Priests and Hope

Saturday, July 28th, I was flying back from D.C. to Jacksonville with a connection in Newark.  I happened upon three priests in their robes.  From my catholic upbringing, I remember that priests must take vows of celibacy, chastity and poverty.  Given that nothing in the airport is cheap, I offered to buy the elderly priest, he must have been around 70, something to eat for breakfast.  He gently declined.  When I went to the little food stand, they had some fresh strawberries, so I thought it would be a kind gesture to purchase a carton of strawberries for all the priests to share.  The priests were delighted with the strawberries and I happened to strike up a conversation with them as we awaited our planes.  I was most taken with the elder Abbot Father Gabriel.

The night before, I had a terrible time sleeping.  For years now, I've been suffering from the malaise shared by many Americans:  Global Warming, Terrorism, Bush and especially Iraq.  It's so dark, and the future seems so dim.  What Father Gabriel had, which I did not, was perspective.  He had lived a long life, in fact, before he joined the priesthood he was in World War II.  Seeing him gave me hope.  If we, humanity, could emerge from that dark and terrible time, I know we can overcome the challenges we face today, which pale in comparison to that evil.  We will persevere, we just need honorable leaders to follow.

"But that's not what I came to talk about", (Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie).  I came to talk about miracles.  For the first time in my life, I had the courage to say to a priest.  "I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in miracles."  And in fact we a had an excellent conversation about miracles.  Here's what I understood from their philosophy.  Jesus had to have miracles in order to prove that he was in fact God.  Without them, he was just a philosopher.  If Jesus was in fact God, then the creator is more than capable of changing the nature of reality to prove his identity.  Okay, honestly that's still a stretch for me, but here is what I have experienced.  I've experienced what could be miracles.  They are not an uncommon occurrence, I just refuse to really believe them.  Their importance tends to fade over time.  C.S. Lewis's The Case for Christianity at TechReady 3.  The wind chimes my mother bought for Andrea, my wife.  Andrea and her mother had looked at those same wind chimes months prior, and my mother who lived 1500 miles away had an urge to buy them for Andrea shortly after Andrea's mother passed away.  Even those priests at my gate, they weren't even going to Jacksonville.  They were just looking for a quiet place to rest.  I needed them, and they were there.

Hubris and Adam

I relate most closely to the analogies that follow the Hero Story, by Joseph Cambell.  So, from school, I remember that it is Hubris that is the tragic flaw of the hero.  For a long time, I always thought that hubris was simple pride.  Pride in the sense of pride when it comes to your peers.  Hubris as the antonym of humility.  But now I think differently.  Hubris is pride in the face of God.  Believing that we understand and control the nature of things.  That we can mold the world into our image.  Remember the things I was worried about:  Global Warming, Terrorism, Bush and Iraq.  To me those are all examples of Hubris on different scales: individual, national, even humanity as a whole.

Today in the shower, I thought about Hubris and its root.  And I looked to my favorite passage in Genesis:  "See!  The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad!  Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life, also, and thus eat of it and live forever."  The 'us', by the way, is the most mysterious two letters in the Bible.  Again another story.  When Adam and Eve ate, they knew.  They saw the world.  They became actors in the world.

And that's my problem.  And that's the Hero's problem.  We are actors in the world.  We know not just our actions, but the consequences of our actions.  The chain of events that can be used to shape a thing.  And in that knowing.  In the practice of shaping things, we believe that which is not shaped by us is either chaos or without value.  But God humbles the Hero.

So for me, as I have tried to do in the past, I want to make sure that my actions are based in honest good intentions.  For when they are, God always tends to send a minor miracle my way.  I don't deserve it.  Heck too often, I forget to recognize it.  And I think it would be much better placed in the hands of someone truly in need.  But if that is the way God chooses to guide me.  Then who am I to question the word of God.

Aside Notes:

• Father Gabriel wrote a book about his order, From Harvard to Harvard.