I recently saw and interesting article headline that enticed me: “Home for a visit, a year after leaving the church.” The article was penned by Melinda Henneberger, whom I learned, is a writer for a Kansas City newspaper. I don’t know her. But I was pulled into reading the article. She tells about going back to church when she was in town for a meeting. She comments, “It mostly felt good to be back at home, even though I don't live there anymore.” I had to remember that she is talking about her visit to her church. In many ways it was home.
I began to realize that she was reflecting on her upbringing as a Catholic. She describes how meaningful it was and that it was a really home, albeit a spiritual home. But she has now left home. She left home because of some of the issues that grip the Catholic Church---but not only the Catholic Church. It was clear she misses some of her former home. Going back only reminded her of that. She is very clear why she has left and that she does not intend to go back---at least in the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, she does still feel a little pull in that direction. I smiled when she talked about “that involuntary little heart-skip” which is the pull to go back home. She describes this heart-skip: "Oh, there you are" — a tingle, not a twinge — every time I pass an Our Lady of … It feels like a lifetime since I took Communion, and when Notre Dame was on fire I had the most ridiculous urge to run inside, metaphorically speaking.”
She spends some time describing various Catholics who presented at the meeting or conference. She mentions her favorite was “Alice McDermott's dazzlingly simple explanation of why she's still more in than out, more days than not. She began with a story I remember reading in The Washington Post some years ago, about a young boy on a family outing to the park who was struck by a tree limb during a sudden thunderstorm.”
She continues the story with a sense of its poignancy. "It was the father who reached the child first, and he saw immediately that although the boy's body was moving, the blow was fatal...As his wife called 911, the father held his dying, struggling child in his arms. There was nothing else to do, he told the Metro reporter, but to whisper, 'Go to Jesus, son,' as the boy died in his arms.’"
Henneberger spends the rest of the article musing about this story and how it holds the hope for the Church. She confesses that this incident causes her to think about the little boy---dying in the father’s arms---and what the father counsels the boy to do: Go to Jesus. This is real Church message. She laments, “What else ya got?” Does the world have anything better to offer the dying boy, the father and the mother? What else do you say to someone in this situation? “Good luck” seems too puny!
She asks a powerful question: “What else have you got that can reconcile the cruelty of our mortal condition with the depth and complexity of our love for one another even just once?" I am not sure I have anything better. I have been in similar situations. While my counsel may not have specifically been to go to Jesus, the gist of my message was pretty much that. As I stood with my dying dad in his hospice bed, that was my hope. It was the same with my mother. And the same with many others with whom I have traveled that last mile of life.
I had to laugh when Henneberger offered this take on the message of the father and the Catholic Church. “Jesus isn't only for those in the Catholic Church, of course, but it's the address I have for him.” Of course, I agree with this. As a Quaker, I have a different address for Jesus. But it basically is the same message. As Henneberger says, what else ya got?
She is really talking about how humans can make sense out of life when we know it ends in death. In our modern secular world, there certainly are multiple answers to the meaning of life question. But I suggest the various spiritual traditions offer time-tested ways of making sense of life. This is true not only for Christianity, which I share with Henneberger, but some of our sister spiritualities. Many folks have an affinity for Buddhism these days. Judaism has offered meaning for thousands of years. Hinduism and for more than two billion people in the world Islam has been a ready perspective.
I resonate with this story because of the little story within the story. While I never was hit with a limb during a storm and came close to dying, I do think I was hit with a metaphorical limb in my late teens and early twenties when I realized I did not know how to make meaning. I had grown up in church, listen a little bit and could patch together some things that folks offered. But when I thought about it seriously, I was not sure where I was. I had not owned it yet.
No one ever told me, what else ya got. Thankfully there was no pressure to conform to something or pretend I had make sense of life. Friends and some time in college helped me figure out how to think. So I began reading Christian literature with some fresh eyes. I allowed God to speak to me through figures in the past---Augustine, Fox, etc.---and contemporary people, like Howard Thurman, Alan Jones and the list goes on.
I realize, what else ya got? And so my faith has formed into something meaningful. Thank God.
I began to realize that she was reflecting on her upbringing as a Catholic. She describes how meaningful it was and that it was a really home, albeit a spiritual home. But she has now left home. She left home because of some of the issues that grip the Catholic Church---but not only the Catholic Church. It was clear she misses some of her former home. Going back only reminded her of that. She is very clear why she has left and that she does not intend to go back---at least in the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, she does still feel a little pull in that direction. I smiled when she talked about “that involuntary little heart-skip” which is the pull to go back home. She describes this heart-skip: "Oh, there you are" — a tingle, not a twinge — every time I pass an Our Lady of … It feels like a lifetime since I took Communion, and when Notre Dame was on fire I had the most ridiculous urge to run inside, metaphorically speaking.”
She spends some time describing various Catholics who presented at the meeting or conference. She mentions her favorite was “Alice McDermott's dazzlingly simple explanation of why she's still more in than out, more days than not. She began with a story I remember reading in The Washington Post some years ago, about a young boy on a family outing to the park who was struck by a tree limb during a sudden thunderstorm.”
She continues the story with a sense of its poignancy. "It was the father who reached the child first, and he saw immediately that although the boy's body was moving, the blow was fatal...As his wife called 911, the father held his dying, struggling child in his arms. There was nothing else to do, he told the Metro reporter, but to whisper, 'Go to Jesus, son,' as the boy died in his arms.’"
Henneberger spends the rest of the article musing about this story and how it holds the hope for the Church. She confesses that this incident causes her to think about the little boy---dying in the father’s arms---and what the father counsels the boy to do: Go to Jesus. This is real Church message. She laments, “What else ya got?” Does the world have anything better to offer the dying boy, the father and the mother? What else do you say to someone in this situation? “Good luck” seems too puny!
She asks a powerful question: “What else have you got that can reconcile the cruelty of our mortal condition with the depth and complexity of our love for one another even just once?" I am not sure I have anything better. I have been in similar situations. While my counsel may not have specifically been to go to Jesus, the gist of my message was pretty much that. As I stood with my dying dad in his hospice bed, that was my hope. It was the same with my mother. And the same with many others with whom I have traveled that last mile of life.
I had to laugh when Henneberger offered this take on the message of the father and the Catholic Church. “Jesus isn't only for those in the Catholic Church, of course, but it's the address I have for him.” Of course, I agree with this. As a Quaker, I have a different address for Jesus. But it basically is the same message. As Henneberger says, what else ya got?
She is really talking about how humans can make sense out of life when we know it ends in death. In our modern secular world, there certainly are multiple answers to the meaning of life question. But I suggest the various spiritual traditions offer time-tested ways of making sense of life. This is true not only for Christianity, which I share with Henneberger, but some of our sister spiritualities. Many folks have an affinity for Buddhism these days. Judaism has offered meaning for thousands of years. Hinduism and for more than two billion people in the world Islam has been a ready perspective.
I resonate with this story because of the little story within the story. While I never was hit with a limb during a storm and came close to dying, I do think I was hit with a metaphorical limb in my late teens and early twenties when I realized I did not know how to make meaning. I had grown up in church, listen a little bit and could patch together some things that folks offered. But when I thought about it seriously, I was not sure where I was. I had not owned it yet.
No one ever told me, what else ya got. Thankfully there was no pressure to conform to something or pretend I had make sense of life. Friends and some time in college helped me figure out how to think. So I began reading Christian literature with some fresh eyes. I allowed God to speak to me through figures in the past---Augustine, Fox, etc.---and contemporary people, like Howard Thurman, Alan Jones and the list goes on.
I realize, what else ya got? And so my faith has formed into something meaningful. Thank God.
very good and very useful article.
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