Faith Made Simple

One of my favorite stories of all time is by that guy who wrote, “All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten.”

I read that essay a long time ago on a poster in a teacher’s classroom—long before I had a son in kindergarten and long before I realized that teaching the skills of kindergarten is a lot of work. That writer, Robert Fuljuhm, has a knack for making complicated things easy.

When he writes about a Civil War in Europe he says he imagines that one of the ways war stops is because people play music. Music can change the world. The inspiration for the optimism and an imagined statue is real. It comes from the tragedy of 22 innocent people killed while waiting in a breadline. It’s inspirational in part because it’s not just inspirational; it’s a true story. The New York Times and other newspapers tell the story of orchestras playing not in concert halls but in the streets.

Friends of Isaiah take note, there really are repairers of the breach and restorers of the streets!

One of the reasons this story has long been a story of faith for me is because it makes faith simple. Long before I could tell the difference between the depiction of Jesus in the Gospels or was introduced to the idea of first and second Isaiah, I knew that there are bad people who do bad things and good people who do good things.  That’s how I had to teach my kindergartner about September 11th this year when he asked “why there were all the flags by a statue” in our town. 

“A long time ago bad guys hurt people. Good guys helped people” I told him. 

My son didn’t need more context about terrorism; colonialism; or ways to understand Shia or Sunni Islam or a dozen versions of Christianity. 

Mostly faith is something we don’t think about. It’s something we do. If we thought about it more we might ask about American foreign policy; international diplomacy or just, “why do we wear ashes when we read a passage about not drawing attention to the practice of faith?”

Rather than answer that question with history or tradition, here’s another true story. 

There’s a woman who lives a few blocks from this church on the same street.

She had a near death experience. 

NDE is what those who record these events say they are. Near Death Experience.  

She just says she died…and came back to life. 

When she told me that she had an NDE I wanted to hear more about what it was like. So I went to visit her.  We had to sit outside on lawn chairs in the cold because she likes to smoke and her daughter in law doesn’t allow smoking in the house. 

She told me that she was in the hospital and the doctors were talking to her…and then suddenly she wasn’t in her body anymore. She was still in the room; but she was observing the doctor’s talk to her. 

Then she wasn’t there. 

She was in a place of calm. She couldn’t describe what it looked like but she definitely could describe what it felt like “heaven—that’s the absence of pain and fear and suffering right?”

Then rather then talking about this thing she couldn’t see but could feel, we talked about the rest of her life. 

Her marriage—“not very happy;”

Her children—“treasures of pride.”

Her grandson—“a true delight.”

We talked about her work teaching at a college; and because I’m a bit of a nerd as well as a Priest, we talked about William Faulkner—the American writer from Mississippi that she did her graduate thesis on.  When I said I liked Faulkner and especially his acceptance speech which he gave when he won the Nobel prize for literature she looked at me.  I thought she was saying with her eyes some thing like: “go on, recite some of it…” which I did with a faux Mississippi accent:

“Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear…

There are no longer problems of the spirit. 

There is only the question: When will I be blown up.”

The speech was written in 1950. Faulkner was certain we were going to “blow ourselves up” with an atomic bomb.  It turns out that woman smoking cigarettes and talking with me had read the speech too. It also turns out what she was more likely saying with her eyes is; “I know about Faulkner because I had to read him to write my graduate thesis. Why do you know about him?”

Fair question. 

I know because I’m interested in people. 

I want to know what’s happened to people that’s extraordinary! 

I want to know what’s happened that’s terrifying; strange; ordinary…what’s shaped the way people believe and act and are with one another. 

These are more than personal curiosities…they are questions of faith. You might call them, things Jesus is interested in. 

A college student in Washington DC named Brit went to a party in Georgetown neighborhood and talked with someone who said they had an NDE. 

“What’s that?”

“A Near Death Experience.”

She was so intrigued that, as a writer, she went home and wrote the draft of a script.  She kept writing until she had written an entire series that would eventually be made into a TV show. She called the show—The OA. 

I watched the series a few years ago. I convinced one of my friends to watch it too. 

“It’s great right? This is the kind of thing that I think people who are not interested in church but are interested in spirituality are interested in.”

So my friend and I, a couple of nerds who are interested in people, and places, and things; made a podcast and a website for a TV show for religious communities called: The OA…for Lent. 

The plot is this; a woman has amnesia and can’t remember anything. 

She’s adopted. 

She has flashbacks of her childhood. 

She’s kidnapped. 

She is kept with 5 other people who have also been abducted. 

All of the prisoners have had NDEs. 

The woman tells about her experiences with these prisoners to a group of misfits at a local high school. 

Then there’s an act of violence…and an act of beauty…and finally there’s an act of resurrection.

It’s a perfect Lent series.
I mean it is a perfect Lent series if your version of Jesus spends time with burnouts and weirdos and over-achievers. It’s a perfect series for Lent if your version of Jesus is much more interested in the mysticism of movements than the liturgy of when to sit and when to stand…

The liturgy of Jesus as I understand isn’t remotely interested in prayer standing in the street…”do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray…”

Although Jesus is definitely invested in prayer as an act to help your neighbor.  “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Perhaps that’s why a cello player played music when his neighbors were killed standing in line for bread.

Maybe It’s why Brit makes her main character in The OA a violin player. 
This passage of Matthew helps us see music in the street and NDEs on TV as prayers. 

A Jesus prayer, is for people. 

There’s a prayer on Netflix and on a podcast. That means there’s another way to see people. The show and commentaries ask questions and apply spirituality in big and in particular ways. Those things that are going to be on your foreheads; they’re prayers too.  They indicate an interest in something bigger than yourself. 

Caring for others is a Jesus thing.

The best way to pray is not always to see or talk about what you’re praying for—Jesus says that— it’s to feel who you’re praying for.  Prayers aren’t for others to see. They may not even be for others to change their circumstances. Prayers may be for us to be changed. 

This Lent may that cross on your forehead take you deeper to the mysteries and movements of God.