New Year

I start my New Year like so many years past with a continued journey of discovery.



I've got several books in progress all geared towards different ways of thinking. I'm reading Malcolm Gladwells new book Outliers about the people and forces around successful people. I've read his last couple of books the Tipping Point and Blink. Both I found very good. I'm also reading Tribes by Seth Godin. Godin has written the Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae. He is a marketing person with lots of interesting ideas as well.



I'm in the 4th year of the Education for Ministry classes from the Sewanee Theological Seminary. This is part of the Episcopal church. This is a class for lay people who want further education in understanding their faith. Each year is setup on the school year calendar with weekly classes from Sept. through May. The first year is a study of the Hebrew Bible (The Old Testatment). The second year is a study of The New Testatment. The third year is early Church history and theology. The fourth and final year is a study of modern church history and theology. It has been fascinating for me to see the seeds for our modern thinking about faith and about lifes big issues. This fourth year we have studied such figures as Kierkagard and Hegel who really changed not only the ideas of faith but of modern thought. Currently I'm reading about the world events leading up to World War I and modern theology at the time.



I've came to my "faith journey" from walking away from the church in my teenage years. I found myself constantly at odds with the "popular" Christian message. Working in the theatre with a wide variety of people and putting on plays (telling stories) about the meaning of life I now see was a spiritual journey of its own. I read every book I could get my hands on from the study of the Kabbalah of Judaism to teachings of Buddhism through the Bagvahd Gita, to Islamic teachings of Rumi. The more I learned the more I was consumed by it. But these last few years I've rediscovered the faith I was raised with and surprisingly found that many of the ideas I found so refreshing in other faiths were present in the Christian faith.



A rabbi tells the story that that God created understanding and the truth and then Satan seeing this came along behind God and created religion to confuse it.



An Muslim Imam tells the story of an old man who set out one morning to find God. First he went to a Christian Church, but God was not there. Then he went to a Jewish Temple, but God was not there. Finally he went to an Islamic Mosque, but God was not there. Saddened he returned home. He looked into his own heart and found God waiting for him.



Being a part of theatre for so many years has really been journey for me. Working on plays that ask questions about love and honor. About the integrity and betrayal. About relationships. These are the big questions of faith. If there is such a thing I guess I have become a "theatre priest". Celebrating lifes ups and mourning lifes downs. Selecting stories that have something to say about our journey of life.



I found myself thinking about this the other day as I watched the snow fall in Wsconsin outside the windows of the hospital I was visiting my father in. Each snowflake is totally unique. Yet together they all make snow. (In Wisconsin they had 30 inches of it!) As I walked the halls of the hospital I saw so many unique people each with a challenge to face. Yet I couldn't help but feel very connected to them and feeling like I was sharing something universal.



As I stopped in the restaurants and stores and drove back from Wisconsin I looked with a greater appreciation at the waitress at the Denny's we stopped at, the store clerk at the gas station, the mom with 2 teenagers and the dad with the 3 kids all in tow. As I read scripts for play selection at the theatre and watch movies on tv I'm constantly reminded that each life is unique yet we all share the need for similar things. I am constantly rediscovering a deeper appreciation and gratitude for the mystery of life and all of the people who journey through it with me.



That is what my journey of faith has taught me as I continue down this path my life has taken. I stopped looking for God or meaning in a place of worship or a kind of theology or even a career. I found God, in whatever name you want to call him, by looking at the people around me, by looking with my heart and not just my eyes.

Happy New Year.