Paradox of Religious Experience

A friend has given me a book.  That is not the first time I have been given a book.  I suspect that is due, in part, to my profession.  Because I’m a college professor, I am sure that folks think I deal with books all day long.  Sometimes that is close to the truth.  Books are important to my work.  It is not the books per se; it is the ideas in the books.  Books are written because people have ideas and want to develop those ideas and share them.  And so it is that I want to dive into my new book.           

The book is by S. Brent Plate and is entitled, A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects.  I have only begun the book, but I know he talks about things like stones, which have historically played a key role in religious observance and life.  It should be interesting and a challenge because my normal Quaker response is that I don’t care much about “religious things.”  Of course, that is a provincial and warped perspective!  At least I know it!           

My friend probably gave me the book because he figures I should read it.  And he probably knows it will be good for me and I will profit by what I learn.  I respect that.  And I will, indeed, read it…and probably come to appreciate it.  Once again, half the good things I have managed in life come by the grace of others!  That is a really good argument for community.          

I only have made it a few pages into the book.  Already I can say I have been surprised at how engaging it is.  Already I found a one-liner that I very much liked.  The line reads like this: “Such is the paradox of religious experience; the most ordinary things can become extraordinary.”  In the first place I find that a beautifully written sentence.  Since I claim to be some kind of writer, I appreciate the art of putting words together.  This is a nicely worded sentence.  In an odd way I find it both simple and fairly complex.          

The first half of the sentence is the more complex part.  Plate talks about “the paradox of religious experience.”  My own Quaker tradition always focuses heavily on experience.  In fact, we normally will begin with experience rather than doctrine.  I am more interested in the underlying experience that leads to a particular doctrine (belief).  My tradition underscored how easy it is to have a doctrine without experience.  For example, I can talk about believing in God without having any experience of the living God.           

But what does Plate mean by the paradox of religious experience?  It might be good to remind ourselves what a paradox is.  The dictionary definition would tell us a paradox is “something…that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible.”  Plate points to the paradox in the second half of that sentence.          

“The most ordinary things can become extraordinary.”  That is the paradox: ordinary become extraordinary.  I think I have understood the sentence.  Now the trick is to see if somehow it resonates with my experience?  I think it does.  Allow me to elaborate a bit.           

My own Quaker tradition values simplicity.  At one level I know how profoundly this has affected my own life.  When I think about clothes, my cars---almost every level of my life---I am fairly simple.  I don’t do “flashy” very well!  In the moment I am equating simple with ordinary.  Ordinary is the opposite of ostentatious.  That could be the end of the story.  But it is not.           

I don’t even need to read more of Plate’s book to begin anticipating where he might go.  I can already start thinking about the ordinary things in and around me that can become spiritually extraordinary.  One of the most predictable things is my classroom.  When a semester begins, about twenty-five students gather in a room to begin an educational process.  Ostensibly it is a process of learning some things about religion or spirituality.  That is the ordinary…and it happens.  They learn.           

But so often, something else happens.  Often the ordinary is transformed.  There is no magic; there are no tricks.  People read some pages from a book, come to class for a discussion and something clicks.  When you have twenty-five or thirty people together sharing stories from their lives, we all begin to be sitting ducks for the extraordinary to break through the surface.  And it does!           

Often a word will be said---typically with some humility or innocence---that rocks the boat of the group.  We learn that the rather bland girl sitting in the back has a mother dying of cancer at home.  Suddenly she becomes a person---a soul with an ache that is palpably felt by all of us.  Concern and compassion become the group adrenaline.  It is as if we all are touched by a Divine Hand.  We become instruments of ministry.  The ordinary classroom has become an extraordinary compassion laboratory.           

All members of the class have become a paradox of religious experience.  We were just individuals going about an educational venture.  We were touched, transformed and turned to a new way of thinking about living.  What a paradox!