Perhaps you are a religious
seeker, unaffiliated, or, if affiliated, unconvinced. Perhaps what happened to my wife and to me
will interest you.
Like us, figuratively, you’ve
been hiking a long dry road. You are
caked with dust and sweat. Perhaps you
are sore of knee and low on water. Me, when
we were in our desert of discontent, I had no idea where our next water should
come from, we were so parched.
Here’s what happened.
We came upon a
religious river, and now we are on its other side. Over here, it is a green and pleasant
land. It is satisfying over here—difficult,
too.
If you believe that you
have been called to set out into the unknown, then, I say, stick with it, sore
and dry as you may be. Up ahead—just
around the next bend—you’ll find a river flowing past.
Turn aside. Slip off your pack. Crick your back. Walk a step or two.
Feel that breeze?
It’s good, isn’t it, to
strip off your boots and your hot, damp socks.
Dip your toes in the river and then wade out deeper. Wade until the water is above your knees, until
the current presses against you, and until the water’s coldness shortens your
breath. Wade farther still, to where the
sand melts under your feet, and to where you need to make swimming motions in
the air with your arms in order to keep yourself in balance.
Stop there.
Shall you plunge?
My wife and I stood
just exactly where you are standing right now.
We—we, all of us—we all
of us stand right there, do we not?
Often we stand right
there in our lives, and we wonder, shall we plunge?
***
Here’s what you’ll need
to make it to the opposite shore.
You’ll need more than
thinking to make it across. Brain power
won’t cut it. You’ll need to go beyond
that marvelous brain of yours. You’ll
need to do what the Israelites did at the edge of the deep Red Sea. You’ll need to tap into your heart and your
soul. You’ll need to get out of God’s
face and stop yelling at him—“The Egyptians are coming! The Egyptians are coming!”—and, prayerfully, to
give him time to perform His miracle for you.
You will need to dare.
You will need to
dare.
Here’s the fundamental story,
and the fundamental promise of the ages—if you dare, then there is Someone on
the other shore who will leap to bring you in.
***
Friends and family were
curious when my wife and I crossed to the other side—Judaism to Christianity,
law to grace, caterpillar to butterfly, in Shakespearian terms, Acts One, Two,
Three, and Four to Act Five.
We did our best to
answer their questions, and, satisfied, some have cast speculative glances at
the river themselves, thinking long thoughts.
There were those among our
friends and family whom we worried might be alarmed for us at our crossing to
the other side, or who might be angry that we adopted a new country when oughtn’t
it to have been enough to keep a deprecated or a moderated religion, at least for
comfort’s sake, as some of them may have done?
Indeed, what was
striking to us in most of these encounters is the genuine kindness and
curiosity with which almost all of our friends and relations blessed our
conversions. This surprise ought to be
taken as good news by any other seekers, similarly anxious.
We remain grateful for
the solicitude shown to us about a theological convulsion over which we had
little control.
***
At the moment of our conversions, my wife and
I were relieved of wandering. We were
relieved of contemporary anxiety. We
were relieved of our culture’s famous loneliness and narcissism.
We were relieved, not
of sin, but of the compulsion to sin.
Most deeply, though, we
were relieved of the horrid and the fearsome existential burden that it might
be only we ourselves—we negligent and stumbling humans—who are the purpose of
it all.
For if it should have
turned out, in the end, that only we negligent and stumbling humans are the
purpose of the universe, then….
Well, then…
Well, then, it is very
cold out there.
The stars are very
strange.
Guttural grunts tiger
the night.
And the powerless will
be—as they always have been—devoured by the powerful…yum, yum.
But it is not so.
THE UNIVERSE IS NOT
ABOUT US.
That’s what Channa and
I were relieved to find out, thank God.
***
This thing that
happened to my wife and to me is an actual, real, true thing. It happened right here, right now. It is not a metaphor. It is not an intellectual caprice. It arose neither from a crochet nor from a
mood.
We didn’t control
it. When it came upon us, instead we gave in to it.
The thing that happened
to us is a thing that has happened to legions of humans, down the ages, and,
having happened to us, it changed us as it changed them.
We are different
now. We inhabit the other shore.
Skeptics today have
invented nothing new.
God’s creation and
purpose has been on display before a world of skeptical skepticism since God’s glory,
itself, began.
Skeptics today are the worshippers
of the Roman Emperor of old, who found themselves astounded by Christianity and
by its calling to succor the insignificant, the poor, the downtrodden, the ill,
the widows, the slaves, the children.
Skeptics today are the
go-along-to-get-along worshippers of the Emperor of old and of the State long
ago, who were nevertheless abashed—when they could bring themselves to notice
it—at the lyricism with which the martyrs met the lions.
Skeptics today are the worshippers
of the Emperor of old, who, upon encountering this new concept of a
transcendent, a universal, and a redemptive God, were compelled to climb up
into His lap, and to punch Him in the nose.
“You are not the boss
of me!” they shouted at Him—and they shout at Him today.
Goodness, what a
tantrum.
I’m sorry, but God’s
purpose is.
Be our time A.D. 100 or
A.D. 2000, God’s purpose can’t be gotten rid of.
***
Seeker, be bold!
Dare!
Plunge!
Copyright, Dikkon Eberhart, 2015
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