Practicing Faith: Experiencing the Sacred
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I spent Saturday afternoon strolling around downtown Santa Fe looking for any of several bookstores that popped up when I pressed my Around Me app, but no joy. Either the data was stale, or the bookstores were too well hidden. Hiding a bookstore makes no sense if the owner intends to sell books unless it’s a Harry Potter bookstore. Or in Santa Fe where businesses relish being hard-to-find and impossible-to-park nearby.
Hoping to redeem my time spent not locating a bookstore, I walked inside St. Francis Basilica to sit in a pew for a short while. The cathedral has a nice bookstore, so I suppose I found what I was looking for, but I’d been here many times before and already bought all the books I was interested in.
After a few minutes of sitting and writing I lifted my head out of my Moleskine journal and noticed a couple of dozen tourists inside. I was the only one not taking a selfie.
Of course, I felt noble and righteous because I wasn’t taking a selfie and my own phone was reverently stowed in my back pocket. However, as I sat in judgment of the selfie-takers it occurred to me how un-St. Francis it was to feel nobler-than-them.
Taking a selfie is not unholy or irreverent. We all experience the sacred in our own way. Who knows the stories of all these people? Maybe they recently turned their life around and entered a church for the first time in their lives and documented the experience for themselves and for their support group. Or they promised their dying aunt a photo since she wanted to attend this church her entire life and now she is unable to come so the selfie taker was doing the next best thing. I’m sure many of those same people wondered why a gray-haired man would sit alone in a cathedral writing in his journal. Was their method of documenting the experience less righteous than mine, they might ask?
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I read from Isaiah 30, including verse 21, “… your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”
In the margin of my Bible I’d written a list of messages I’ve heard from God, plain and clear as if there were a person behind me speaking into my ears.
These aren’t the only ones; maybe the only ones with enough years behind them to give me the courage to write them down in my Bible.
“Marry Cyndi” (sitting at the kitchen table in my apartment in Norman, Oklahoma, while talking to Cyndi on the phone; she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it was Fall 1978)
“You should be teaching” (in Keith Parker’s Sunday School class, in the spring of 1990)
“You have something to say” (in the Prayer Gardens at Glorieta, July 1996)
“Stay where you are” (walking across the stadium parking lot at FBC after Helen Spinks’ funeral, in April 1995)
“Dude, go for a run” (at Wild at Heart Boot Camp, Buena Vista CO, November 2003)
“Sell some stuff” (going up the elevator to my office in the Western National Bank building, around 2005-2006)
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how big it is” (at Wild at Heart Advanced Camp, after August Rush, in May 2008)
“I don’t want to find God, standing alone” (on Sam Williamson’s front porch, Anne Arbor, MI, June 2013)
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We talk too much about clarity, how we are seeking it in a situation or in a decision. Not only is clarity rare and elusive, it’s subjective, and highly overrated. Instead of solving problems it leaves us wanting more.
I can’t think of any decision Cyndi I ever made when we were clear about what we should do, clear about God’s direction, clear about what to expect.
Maybe one of the clearest decisions I can think of was running for reelection in 2007. I felt as certain God was calling me, expecting me, to run for the at-large seat, as any decision I’d had up to that point. I had complete peace in my decision to run.
But I lost the election, resulting in a minor crisis of faith for me – well, not exactly a crisis. I never doubted God’s call for me to run. I knew he didn’t promise I would win. But I didn’t understand why he called me to campaign so I would lose in front of the whole town.
None of my job changes felt like clarity. I would say my decision to work for Amerada Hess in 1979, when Cyndi and were starting out, was the only job I ever accepted where I was thinking of a long-term career. All the others - a collection of major and independent oil companies in Midland - felt like temporary solutions to me when I started, like place-holder jobs I could take advantage of until God’s real plan was ready. I didn’t see clearly how God used them in my life until years afterward.
Even in retrospect I seldom see much clarity. I can analyze old decisions and see how eventually they worked out to advantage, but that is more about redeeming the past than clearly understanding my story.
I remember when we borrowed money to build Cyndi’s new yoga studio. It was a little unnerving, even though both of us felt it was the right and best thing to do. Cyndi said, “Well, if it all falls apart and we lose money, we’ll figure it out and move on” … a key, if rare, grown-up attitude. (Her comment reminded me of a song from one of my Love Song collections, Vintage, by High Dive Heart, where she sings, “But if it all goes to hell?” and he answers, “At least we won’t be by ourselves.”)
I believe Cyndi and I have become more comfortable with uncertainty as we get older – probably because we trust each other more, but even more because we trust God’s character. And because we trust God, we trust our own intuition about decisions. We’re more comfortable saying, “Let’s do this and see what happens” because God has been faithful for so long.”
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Do you have gifts and talents you underestimate? The correct answer is: Yes, you do. We all do.
We typically don’t recognize or understand our most powerful talents on our own, we need to hear from friends and family. In fact, it’s unlikely we’ll ever understand our calling or purpose without the advice and counsel from people who are close around us.
But we get glimpses, and for me they often come through music or movies.
Cyndi and I typically watch a movie in the evening while working on stuff (like family finances, writing the next book, managing a mobile home park, running a yoga studio, etc.) We tend to pick movies we’ve seen many times so we can follow along without being distracted by a story we don’t already know. And much to nephew Kevin’s dismay, when he is with us, as he often is, we typically choose non-exploding non-fighting movies.
So we watched August Rush again. I’ve now seen this movie many times since my first viewing at a Wild at Heart Advanced Camp in May 2008, where it changed almost everything about my life, so I didn’t expect it to affect me in the same way as it has in the past. I supposed I’d built up some immunity.
I was wrong. The movie nailed me, once again, and I had to go sit by myself in my closet (I have a rocking chair in there) and absorb the message. Specifically, I internalized what God was saying to me before I let it get away.
A lot of movies dig emotional responses out of me - no, that’s too weak a statement - a lot of movies make me cry. And each year the list of movies gets longer, either because I’m better at picking out movies, or because I’m getting softer. August Rush is one of those; it slips past the bare patch of my armored chest like Bard’s black arrow and sticks directly into my heart.
The movie is about a young orphaned boy named August Rush, a musical prodigy, who uses music to reach out to the parents he hopes to find. Only, when I watch it, it isn’t about music, but about writing and teaching.
In the movie, when a man asks August, “What do you want to be?” he answers with one word, “Found.” Not being lost is profound, and watching this movie helps me realize it’s my job to find people and lead them on the trail so they won’t be lost.
But the scene that penetrates my armor is when the head of a music conservatory asks young August, “Where does the music come from?” He answers, “It’s like someone is calling out to me. Writing it all down is like I’m calling back to them.” This is exactly what writing feels like to me.
Later, in my closet, after the movie finished, I sat in my rocking chair with tears rolling down my cheeks, praying, again, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how big it is.”
“I’m sorry I continually underestimate what You’ve given to me. Because I don’t speak to big crowds or sell tons of books or have thousands of readers I underestimate the gift, and the result. Thank You for giving me so many turns. Thank You for lighting the fire inside to teach and write and give away and improve. Thank you for sharing insights and connections. I want to give them back to You.”
Here’s the thing. None of us understands our own influence. None of us knows how big it is because we don’t pay attention the same way God does. We don’t notice the same results God sees. We don’t see hearts the same way God does – we are stuck in this present day and God sees the long-term benefit. All we can know is we aren’t the heroes of our own stories, no matter how big. The heroes are the people who respond, who stand up and step forward, and we are simply lucky to be part of the story.
“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
