HARD WIRED 

FOR TRANSCENDENCE

The title of my thoughts on this occasion of St. Mary’s Junior’s Ring Ceremony is, “Hard Wired for Transcendence.”[1]

I have heard that phrase before - but I never took the time to spell it  out for myself.

If St. Mary’s doesn’t spell this out - we’re in trouble.

Maybe - but then again - maybe not ….

Not if it’s true that we’re hardwired for transcendence.

I’m assuming everyone is hardwired to get what’s going on when it comes to rings.

Hardwired….

It comes from the world of electronics - where circuit boards - or computer chips are hardwired to do certain things - and do them every time with that particular circuit board or chip. That’s what we’re buying - when we buy that circuit board or chip or hard drive.

Applications can be added on to the basic hard drive and machine.

“Hardwired” is spelled as one word, or one two words hyphenated - having that little dash between the hard and the wired, or simply two words.

Then it’s metaphorically transferred to humans. Are all humans hardwired to speak, to laugh, to love, to grow, to want to learn, to explore, and to unravel the universe?

Bees are hard wired to fly, to buzz, to gather honey, Different birds are hard wired to make a certain pattern of chirps.

The title of my reflection here is: “Hard Wired for Transcendence.”

Transcendence - looking up - seeing the invisible in the visible - seeing the divine in the vine. Surprise water is changed into wine every day.

Seeing surprise. Seeing God in the birds of the air - 1000 swallows over a winter field on the road to Ocean City.  Blue Angell pilots can only envy what they can do.  Did you ever see through your front windshield three flocks merge into one and come out the other side three flocks again. How do they know.

Transcendence - trans across - ascent - up - climbing up - needed, celebrated, appreciated - especially when we’re down.

The plane takes off from BWI - runs like an athlete down the runway and then leaps and jumps into the sky - carrying the crowd with it.

Today we’re thinking about rings.

There is a world of difference between a ring in a jewelry store window and a ring on a finger.

There is a world of difference between a ring on a finger and it’s lost and it’s looked for and it’s found a month later. There is a world of difference between a newlyweds wedding ring and a grandparents wedding ring.

Have you ever seen a widow wearing her husband’s wedding ring on a gold chain around her neck?  If she’s your mom or aunt or grandmother look at it and say, “Tell me the story!”

Transcendence, takes us beyond the visible.

Transcendence leads us to story.

Transcendence leads us to awe, oooh, wow. woo moments.

We’re hard wired for transcendence.

So simply savor today - the simplicity and the sacredness of the moment.

Twist your ring around and around and around - and let it take you through the years ahead. Amen.

NOTE

[1] I noticed this phrase "hard wired for transcedence in a letter by Moira T Carley in the British magazine, The Tablet, page 17, August 8, 2015. Here's the Letter in its entirety, 

Heaney's instinct for grace

I am grateful for Eamon Duffy’s words on the Catholic imagination of Seamus Heaney. (“All God and no religion”, 27 June).  A friend introduced me to Heaney’s poetry in the 1980’s when he was teaching at Harvard and I was a student there. My doctoral work was to apply Canadian philosopher theologian Bernard Lonergan’s thought on learning to the practice of teaching. It was a tough slog but I did it - thanks to the poetry of Heaney which often became my ballast reading, nourishing my imagination after a tough day with Lonergan. I understood that both men were coming from the same conviction that all humans are hard wired for transcendence. I also understood that the inevitability of form needs both creative expressions. Later, I was able to pass on this insight to many of my university students.

I finally met Heaney in person in 2002 in Montreal. When I thanked him for writing: “whatever is given can be re-imagined”, he twinkled this reply: “I kinda like that one myself.” Reading Duffy’s words crediting Heaney's poetic expression of events “that catch the heart off guard and blow it open” as “as eloquent an utterance as we are likely to have about the meaning of what a Christian might call the work of grace” reminded me of something Lonergan wrote. “The experience of grace … is the experienced of a transformation one did not bring about but rather underwent … as it lets one’s circumstances shift, one dispositions change, new encounters occur, and - so gently and quietly - one’s heart be touched.”