of her words. Our words can be stones.
Sister Doris understood. She knew that when I said “Cosmos”, I referred to something that she calls “God”, something below mere words, something deeper than words.
How petty it would have been in that moment for me to deny her acceptance of me, her inclusion of me, her recognition of my spiritual journey, of our shared spiritual journey, how petty it would have been for me to deny her use of the word. In that moment, she and I shared something genuinely valuable and important. I don’t know whether or not the others in the room shared it, but she and I did. We did so because she transcended the categories of our thoughts and doctrines and our means of expression. We did so because she felt the deeper experience, the deeper meaning and said, “I know that place, I know that experience, I know that moment of truth, that vision”.
I am a Humanist. That name, that label, is one of my stones. I keep it because it reminds me of freedom, of liberation, of reason and of connection. But I keep it because it reminds me of those things, not because it is those things.
As we wander on the shore of life, may we find things of deep beauty. May we share these precious gifts with one another, giving honor, respect and affirmation to whatever others may have found.
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