What Do We Sacrifice When We're Wrong?
A FIVE - MINUTE READ
First, I’d like to thank all of my subscribers and particularly my first paid subscriber, Steve. You are all tangible evidence that my writing has value.
I’ve given up on the struggle to stay as fit as a fiddle, but I’m really trying to stay at least as fit as a ukulele. One of the things that keeps me invested are the occasional, interesting conversations at the gym.
Today, after talking to a beekeeper about how his tiny pets were acclimating to the temperature swings from 73 degrees yesterday to 17 degrees this morning, I ended up talking to Bruce, a 60ish-year-old guy I’ve known for a year or so. Somehow, our discussion drifted toward religion.
I knew, from prior discussions, that Bruce - a tall, lean investment guy, is an atheist. Until today, I had no idea how devout he is. No matter what seemingly open-ended questions I lobbed his way, he spiked every single one of them down without a thought. “Could you at least consider that there might be some divine mystery out there that we just don’t understand?” His reply: “Nah, there isn’t any divine anything that we humans didn’t create.”
Baptized and then raised as a rigid, practicing Catholic, he was as burnt on religion and spirituality as one could get. To him, religion and spirituality are exactly the same. He was obviously struggling to squeeze every Christian of every persuasion into the same fundamentalist box. He could not comprehend that all believers aren’t close-minded, naive, or just downright ignorant - so . . .
I brought up a personal experience that defied all earthbound explanations, at least for me. I explained how I had an almost universally catastrophic type of hang-glider accident twenty years ago. I was soaring in the Catskill Mountains when a downdraft caught my glider, and I flew headfirst into a large tree trunk about sixty feet off the ground. It destroyed the two-inch aircraft aluminum on each side of my head. Though I was powerless in that second, I surprisingly had time to remember the multiple incident reports I’d read about this type of accident; almost universally causing broken necks and fatalities.
As for me, I somehow escaped without a scratch from the impact. My helmet was untouched, and my last visual had been the tree trunk flying toward my face. His explanation: “You sure were lucky.” My reaction at the time was a confused, but extremely grateful: “Thank you, thank you, thank you, God.” I had defied all the odds right there in front of me.
Now juxtapose that discussion with one I had with a woman last week.
First a little background. My wife and I had met “Peggy Sue” as a waitress at a nice pizza place four years ago. In her early fifties, she seemed pleasant and chatted with us about our recent move to Wisconsin, and eventually about her memorable name. She was a chiropractor but underemployed so that she could take care of her elderly father at his home.
Fast forward three years. We were at the gym and she, not recognizing me, approached and asked if I would spot for her. I said “sure” and stood above her with my hands loosely encircling the bar as she bench-pressed about 140 pounds - just 30 pounds less than her body weight! When she had finished the set, I introduced myself and said she looked familiar. She gave her name, and the encounter came back to me. So, I asked her how her father was doing. Appearing in a hurry, she gave a casual and bewildered response: “fine.”
Well, last week she approached me, and apologized for “again forgetting my name.” I tried to reassure her, saying “When you’ve got a lot on your plate, it’s important to let the stuff that doesn’t matter fall off.” To which she said, “but names do matter.”
I reminded her that we had met her four years ago when she was waitressing. We talked for a few minutes, including about her father’s current health challenge of advanced skin cancer. She asked if I would pray for him to which I gave a sincere “Yes,” and then she started to head back to her weights.
Halfway there, she turned around, came back, and asked “Do you accept Jesus as your lord and savior?” I responded, “That’s really complicated, but I will pray for your dad.” She wanted nothing of it. The conversation turned from light to intense. She was on a mission. I wasn’t sure if she was mainly concerned with saving my soul or doing so in order to make certain that my prayers counted.
First, she started reeling off chapter and verses which I’d heard a hundred times before. She wanted my email address so she could send me information that could “really help” me. I explained that in the last century I was a lay preacher for the Presbyterian church for a decade. I’d thought a lot about all of this, and we just disagree. And then I thought I’d wrap things up: “We’re in a free country where we’re allowed to do that.”
She was so far from done. “How about if I send you a link for some videos by a really smart guy who has his doctorate in Biblical history? Can I have your email address?” Now she’d pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can I just take one minute of your time to help you understand?” But she certainly didn’t wait for an answer before she dug in. After her third request for my email address, I turned away saying, “No thanks. . . but I’ll be praying for your father,” thinking to myself: control freaks also need prayers.
Oh, what heavy weights we carry
In her world, most of us are doomed, and this no doubt included her estranged daughter. Early on in our exchange, when Peggy Sue was talking about her father’s plight, she mentioned that he no longer had his truck. Her daughter had stolen it, driven down to Texas, and then given it to her now ex-boyfriend who drove it off into the sunset. And now to boot, she was worried about my soul.
Peggy Sue would rather believe that her loving God would send all we “non-believers” to an eternity of fire, than consider the fact that she’d possibly been misled. She’s bought into a life for herself where she’d always have an over-bearing parent. And there will always be a precipice just a few short steps ahead.
Bruce, on the other hand, has committed himself to a belief that there are no dimensions to life that we don’t already understand. There are no mysteries, and there can be no spiritual connections between us. For him, the idea that there might be a creative force beyond our comprehension is just farcical.
A couple thousand years ago no one knew anything about sub-atomic particles or photosynthesis, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist back then. And it doesn’t mean that they weren’t integral parts of life on this planet. Just because we don’t know about something or understand it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
What if in 2024, we know nothing about divine mystery, or “God?” Pretending we can pin it down in a two-thousand-page treatise, or deny its existence altogether, just might be equally misleading to our slowly developing minds.
Rarely but wonderfully on FB an atheist is willing to engage me in dialogue. I gave up on Christian evangelicals long ago. The guy with the T shirt intrigues me; if I was there I’d risk asking him how he prays. His courtesy suggests he might be an open minded person.
That kind of thing always baffles me, when people so desperately want you to have the same religion as them. I've had that experience with people who follow A Course in Miracles.
I've also had people say "they're worried about my immortal soul" to which I reply "I don't worry about my immortal soul, and if I don't worry about it, you shouldn't either."
The afterlife is a mystery, and we can believe whatever we like. But imposing our beliefs on others is just not OK. It's very colonialist.