Searching for God in Pennsylvania

We are meaning-seeking creatures. . . . [and] fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives. Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues. . . . And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults. – Karen Armstrong

The azaleas are in full bloom at my home in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, the winter having ended early this year with a warm front sending late-Spring conditions to the Philadelphia suburbs on the first of March. The trees are beginning to turn green again as the sun has taken a more prominent role in pushing forward the advance of an early summer. Nature has a way of transforming the soul, of causing one to reflect on the essence of creation and the meaning of the universe. For me, this has led to my search for God in Pennsylvania.

For much of my adult life, I have struggled with religion and faith. What do I believe? How deeply do I believe it? How committed am I to any one set of theological beliefs and living truths? I embrace knowledge and history, science and nature. I am a rational human being who eagerly accepts and actively participates in the modern world. And yet, there remains the quest for the divine, the search for a transcendent power that I cannot see or prove, but which in my heart I know is present, however irrational such a belief may be. Although I cannot begin to understand the revelations and manifestations of God, my quest for God is essential to my search for meaning.

I am the son of a Lutheran minister, raised in a family and household that took religion and faith seriously, yet implicitly understood Abraham Joshua Heschel’s suggestion that “[t]he road to the sacred leads through the secular.” I was neither sheltered nor walled-off from the surrounding world, and engaged humanity in all its messy, nuanced, and complex dimensions. Within the confines of my eastern Lutheran upbringing, I witnessed ministers, youth directors, and people of faith who did not shy from the social, political, and cultural dimensions of secular society. During the sixties and seventies, in my education, participation in sports, and social interactions, I experienced the humanistic world of modern America far more deeply than the insular world of church and faith. Unlike my parents, whose entire lives have evolved around the Lutheran church, its people and institutions, as the years advanced and my life progressed, I have engaged with a more expansive set of people and cultures, including friends and colleagues of many faiths, or no faith, or little regard for faith; some who viewed religion with skepticism, or worse, contempt.

I see no conflict between faith and reason. A belief in God does not require a disdain for science. A respect for scientific knowledge and advancement does not demand that one reject all belief in God. What the Greeks referred to as logos and mythos defined two different aspects of the world in which we live – the knowable and the unknowable. Logos refers to rational, pragmatic, empirical thinking and seeks to answer the question “How?” Mythos refers to the intuitive, subconscious mode of thought found in art, music, literature, and religion and seeks to answer the question “Why?” These are not mutually exclusive concepts. You can seek answers in both realms. Indeed, it is the tenuous co-existence between faith and reason, the willingness to ask questions, the constant search for truth that leads to the transcendent or the divine, a belief in God, with all its doubt and ambiguity.

To believe in God is not to reject reason, but to embrace it, to experience God’s creation in all its majesty and wonderment, the inherent beauty of the natural world, the diversity of humanity, and the emotional attachment to our souls. The more we learn, the more tools we have to better understand the magnificence of the universe and the majesty of God.

It is easy to grow frustrated with the widely shared perception of popular culture and the media that insists on viewing religion, and particularly Christianity, in its most dogmatic, narrow, and absolute form. On one extreme are those who hold religion in contempt and tend to define it in its theologically weakest expressions – Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, biblical literalism, and rigid orthodoxy – easy targets for anyone who requires rational, evidence-based thinking. On the other extreme are “Christians” who demand a literal and strict interpretation of Scripture and reject alternative readings based on historical and scientific insight which may conflict with what they perceive as the authoritative, absolute word of God. In each instance, the believer and non-believer alike present an either-or dichotomy – either believe in the bible literally or reject God altogether. It reflects the constant push for a world of black-and-white, an all or nothing mindset in which things are simpler and easier to understand, and to accept or reject.

Not surprisingly, the reality is far more complex. For me, and for the majority of people caught in between, who fall somewhere in that complex miasma of ambiguous faith and varying degrees of belief, the either-or dichotomy simply does not apply. We are instead entangled in a web of heritage, family and history that connects us to particular faith traditions and which stands a world apart from what much of the secular left and Christian right perceive religion, or Christianity, or divine authority to be.

“Religion is hard work,” writes historian Karen Armstrong in The Case for God (Knopf, 2009). “Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed.” Armstrong counters the simplistic notions of faith often used by religious antagonists and religious fundamentalists alike to define religion. In a 2009 article in Foreign Policy (“Think Again: God”), Armstrong discussed the new atheism of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens (I would also include the less scholarly Bill Maher), who have “denounced religious belief as not only retrograde but evil; they regard themselves as the vanguard of a campaign to expunge it from human consciousness. Religion, they claim, creates divisions, strife, and warfare; it imprisons women and brainwashes children; its doctrines are primitive, unscientific, and irrational, essentially the preserve of the unsophisticated and gullible.”

Armstrong understands and has written extensively about religion’s historical shortcomings, and she has consistently challenged the mistaken theology and incorrect assertions of Christian fundamentalists. And while she has “written at length about the crusades, inquisitions, and persecutions that have scarred human history,” she rightfully notes in response to many atheists and skeptics that past abuses and desecrations do not tell the whole story.

Religion is also about the quest for transcendence, the discipline of compassion, and the endless search for meaning; it was not designed to provide us with the same kind of explanations as science, but to help us to live creatively, serenely, and kindly with the suffering that is an inescapable part of the human condition. As such, it continues to appeal to millions of human beings across the globe. To identify with its worst manifestations, claim that they represent the whole, and then demolish the straw dog thus set up does not seem a rational or useful way of conducting this important debate.

Failing to understand the complexity of religious life, the theological diversity within and among the many faith traditions, and how the typical practitioner views their faith and its meaning in their lives, does a great disservice to the shared humanity within us all.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 78% of Americans self-identify as Christian, yet when you hear the term “Christian” on NPR, Fox, and CNN, almost always it means “Christian right” or “Christian conservative.” Yet only one-third of American Christians are evangelicals (about 26% of Americans), and even this term includes a wide variety of Christians, such as born-again Christians, fundamentalists, and other non-denominational church goers with a diverse set of beliefs. Moreover, evangelicals include among their ranks not only political conservatives, but also a meaningful minority of political liberals (think Sojourners, Jim Wallis, and Tony Campolo). The remaining two-thirds of American Christians include Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants (Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, UCC, Methodist, etc.), and historically black Protestants (Baptist, AME, Pentecostal), with a smaller number of Mormons, Orthodox Christians, and other subgroups. As Timothy Noah of The New Republic noted recently, “To say that conservative Christians are the only Christians is like saying Hasidic Jews are the only Jews.”

Of course, very few of us really understand our own religions, their histories, traditions, and theological evolutions. Contemporary religious institutions ask little of its members, readily offering comfort while lacking the courage to challenge. Nearly a half-century ago, in “Religion in a Free Society” (The Insecurity of Freedom, First Noonday Press, 1967), Rabbi Heschel commented on the declining relevance of religion in modern life. “The trouble is that religion has become ‘religion’ – institution, dogma, ritual,” he wrote. While some people blame secular science and antireligious philosophy for religion’s descent, the blame lies mostly with institutional religion itself. “Religion declined not because it was refuted,” Heschel wrote, “but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; . . . when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.”

Recently, I have been on a quest for finding a religious community at which I can feel comfortable – where I can learn and question and struggle without feeling judged as insufficiently committed or confused. I want a congregation that does not take a simplistic view of faith, rejects absolutes, accepts the equal validity of other faith traditions, and searches for answers to life’s most pressing questions; that strives for a just world here on Earth and is less concerned with the hereafter, and which sees the face of God in the ordinariness of everyday humanity. What I really want is a progressive Christian church with a Jewish sense of justice and history and a Buddhist sense of spirit. I’m a tough customer, I know.

In the end, however, it is really not about me, or my search for a comfortable religious home. As I walk through life’s pathways, I have learned that the search for God is an unending quest to better understand humanity and our place within it, our connection to each other, to nature, and our need to take care of all creation. “If you want to find Jesus,” the Reverend John Steinbruck, formerly of Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., used to say, “go to where the outcasts are – the sick, the homeless, the poor.” Heschel, too, reminded us that “the task of the human being is to represent the Divine, to be a reminder of the presence of God.”

The search for God, wherever that may occur and at whatever stage in life, requires an openness to the beauty of humanity in all its diversity, pain, and struggle; in the natural wonder of the universe in all its vastness; in developing genuine connections with nature and with each other. In the end, I may only satisfy my search for God, or at least the transcendence we call “God,” when I accept, in the words of Karen Armstrong, that faith “is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.” As my search continues and the struggle to understand moves forward, I know the hard work required for a life of faith and understanding has only begun.

Of Destiny and Miracles

Until now, the Cardinals had never won a World Series with a team like this. A team that was lost, left behind and stranded in the standings. A team too proud and stubborn to accept the hopelessness of the situation. A team that fought back like no other has in franchise history. – Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

There are some things in life that defy logic and reason. This past baseball season was one of them. As a Cardinals fan, this was a season of beauty and despair, jubilation and heartache, quirky plays and momentous comebacks. When the final out of Game 7 was recorded Friday night, a fly ball lifted high in the air towards the left field warning track that was caught by Allen Craig, I celebrated, hugged Andrea and my daughter, and yelled a cheer of joy and jubilation. But mostly I exhaled a sigh of relief, my emotions having been shot these past two months in a wild season of zany comebacks, devastating losses, and up and down swings. Invested as I was in this magical, historic season, the day after was anti-climactic, sad almost, as if something special and unique had been lost, forever extinguished to the dustbin of history, lost to the invisible forces of time and memory.

I am not certain if I really believe in destiny, or in miracles, but at least in the realm of baseball, if such things do exist, I witnessed it these past two months. To explain the Cardinals comeback in Game 6 of the World Series requires more than a mere knowledge of baseball folklore and physics. Having made three embarrassing errors earlier in the game, they trailed by two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and were down to their last strike – their last breath really – when suddenly, magically, the forces of destiny overtook the cozy confines of Busch Stadium and willed the Cardinals to victory. The Rangers had on the mound one of the most reliable closers in the major leagues, Neftali Perez, a man who throws 99-mile-per-hour fastballs mixed with devastating sliders. But in a high intensity, pressure-filled at bat, with two strikes on him, David Freese, the Cardinals’ young third baseman, a hometown kid with two injury-plagued half-seasons under his belt, drilled a two-run triple off the right field wall to tie the game. I was delirious.

A few minutes later, when Josh Hamilton of the Rangers hit a two run home run in the top of the tenth to put the Rangers back on top 9-7, it appeared as if the Cardinals had finally run out of steam. We should have known better. Since August 25th, when the Cardinals were declared dead and finished by virtually everyone in baseball before going on a five-week run that is among the most brilliant and improbable comebacks in baseball history, this team has made clear they will fight to the finish. In the bottom of the tenth, with two outs and two strikes on Lance Berkman, the Rangers again one pitch away from a championship, Berkman hit a sinking line drive into the outfield to bring in the tying run, again. So, when Freese led off the bottom of the eleventh and hit a soaring 429-foot home run into the grassy knoll beyond the center field fence to win Game 6 in dramatic, walk-off fashion, it seemed almost inevitable, the forces of destiny having officially descended upon the Cardinals faithful.

“One of the great mysteries of sports is why some teams win and others lose,” writes Tyler Kepner of The New York Times. “Is it talent? Fate? Character? Karma?” The Cardinals seemed to have all of these things this year, although it did not seem that way in Spring Training when ace pitcher Adam Wainwright was injured and lost for the season, or when 17 key players at one time or another wound up on the disabled list throughout the first four months.

This may not be the most talented Cardinals team in my lifetime, but it may be the most memorable. The Cardinals were at times exasperating this year, blowing more saves than every other team in baseball except the Washington Nationals, and setting a National League record for grounding into the most double plays in one season. And yet, there were moments in mid-September that you sensed the possibilities. The Braves were slipping, descending into mediocrity, or worse, just when the Cardinals were putting it all together. When the Cardinals took three-out-of-four from the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park in mid-September, destiny became a possibility. And then, when the Phillies swept the Braves in the final three games of the season, the Cardinals also needing to win on that final day to even have a chance at the playoffs, there was a sense that the Gods of Baseball were believers themselves.

The rest is history now. After losing the opening playoff game to Roy Halladay, and down 4-0 in Game 2 of the League Division Series against Cliff Lee, who until then had a 72-1 career record in games in which his team led by four runs or more, the Cardinals came from behind to win, and then won two of the next three to upset the powerful and highly-favored Philadelphia team, beating them on their home turf in the fifth and final game. They were not supposed to beat the Milawaukee Brewers in the League Championship Series either, and when they lost Game 1 in Milwaukee, it seemed like their magic had run out. But then they rallied to win four of the next five games against the team with the best home record in all of baseball, and another miracle was in the books.

This World Series was exceptional in part because each team was so evenly matched. Except for Game 3, when Albert Pujols hit three home runs and propelled the Cardinals to a 16-7 win, the outcome of each game seemed determined by luck and fate and plays decided by a matter of inches. If Yadier Molina’s throw to second on Ian Kinsler’s steal attempt in the ninth inning of Game 2 is a millisecond faster or four inches lower, Kinsler is out and the Rangers probably lose Game 2. If Nelson Cruz gets a better jump on David Freese’s line drive in the bottom of the ninth in Game 6, or if he stretches out just a few inches more, he probably catches the ball and the Rangers win the Series in six games. If God had been a Rangers fan, he would not have allowed a rainstorm on Wednesday night to postpone Game 6 until Thursday and make it possible for the Cardinals to start Chris Carpenter on three days’ rest in Game 7.

I cannot remember how many times this season, down the stretch in September, and throughout the postseason, that the Cardinals were deemed all but finished. But then Friday night in Game 7, when Jason Motte retired the final Rangers batter and the Cardinals jumped for joy, embracing each other like little kids who had just won a prize, the season finally came to a close with the Cardinals on top. “You gotta be a man to play baseball,” the great Roy Campanella once said, “but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too.” It has been tremendous fun to watch.

* * * *

As I look out my window this morning on our quiet tree-lined street in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, the ground is covered with snow and ice, winter having come early this year. A cold, harsh chill has replaced the crisp October air and the leaves cling desperately to their branches as if caught unawares by the forces of nature. Baseball is over now and life goes on, the long season but a collage of memories as the images of this wild and magical season quickly blend into the tide of baseball history. The Cardinals will stick around for a couple of days and enjoy the moment. They will bask in the glow of victory on Sunday afternoon as they parade down the streets of St. Louis to thousands of cheering fans, forever grateful that, for one brief and glorious moment, they could forget about the struggles of everyday life and together experience a baseball miracle. The Cardinals players will then head home for the winter, to rest, reflect, and prepare for next season, when they will endeavor to repeat the illogical, beautiful, exasperating, routine zaniness that is baseball.

In a few days, as I begin my annual sabbatical from baseball, it will again be time to rake the leaves. Meanwhile, I will join the ranks of the lucky few who can sleep with the knowledge that their team has won the last game of the season. In a quiet moment, when I have time to reflect, I will replay in my mind this miraculous season to better understand just how close things really were to a completely different, less satisfying result. And I will be forever grateful to the Gods of Baseball who, this season at least, allowed an outcome that may only properly be explained by destiny and miracles.

A Wittenberg Moment: Looking Back and Moving Ahead

Every few years the Wittenberg University Choir passes through town as part of a tour through the northeastern United States. Andrea and I saw them perform this past Saturday night at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. For those who have never seen or heard the Wittenberg Choir, they are world class, as good as any university choir you are likely to see, on a par with St. Olaf and Concordia and many of the other great college choirs.

I have seen the Wittenberg Choir perform several times over the years, and every time I leave feeling blessed, spiritually uplifted and culturally enriched. The collective sounds of these young people’s voices are beautiful, a mosaic of harmony and acoustic perfection. And while they always sound glorious, on Saturday they were really quite spectacular.

The music on this night was mostly religious and traditional, with classical and spiritual overtones. They performed three songs – Ubi Caritas, O magnum Mysterium, and Sanctus – in Latin, singing Still wie die Nacht in German, and Bogoroditse Devo in Russian. During their performance of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (arranged by Gilbert Martin), I turned and noticed Andrea overcome with emotion, struck by the beauty and power of the moment. At the end of the concert, the choir enclosed the audience in a large circle and sang The Benediction by Knut Nystedt. Although each choir member stood alone, together they formed an elaborate sound of quadraphonic wholeness. Earlier that evening, in Calling My Children Home (arranged by Joseph Jennings), they sang the words with such deep feeling it could not help but penetrate one's heart:

Those lives were mine to love and cherish, To guard and guide along life’s way./O God, forbid that one should perish, That one alas should go astray./Back in the years with all together, Around the place we’d romp and play./So lonely now, I often wonder, O will they come back home some day?/I’m lonesome for my precious children, They live so far away./O may they hear my calling And come back home someday./I gave my all for my dear children, Their problems still with love I share./I’d brave life’s storms, defy the tempest To bring them home from anywhere./I lived my life, my love I gave them, To guide them through this world of strife./I hope and pray we’ll live together In that great glad hereafter life./I’m lonesome for my precious children, They live so far away./O may they hear my calling And come back home someday.

For someone like me, who grew up listening mostly to folk, pop, and rock music, the sounds emanating from this modest amalgam of young voices was impressively diverse and expansive. The night was in part a tribute to Dr. Donald Busarow, who is completing a journey enveloping 28 years as choir director and 35 years as a professor of music theory and composition, and who is stepping down as only the fourth director in the choir’s 80-year history.

I left Wittenberg nearly 30 years ago, though in many ways it never left me and continues to occupy a warm place in my heart. Founded in 1845 by German immigrants, Wittenberg sits on a stunningly beautiful campus in southern Ohio, spreading its wings over 120 acres of lush grounds. The biggest negative to Wittenberg’s draw is its location in the city of Springfield, a once proud industrial town of the old rust belt, formerly home to a major International Harvester plant, but now host to unemployed factory workers and a stagnant service industry. Surrounded by farmland, the area is a mixture of northern Kentucky and central New Jersey. There is very little to do in Springfield, but that never mattered much during the four years that I was there. Wittenberg was everything to me then, its grand brick buildings and majestic trees overlooking its rolling hills of green grass, brick walkways, and well tended flowerbeds.

Perhaps I so appreciated the Wittenberg Choir on Saturday night because I have often considered my time there as among the best four years of my life. As I think back on it, I have difficulty remembering a single bad day. Life was fun and fulfilling, the days vivid and fresh, friendships came easy, and I never felt alone. On the night of graduation, while others celebrated, I quietly cried, anguished by the thought that life would never be as free and easy again. I loved Wittenberg and knew even then that it was an experience never to be replicated in life’s subsequent stages. Yet as I sat in the pews of St. Paul’s church, I could not remember once having seen the choir perform during my years at Wittenberg. Sometimes we appreciate only later in life the things we so often overlooked in the past.

In reality, there has been so much more to life since I left college. I headed to Washington, D.C., and later to Philadelphia, places full of history and culture and excitement. I became an accomplished lawyer and prosecutor. I have met sons and daughters of important people, worked alongside men and women who hailed from the best schools, and involved myself in interesting and fulfilling work. I have been introduced to the worlds of politics and law, art and theater, differing cultures and religions, things I had overlooked or not been exposed to in humble Springfield. I embraced a larger world, which in its splendor sometimes fails to acknowledge the simple and gentle confines of places like Wittenberg.

I have few regrets over the paths I have chosen and choices I have made, and I realize that, in some respects, I may have outgrown Wittenberg – when I graduated in 1981, I was ready to move on – but part of me never left. When I spotted the Wittenberg banner upon entering the church narthex on Saturday night, and set my eyes on the bright red and white gowns of the Wittenberg Choir, I felt a rush of pride about where my Wittenberg journey has led me in life and my connection to this grand place. I felt at home.

To this day, when I think of Wittenberg, I feel an occasional twinge of sadness, a longing for the days of my youth, when my whole life stood before me, my dreams unlimited, and my ideals untainted. I know now that constantly looking back serves no useful purpose. If I had the chance to live life over again, I would certainly do some things differently. I would, for one, not take time and relationships for granted, and I would be more open to new experiences, to travel, and to taking risks in life. But there is very little I would change about Wittenberg and my experiences there. Living in the present is healthier and more productive, the only way truly to live. I know that I am blessed – with my health, my family, my children, with Andrea, my career, and my faith, however tenuous and imperfect it may be.

It is due in no small part to my days at Wittenberg, the things I learned, the growth I experienced, the confidence I gained, that today I am so blessed. If my children can experience in their college years even half of the joy, the fun, the learning, and the sense of fulfillment that I found during my four years at Wittenberg, I will sleep soundly knowing they are on the right path, journeying forward to a life complete.