A section of or relating to religion
“All of us live our lives in exile. We live in our separate riddles, partially separated from God, each other, and even from ourselves. We experience some love, some community, some peace, but never these in their fullness. Our senses, egocentricity, and human nature place a veil between us and full love, full community, and full peace. We live, truly, as in a riddle: The God who is omnipresent cannot be sensed; others, who are as real as ourselves, are always partially distanced and unreal; and we are, in the end, fundamentally a mystery even to ourselves.”
(Fr. Ron Rolheiser)
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“Searching for God and Finding Him”
© By John Arkelian
“God hugs you. God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God. You shine so finely, it surpasses understanding.” (St. Hildegard of Bingen)
At the very heart of the Christian faith is its call to ennoble us. It speaks to what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” It awakens our craving for awe, our yearning for joy, and our longing for redemption. Distilling its fundamentals to secular terms, Christianity urges us to be compassionate toward others and to be humble about ourselves. Simple lessons? Maybe. But we too rarely live by those precepts. Our tendency to be neglectful of others has yielded a world wracked by injustice, inequity, and violence. We have an innate inclination to divide “us” from “them.” It hardly matters what the basis for the distinction is – it may be race, religion, nationality, language, or culture, but any excuse will do. Once we have identified someone as “the other,” it is all too easy for us to neglect them, marginalize them, dispossess them, ascribe sinister intent to them, fear them, hate them, oppress them, enslave them, or kill them. How profound, then, to be called upon to reject the very notion of “otherness” and to instead practice compassion for all. As to humbleness, some may mischaracterize it as advocating a kind of self-hatred. But C.S. Lewis put it better: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Our ego, our pride, our selfishness is ultimately inimical to our own well-being, let alone that of our fellows.
It is said that we are made in the image of God, but it does not follow that He is made in the image of Man. It is better to think of God as the personification of Love. Who among us has not been touched by love in the here and now? How unfathomably greater, then, to come face to face with Love Incarnate, Goodness Personified, and Compassion Made Manifest? That’s where the craving for awe comes in: As Dasher Keltner says, “Awe blows us away. It reminds us that there are forces bigger than ourselves.” Equally entrenched in our psyche (or spirit, if you will) is the yearning for joy. We all want to be happy, but joy surpasses happiness by orders of magnitude. It’s ephemeral, but far from unknowable, in our individual journeys through life. We may experience it in a reunion with a sundered loved one. We may experience it fleetingly through art, music, film, or poetry – each of them an artistic form of storytelling, and each, in turn, a vicarious way to experience the world. There’s exultant joy in Handel’s “Messiah”: “King of kings (Forever and ever Hallelujah! Hallelujah!) / And Lord of lords (King of kings and Lord of lords) / And He shall reign /And He shall reign / And He shall reign forever and ever…” There’s joy to be found in the climactic moments of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” (complete with vocals by a heavenly choir) and in the redemptive conclusion of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
Joy is inextricably connected with what J.R.R. Tolkien called “the consolation of the happy ending.” For Tolkien, the resulting “eucatastrophe” is something the best fairy tales share with Christian faith: “I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest.” After all, in each of our own life stories, what conclusion could be better than the end of death and suffering, the reunion with parted loved ones, personal communion with Love Incarnate, and the perfecting of ourselves? At the margins of our consciousness lurks a dimly perceived awareness that we are incomplete, unperfected, broken, and in aching need of repair – along with the conviction that we are meant to shine. The most perceptive among us may sense the perpetual tension within our psyches between darkness and light. For Tolkien, “The Birth of Christ is the Eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the Eucatastrophe of the Incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy.”
We all get opportunities to shine — and they most often come when we selflessly give comfort or succor to others. At those moments, we see a hint of our own luminous potential. A common critique of belief in God is the undeniable fact that bad things happen to good people. When tragedy or grievous injustice strikes, why does God not reach down to protect or deliver us? Part of the answer may be that we exist (for now) in a natural world, governed by natural laws, by our own free choices, and by blind chance. The Supernatural has entered our natural world, decisively; but additional miraculous interventions of the deus ex machina variety must, by some cosmic calculus, remain few and far between. But there’s something more vital at work as well. It is a mistake to blame God for our misfortunes, for, as the BBC’s “Call the Midwife” so poetically puts it, “God isn’t in the event. He is in the response to the event. In the love that is shown and the care that is given.” Likewise, “the hands of the Almighty are so often to be found at the ends of our own arms.” Each of us is called upon to be our brother’s keeper, a good Samaritan to utter strangers, and a caring steward to the natural world we all share. As C.S. Lewis said, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”
There are signposts pointing toward God for those who look. There are intimations of the Divine in the beauty of the natural world, in the astounding immensity of the cosmos around us (when we peer into the night sky, we see all of space and all of time with our own mortal eyes), in the unexpected courage we’re all capable of, and in the kindness with which we are gifted by others (not because we’ve earned it, but because they bestow their love by giving it). There’s the inner conviction that God is the force that holds physical reality together; without Him, the atoms would fly asunder in utter chaos. There’s our internal compass, which helps us distinguish right from wrong. And there’s our apprehension of (and longing for) the numinous. Why crave the mysterious and the Divine unless such things exist as food for our souls, knit into the very fabric of our being as sentient creatures of body, mind, and spirit? Belief in God may be a kind of wish-fulfillment, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Rather, it may be a signifier of our heart’s ache for the “Secret Fire” from which our souls are fashioned – a desire to return to our heart’s true home.
Some decry belief in God as the fuel that’s driven injustice and conflict. But bad deeds done in in the name of Christianity say nothing at all about the validity of Christian faith. Put the blame instead on the cynicism or sheer ignorance of those who denigrate the good name of Christianity for noxious, all too un-Christian, ends of their own. Others dismiss belief in God as quaint and obsolete – or incompatible with our ever-expanding scientific understanding of the physical reality we inhabit. But nothing could be further from the truth. There are plenty of scientists who are also devout Christians. One of them, particle physicist Stephen M. Barr, rejects the materialism’s contention that man is nothing but “a pack of neurons.” For Barr, “consciousness, free will, and the very existence of a unitary self” cannot be accounted for by materialism. As suggested above, nature works according to physical laws; overt divine intervention into nature can therefore only be a rare (miraculous) exception to the way the physical world around us works. But, as Barr points out, that tells us nothing about the intention and will behind those physical laws. What he finds more instructive, by way of circumstantial evidence, is the astonishing “beauty, order, lawfulness, and harmony” that science keeps on discovering in the natural world. Indeed, a plethora of “anthropic coincidences” (if “coincidences” they be) in the way the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology work, undergird the existence of life as we know it. Likewise, the postulated “Big Bang” may be consistent with the Bible’s account of a beginning to the universe. We should remember, however, that the Bible is an artful, poetic saga of faith, sometimes, particularly in the Old Testament, told in mythical language and metaphor. It is true in a spiritual sense, but it never purports to be a history book, let alone a scientific analysis. Barr also points out that scientific determinism has been circumscribed by science itself, courtesy of quantum mechanics, a physical system which yields probabilities rather than the definite outcomes produced by implacable, predictable physical forces.
Atheists are adamant that God doesn’t exist, and they are propelled by an almost religious fervor. Indeed, Chris Hedges makes a persuasive case that atheists and religious fundamentalists are more similar — and more dangerous — than either camp would care to admit. Both tend to be intolerant and chauvinistic. Both dream of a perfect society and of a perfectible human being. Both claim a monopoly on the truth and both are impatient with opposing views. Both tend to disregard human fallibility; and both neglect nuance and understanding in favor of a blind certainty born of ignorance and dogma. For Hedges, a central fallacy at the heart of atheism and fundamentalism alike is the myth of inexorable human progress, the notion that mankind is steadily advancing morally and ethically. For atheists, blind faith in reason, science, and technology is the holy grail that propels our moral advancement. But glowing reports of our supposed progress fly in the face of frequent reminders that the irrational (and often darkly destructive) side of the human psyche is as active as ever it was. That flaw in our nature — call it sin, if you will — is hardly something we are outgrowing. The wretched litany of oppression, hatred, and violence that has characterized human history (and still does) puts the very notion of inexorable “progress” to the lie.
G.K. Chesterton pointed out that, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has [instead] been found difficult and left untried.” For some faithful, Christianity’s appeal is in its union of imaginative and primary reality: it is the nexus between heroic myth and prosaic reality. It calls us to be ennobled. It inspires by the sanctified example of Jesus Christ’s life. It gives meaning to life, which began in lifelessness. It speaks to an inner yearning for joy, awe, and redemption. It resonates brilliantly with the thrill we get from the happy endings in made-up stories. And it poetically promises that something far bigger and better lies (presently indistinct and visible only to our hearts) behind the stage upon which we all act out our mortal span of days. As C.S. Lewis said, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we may leave behind.” The be-all and end-all of Christian faith is love and reverence for the Source of all love, for (as the BBC’s aforementioned drama puts it so artfully), “Love grows when nothing else is certain, changing its shape to fill the space required.”
John Arkelian is an award-winning author and journalist. Among his eclectic pursuits, he has represented Canada abroad as a diplomat, advised the federal cabinet as an international lawyer, conducted criminal prosecutions as a federal Crown attorney, served as a professor of media law, been a candidate for Parliament, and directed an international film festival. He is the founding editor of Artsforum Magazine.
Copyright © 2023 by John Arkelian.
The foregoing essay also appeared in the Spring 2023 edition of Grapevine Magazine.
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Wonder Has Left the Building
© By Fr. Ron Rolheiser
In a poem entitled Is/Not Margaret Atwood suggests that when a love grows numb, this is where we find ourselves:
We’re stuck here
on this side of the border
in this country of thumbed streets and stale buildings
where there is nothing spectacular to see
and the weather is ordinary
where love occurs in its pure form only
on the cheaper of the souvenirs
Love can grow numb between two people, just as it can within a whole culture. And that has happened in our culture, at least to a large part. The excitement that once guided our eyes has given way to a certain numbness and resignation. We no longer stand before life with much freshness. We have seen what it has to offer and have succumbed to a certain resignation: That’s all there is, and it’s not that great! All we can try for now is more of the same, with the misguided hope that if we keep increasing the dosage the payoff will be better.
They talk of old souls, but old souls are actually young at heart. We’re the opposite, young souls no longer young at heart. Wonder has left the building. What’s at the root of this? What has deprived us of wonder? Familiarity and its children: sophistication, intellectual pride, disappointment, boredom, and contempt. Familiarity does breed contempt, and contempt is the antithesis of the two things needed to stand before the world in wonder – reverence and respect.
G.K. Chesterton once suggested that familiarity is the greatest of all illusions. Elizabeth Barrett Browning gives poetic expression to this: Earth’s crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. The rest sit round and pluck blackberries, and daub their natural faces unaware. That aptly describes the illusion of familiarity – plucking berries while carelessly stroking our faces, unaware that we are in the presence of the holy. Familiarity renders all things common.
What’s the answer? How do we recover our sense of wonder? How do we begin again to see divine fire inside ordinary life? Chesterton suggests that the secret to recovering wonder and seeing divine fire in the ordinary is to learn to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again. Biblically, that’s what God asks of Moses when Moses sees a burning bush in the desert and approaches its fire out of curiosity. God says to him, take off your shoes, the ground you are standing on is holy ground.
That single line, that singular invitation, is the deep secret to recovering our sense of wonder whenever we find ourselves, as Atwood describes, stuck on this side of the border, in thumbed streets and stale buildings, with nothing spectacular to see, ordinary weather, and love seemingly cheapened everywhere.
One of my professors in graduate school occasionally offered us this little counsel: If you ask a naïve child, do you believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, he will say yes. If you ask a bright child the same question, he will say no. But if you ask a still brighter child that question, he will smile and say yes.
Our sense of wonder is predicated initially on the naivete of being a child, of not yet being unhealthily familiar with the world. Our eyes then are still open to marvel at the newness of things. That changes of course as we grow, experience things, and learn. Soon enough we learn the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny, and, with that, all too easily, comes the death of wonder and the familiarity that breeds contempt. This is a disillusionment which, while a normal transitional phase in life, is not meant to be a place in which we stay. The task of adulthood is to regain our sense of wonder and begin again, for very different reasons, to believe in the reality of Santa and the Easter Bunny. We need to bring wonder back into the building.
I once heard a wise man share this vignette: Imagine a two-year-old child who asks you, “Where does the sun go at night?” For a child that young, don’t pull out a globe or a book and try to explain how the solar system works. Just tell the child the sun is tired and is taking a sleep behind the barn. However, when the child is six or seven years old, don’t try that anymore. Then, it’s time to pull out books and explain the solar system. After that, when the child is in high school or college, it’s time to pull out Steven Hawking, Brian Swimme, and astrophysicists, and talk about the origins and make-up of the universe. Finally, when the person is eighty years old, it’s enough again to say, “The sun is tired and is taking a sleep behind the barn.”
We have grown too familiar with sunsets! Wonder can make the familiar unfamiliar again.
Ron Rolheiser was born in Macklin, Saskatchewan into a large farming family. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1972 and earned his doctorate in sacred theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1983. While there, he began to write a regular column called “In Exile,” which appears in many Catholic newspapers worldwide. Fr. Ron served as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas from 2005 until 2020, and he remains on staff there as a full-time faculty member. Well-known as a speaker, his workshops and retreats have inspired many. He is the author of sixteen books, including “Essential Spiritual Writings” (2021) and “The Fire Within” (2021). Visit Fr. Ron at: https://ronrolheiser.com/
Copyright © 2023 by Fr. Ron Rolheiser
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Mystic or Unbeliever
© By Fr. Ron Rolheiser
A generation ago, Karl Rahner made the statement that there would soon come a time when each of us will either be a mystic or a non-believer.
What’s implied here?
At one level it means that anyone who wants to have faith today will need to be much more inner-directed than in previous generations. Why? Because up until our present generation in the secularized world, by and large, the culture helped carry the faith. We lived in cultures (often immigrant and ethnic subcultures) within which faith and religion were part of the very fabric of life. Faith and church were embedded in the sociology. It took a strong, deviant action not to go to church on Sunday. Today, as we know, the opposite is more true: it takes a strong, inner-anchored act to go to church on Sunday. We live in a moral and ecclesial diaspora and experience a special loneliness that comes with that. We have few outside supports for our faith.
The culture no longer carries the faith and the church. Simply put, we knew how to be believers and church-goers when we were inside communities that helped carry that for us, communities within which most everyone seemed to believe, most everyone went to church, and most everyone had the same set of moral values. Not incidentally, these communities were often immigrant, poor, under-educated, and culturally marginalized. In that type of setting, faith and church work more easily. Why? Because, among other reasons, as Jesus said, it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
To be committed believers today, to have faith truly inform our lives, requires finding an inner anchor beyond the support and security we find in being part of the cognitive majority (wherein we have the comfort of knowing that, since everyone else is doing it it probably makes sense). Many of us now live in situations where to believe in God and church is to find ourselves without the support of the majority and at times without the support even of those closest to us – our spouse, family, friends, and colleagues. That’s one of the things that Rahner is referring to when he says we will be either mystics or non-believers.
But what is this deep, inner anchor that is needed to sustain us? What can give us the support we need? What can help sustain our faith when we feel like ‘unanimity-minus-one’ is an inner center of strength, meaning, and affectivity that is rooted in something beyond what the world thinks and what the majority are doing on any given day. There has to be a deeper source than outside affirmation to give us meaning, justification, and energy to continue to do what faith asks of us. What is that source?
In the gospel of John, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are a question: “What are you looking for?” Essentially everything that Jesus does and teaches in the rest of John’s gospel gives an answer to that question: We are looking for the way, the truth, the life, living water to quench our thirst, bread from heaven to satiate our hunger. But those answers are partially abstract. At the end of the gospel, all of this is crystallized into one image:
On Easter Sunday morning, Mary Magdala goes out searching for Jesus. She finds him in a garden (the archetypal place where lovers meet), but she doesn’t recognize him. Jesus turns to her, and, repeating the question with which the gospel began, asks her: “What are you looking for?” Mary replies that she is looking for the body of the dead Jesus and asks if could he give her any information as to where that body is. And Jesus simply says: “Mary.” He pronounces her name in love. She falls at his feet. In essence, that is the whole gospel: What are we ultimately looking for? What is the end of all desire? What drives us out into gardens to search for love? The desire to hear God pronounce our names in love. To hear God, lovingly say: “Mary,” “Jack,” “Jennifer,” “Walter.”
Several years ago, I made a retreat that began with the director telling us: “I’m only going to try to do one thing with you this week. I’m going to try to teach you how to pray so that sometime (perhaps not this week, or perhaps not even this year, but sometime) in prayer, you will open yourself up in such a way that you can hear God say to you “I love you!” Because unless that happens, you will always be dissatisfied and searching for something to give you a completeness you don’t feel. Nothing will ever be quite right. But once you hear God say those words, you won’t need to do that restless search anymore.”
He’s right. Hearing God pronounce our names in love is the core of mysticism, and it is also the anchor we need when we face misunderstanding from without and depression from within – when we feel precisely like unanimity-minus-one.
Ron Rolheiser was born in Macklin, Saskatchewan into a large farming family. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1972 and earned his doctorate in sacred theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1983. While there, he began to write a regular column called “In Exile,” which appears in many Catholic newspapers worldwide. Fr. Ron served as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas from 2005 until 2020, and he remains on staff there as a full-time faculty member. Well-known as a speaker, his workshops and retreats have inspired many. He is the author of sixteen books, including “Essential Spiritual Writings” (2021) and “The Fire Within” (2021). Visit Fr. Ron at: https://ronrolheiser.com/
Copyright © 2023 by Fr. Ron Rolheiser
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