Listening

Dear Eugene,

Robert Pirsig passed away yesterday, you must have heard.  I suppose this is what is occupying your mind this morning?

You liked his "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" quite a bit, I recall.  You are the only pastor I know who would recommend a "secular" book such as this.  Thank you.  You don't want us to "take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world," as Pirsig puts it.

Of course the "faithfuls" would decry: That sounds a lot like a different kind of religion.  Something Oriental, maybe.  Humanist philosophy, maybe?  Jesus is the truth and what else do you need to know or ask about the world?  The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!

If only we do really believe it (whatever the "it" refers to), we wouldn't have sounded so glib, false, and scornful.  We often act like we are "saved" by knowing the right doctrines, even as we deny or even denounce this is the Way to know the Truth.

I am thinking about the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, how it unfolded in a way that upended our expectation of how The Truth reveals himself.  If we allow ourselves to truly read it again, like a little child earnestly opening up a colorful story book, or a lover reading the words of a first love letter, willing to set aside our prejudices and eager to be swept off our feet, we would realize the unveiling of truth not only goes the exact opposite direction to how we expect him to, that he actually rebukes the hardening of our hearts in trying to force him to go our own way.

How do we worship God, as Jesus said to the woman, "in spirit and truth"?  Can we do that by Googling what this phrase means and then assume "Oh, now I get it, and I'm sure I'm on the right track"?  The world is crying out "Give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty!" but where are the conveyors?  It is no less possible to contain the hidden spring of bubbling yearning in human heart than to bottle up the Living Water, taking a recreational sip here and there, or to package bite-size bits of the Bread of Life, selling it like nothing-but-the-truth.

"I who speak to you am he," Jesus said.

Listening, Alex

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