GO FIGURE!
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Go Figure!”
Today is a wonderful feast to have at the beginning of a new year: the feast of the Epiphany.
What am I going to do with my life in this new year, 2009?
Go figure!
This year, will I have an epiphany – a great insight – a light that will go on – a star shining over and pointing out the thing I really need to do with my life?
Go figure?
More and better: what am I going to do not just this year – but with the rest of my life? And hopefully, that means years to come?
Go figure!
Where am I headed? What’s next? What’s down the line? What is the journey of life all about? It’s the old catechism question: Why did God make me?
Go figure.
Isn’t life a search for meaning – for epiphanies – for insights – for lightning bolt assurances – for amazing graces – for things that make sense? *
Isn’t life all about, “Going and figuring.”
Go figure.
Don’t we come to church to come figure out life?
We have all these stars up here on our ceiling. Is one of them pointing out something to us?
I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law for New Year’s. We were out shopping. When we came back my brother-in-law Jerry was parking their car in their garage. I noticed they have this neat red beam that tells the driver just where to stop the car. Wonderful. Wouldn’t it be neat to have red beams telling us what to do each day?
Or would it?
DISTRACTIONS
To me, life is all about distractions. I don’t get it when people confess having distractions as sins. Okay deliberate distractions and not listening.
Distractions are the constant inner chattering of the human brain – the amazing human brain – constantly searching – figuring – questioning – deciding – re-questioning – moving.
Don’t we spend most of our lives searching – looking – moving – wondering – wandering – risking – trying - hoping to find answers to questions we sometimes don’t even know we’re on a quest with?
Aren’t we all searchers? Isn’t the question mark our symbol? I picture everyone having as their flag, a big white sheet with a big black question mark on it.
We even do this in our sleep. Dreams are all about searching – getting lost – trapped – being with strange rangers in strange situations. At least that’s the experience we tell each other at the breakfast table – if it was a dramatic dream we remembered.
How many times have we found ourselves in the morning sitting there on the edge of our bed like Rodin’s statue, “The Thinker!” and we’re saying, “Now what was that all about?”
Go figure!
THE THREE KINGS
The three kings…. We’re not sure whether they were kings or that they were three – but three is a good number to picture the story.
The three kings …. They represent us. We’re all searchers – for God – for a Savior – for a Leader – for a King – for One who will tell us what it’s all about.
The three kings…. They are not just the stuff of statues in church – or lawn or Christmas card or under our Christmas tree. They are the stuff of story. They are under our story.
The three kings…. They are also called Wise Men and Magi. They are wise because they kept on searching till they found what they were looking for.
THE STAR
The star is essential to the story.
We’re looking for signs – stars that point the way – to what we’re looking for – the ultimates of life – the deepest meanings of life.
We see lights – insights from time to time: these are our personal epiphanies.
Have we arrived yet at our crib and our Bethlehem or are we still on the journey – still searching?
Have we seen the star yet – our star – the right star?
We can’t see stars in the day. We can only see the stars when we are in the dark. And sometimes we don’t look up. Sometimes we forget we’re searching. Sometimes we’re stopped or stuck somewhere. And sometimes it’s cloudy in our night – the dark night of our soul.
Then sometimes we wake up because we’re rattled or frustrated or lost and in the dark. Then we look up and see the right star and a possible new direction and we get back on our camel and start moving again.
Then like the Magi – we ask questions. Notice they are men and they ask for directions. Amazing. And they are making the journey together. It’s always wise to do life together – with others.
THE JOURNEY
The journey story is everyone’s story.
Think of the movies we like. They will tell us a lot about ourselves.
And movies are all about moves!
It could be The Wizard of Oz. That movie is all about the journey – the search – or as Dorothy puts it, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” We want to feel at home. Home means we’re no longer running the bases. We’ve arrived. We can relax. We’re in our place – in the dugout. Home. Back with the people we know and love. Phew.
But look at how much Dorothy learned on the journey: how we need each other – that there are Wizards and Witches, – that we need courage when we feel like a cowardly lion, brains when we feel like a scarecrow or straw person, a heart and a soul, an inside, a spirit, when we feel like we’re a Tin Person, a Robot.
It could be the Jason Bourne movies. We’re running, running, running, trying to find out who we really are.
It could be Doctor Zhivago, my favorite movie, Yuri trying to find security, home, family, future, career, – in the midst of war and strife and everything including weather seems to be conspiring against him. **
The journey story is everyone’s story – not just the three kings or wise men – not just Jason Bourne and Dorothy – or George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, not just Dante and Don Quixote, not just in the ancient stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
We’re always searching. Meaning is our distraction. We might be in traffic or a meeting or in church or talking with someone – but we’re elsewhere – on the journey – trying to go figure what life’s all about.
That’s why we have these texts in the gospels about people on journeys coming up to Jesus and asking him, “What’s it all about?” What’s the first and greatest commandment? And Jesus sums it all up. It’s all about loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
We read. We hear the scriptures stories. We go figure.
THE GIRL IN THE DOLL HOUSE
In this homily, I'm saying we're all like the Magi - going through life searching. Don’t we all have things we’re looking for or trying to figure out or years - while we’re looking for ways to pay our bills, raise our kids, do our job, keep our job, find a job, love our spouse, enjoy a football game or a book or a trip to the mall or a play or a movie or a walk at Quiet Waters Park or the Naval Academy or Navy Stadium?
While driving along some road, some 30 years ago, I was listening to some audio tapes by the Jesuit priest, Bernard Bassett. He told a story about a little girl. About 20 years later I realized he said something very important – that I had been thinking about semi-consciously many times on many roads afterwards.
What I remembered went something like this. He was visiting an institute for little kids who had psychological problems for various reasons. The staff worked with these kids – maybe from broken homes – or they were abused or this or that – in hopes that they would get healthy. One day he was looking through one of those one way windows you see in movies. He was sitting with a child psychologist who pointed out a little girl in this big doll house. "Hopefully," the psychologist said, "the little girl will look up and look out a window of this big doll house she was playing in and see other kids playing together here and there." He said that the little girl controlled life in her doll house - giving directions to this doll and that doll – but they were not live persons. Then he said, "If the little girl opens the door and walks out and over to other kids and starts to interact with them, some of whom will not notice her, she’s on her way to being healed."
Isn't that the great epiphany of life - to come out of our own little world - and journey out into the bigger world and interact with other people?
Isn’t that what all of you who are parents are very concerned about – that your kids will look up and come out of themselves – and go out and interact with our world – making this world a better world?
In the meanwhile I kept looking for the tape of that story to see how close I was to what Bernard Basset really said. There I was at Faulkner, Maryland with some of our high school seniors on a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House. I spotted a cabinet with some audio tapes. Surprise – all the tapes by Bassett were there, except the one I wanted. It was missing.
Surprise! A year later I’m in our Redemptorist Retreat House, San Alfonso, in Long Branch, New Jersey with our high school juniors. I spotted a box of books to be discarded. There was a book by Bernard Basset. I open it and see the story I was looking for in print. I was right about the big doll house – but there was also a glass phone booth. The girl was in the phone booth on that particular day. If she opened the telephone booth door and walked towards the kids – she was on her way towards healing – even if some kids would ignore her. ***
CONCLUSION
Today’s feast of the Epiphany is about such moments. What did the 3 kings or Magi or Wise Men discover that day?
Go figure.
What I figure is this: life is all about discovering life is not about me but it’s about the other – especially the child. The call is to keep life going for those around us.
How many people wrapped up in themselves – get married – and come out of themselves if blessed with a child – with children. The mother and father stand there over their child’s crib. They look down at new life. They realize this is what it's all about. They have an epiphany. Their life is about to change - big time.
A baby needs time and gifts – not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but gold, food and attention.
For those of us without children, we have to discover the same message – that life is for the next generation – not ourselves.
What personally hits me is that a priest is called “Father”.
What hits you personally about this feast of the Epiphany?
After Mass come up to the creche, the nativity scene. See the 3 kings. See the child in the crib.
See yourself as a child in that crib - that you were honored at your birth. Then you had to grow up and see that life is stepping up and out of childhood and learning to do for the next generation. - starting with children and on and on and on.
Now that’s an epiphany.
Go figure.
* Check out the writings of Joan Didion, for example, The Year of Magical Thinking, (2005) and We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, (2006)
** Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, (1957) and movie, Doctor Zhivago, (1965).
*** Bernard Basset, S.J. The Noonday Devil, Spiritual Support in Middle Age, "The Girl In The Telephone Booth," pp. 69-86, Image Books, 1968
