A Walker in the Suburbs

I just realized (in my typically math-challenged way) that yesterday, the first day of 2014, was also my 1, 200th post. A pleasing synchronicity between calendar and art — even more enjoyable because I was unaware of it until today.

I like to think that there is order in the universe, that such coincidences don’t happen randomly. What purpose could there be in this one? Only this: that any coincidence heightens my belief that there is meaning in creation.

Which leads me to ponder passages from Marilynne Robinson’s essay “Freedom of Thought.”

For almost as long as there has been science in the West, there has been
a significant strain in scientific thought which assumed that the
physical and material preclude the spiritual. The assumption persists
among us still, vigorous as ever, that if a thing can be “explained,”
associated with a physical process, it has been excluded from the
category of the spiritual.  … 

If the old, untenable dualism is put aside, we are instructed in the
endless brilliance of creation. Surely to do this is a privilege of
modern life for which we should all be grateful.

 Being grateful for the “endless brilliance of creation” — and believing that it is a creation — these are thoughts I take with me into the new year. That they were triggered by a “random” coincidence, so much the better.

Yesterday was All Saints Day; today is All Souls Day.

This is the day for good intentions and ragged realities: prayers not said and penances not completed. Gratitude glossed over in the crush of living.

This is the day for apologies and starting over and resolving to do better next time.

This is not a day for the practically perfect in every way.

This is a day for the rest of us.

Sitting in church yesterday, thinking about Pentecost, not just the upper room and the “rushing mighty wind,” but the many tongues and how the apostles heard each language as if it were their own, I decided, in a distinctly non-theological way, that this is a feast of clarity.

To hear the many but harken only to the one. To walk in confusion but know the way. Of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit I suppose it is the second, understanding.

But there is an aural quality to it. That from a cacophony of noise came one still voice. From a meaningless melange of sounds came one true melody.

It was the gift of discernment. The mighty wind blew everything else away. What remained was what is essential. That’s what they received.

Easter’s proximity to April Fool’s Day this year — plus a sermon yesterday mentioning how an agnostic might think that Jesus’ disciples hid his body to build the case for resurrection — makes me ponder faith, naivete and what it means to believe.

As the mother of a teenager I’m accustomed to defending my church-going behavior. It’s not hedging bets, not really, but at some point I think we choose to believe.

This may not be faith. But it’s close enough for me.

Yes, we are creatures of habit. This was on remarkable display at yesterday’s mass, the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year and the introduction of the first changes to the Catholic liturgy in four decades. Even after all the hoopla and publicity surrounding the change, even holding the laminated text of the new language in my hands, I still said, “And also with you” instead of “And with your spirit.”

I wasn’t alone. The community of the faithful sounded more like the community of the confused. I’ll admit that many of us sometimes say the words without thinking. And while counteracting rote recitation isn’t the point (the point is to pray the mass in a way closer to the original Latin), it’s what I thought about as we hesitated and fumbled our way through the ancient prayers.

Change isn’t fun. Even if change is for the better (and many think these changes are not), habit pulls us back to the way things have always been.

The liturgical changes are proof that little things matter, that words are important — and that most of us must be drug kicking and screaming into the future.

 Today — on the date some Christians predict the Rapture will happen, believers will enter heaven and non-believers will be left behind until the world officially ends October 21 — we decide to hammer out the dates for a family vacation. Which puts us in the ranks of the nonbelievers, or at least nonbelievers based on the predictions of Christian author Harold Camping.

When I was a kid I worried a lot about the end of the world, a result of strict Catholic schooling and an overactive imagination. But since then I’ve fretted about all sorts of other things — from finishing my homework and finding a job (when I was younger) to the myriad concerns of raising children, which if you’re looking for things to worry about, are pretty much unlimited.

What keeps us sane, what keeps us going, is making plans anyway. Lighting the candle in the darkness, that sort of thing. It’s the only way to go.