I LOVE A GOOD MYSTERY
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “I Love A Good Mystery.”
Have you ever said that to anyone in your life?
“I love a good mystery.”
JIM HOLT
I was driving along in my car - on Thursday afternoon – listening to the
radio – sort of spaced out – thinking about St. Mary’s High School graduation -
that took place that morning. Once more it was a wonderful moment – in a beautiful
setting – the baccalaureate mass here in this church and then the graduation
down on the lawn on the edge of Spa Creek.
Still driving - I woke up when I caught on CBC - Radio-Canada – it’s just like NPR – an interview with Jim Holt – about a
book he wrote in 2012 – entitled, Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential
Detective Story.
Never heard of him - nor his book. It’s non-fiction – yet it’s a
mystery – about the great mysteries of life – especially whether there is a God.
I’ve been thinking about that radio interview for the past few days. Evidently,
I love a mystery.
The interview was fascinating, interesting, and challenging. I really
took notice – I really started listening – when he said he was born Catholic
and went to Catholic school – but somewhere along the line – the answers he was
getting – to his big life question – were not answering his question – and he
dropped out of our church. As priest I’d obviously heard that.
He said that he discovered the Existentialist Philosophers in high
school; Sartre and Heidegger – in particular. I didn’t read them till the last
two years of college – and then in the major seminary.
Jim Holt said he was floored by something Heidegger wrote – that the
deepest question is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
He said that question hit him – a high school kid – and hit him hard
and was in the back and front of his mind ever since.
That comment on Thursday afternoon on the car radio – hit me as he
began describing what he was thinking about much of his life.
Why is there something? Anything? Why is there me and you and this
great big universe we find ourselves in?
He said that if our mom and dad didn’t make love – when their love
making made us – the person I am would not exist. A different sperm – maybe a
different egg – would have made another person – but not me.
I’m not writing things down while I’m driving – but what I heard - was something
- I wish I could have written down. Hence this sermon. You’re my radio audience.
Fasten your seat belts.
I was hearing some fascinating comments.
Jim Holt added - that there might have
been – say 50 billion people so far – on this planet – but how many ghost
people are there – those who never existed – out there – as nothing.
I think he then paused and said something like, “I hit the lottery. I
exist.”
That hit me. Thank you mom and dad.
Wow 74 years of me so far.
I exist. I am somebody. I am not nothing – even though like everybody
I’ve experienced yawns and people walking away from me in the middle of a story
– or their eyes checking the rest of the room while I babble – and not just in
church.
Still like everybody, I’m somebody. Then again, I smile when I say
that, because I like one of Emily Dickinson’s poems – Poem # 288
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! They’d advertise -
you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I’m somebody. I exist. I have a name! I’m not a nobody. I’m nothing
special, but I am somebody – to somebody – to two people for starters – my mom
and dad – then to my 2 sisters and my brother.
Then there’s marriage – at least my fantasy of marriage – or the hope
in every marriage – that this other person knows and loves me.
I think about these things – therefore I exist.
I prefer to talk Descartes that way.
I am also a believer in God – so I add, “Thank you God – for the gift
of life – for being Someone – not a nothing – who helped – along with my mom
and dad – I believe - in the creation of
me – that I was and am - a wanted one.”
Jim Holt, the fellow I heard on the radio, didn’t seem to think like
that – at least I was hearing him – and how else can hear another – but as each
us hears – in our own unique way.
Jim Holt went around the world and talked to a handful of thinkers –
important – thinkers - philosophers –
scientists – to get answers to his most fundamental question: “Why is there
something rather than nothing?” It’s Heidegger’s question – but it became his
question.
That radio interview - I was listening to - while driving this past
Thursday - triggered a memory and a moment from my first course in philosophy –
when Father Joseph Colleran – who ended working here in Annapolis with the poor.
One day he said the following, “I going to write on the board, the shortest
poem ever written. It’s only two words – and it sums up the whole of
Existentialist Philosophy.”
And he wrote on the blackboard:
“I
Why?”
I understood very little in our two years of philosophy, but I never
forgot that. And I know years later I found myself mentioning that moment in
sermons and then saying that I wrote another poem – adding - that it too is only 2 words - and it too rhymes and
it too - asks another of life’s biggest questions:
“You
Who?
There they are: two big
mysteries; two of life’s biggest questions.
I
Why
You
Who
That radio program the other day triggered all this – and Jim Holt told
about by name and personality and peculiarities the different philosophers and
scientists that he traveled to interview and study. His book is a summary of
what he came up with.
I didn’t read his book yet – but what I heard, and what I tracked down
yesterday while looking up his stuff on line and reading a lot of stuff by him
and about him, I realize I have been
hearing and reading about down through
the years – plus some new stuff.
I wondered if he had read or why didn’t he visit, Hans Kung – who deals
with a lot of what he was dealing with in his big fat 839 page book, Does
God Exist?
What I heard – what I knew - when I read Hans Kung’s book – and while I
listened to this interview with Jim Holt - was that I know very little about
quantum physics, string theory, and known and unknown scientists, teachers,
etc. etc. etc. Jim Holt mentioned in his interview the names of some key people
he met – and their take on life. Some had
answers; some had questions. Some believed in God; some didn’t.
I’m happy to be able to say that I learned a long time ago the message
from the Talmud – “Teach thy tongue to say, ‘I do not know.’”
It reminded me - of many a moment - I stood in the doorway of big library and seeing all those books – I’ve said,
“I know nothing.”
It reminded me of a thousand moments I stopped to look up at the night
sky and see so many stars - and realized
- I know nothing. I love this church with its stars on the blue sky ceiling –
but I love the night sky far better.
It reminded me of a thousand moments - I have been stopped by beauty: living
7 years – in in an Atlantic oceanfront –
retreat house - in Long Branch New Jersey, backpacking in the Rocky Mountains
in Colorado – as well as the White Mountains in New Hampshire, living on Lac La
Belle in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, living 14 years just 200 yards from the Hudson
River, giving talks in a retreat house
in the desert just outside of Tucson, Arizona, snorkeling in the Virgin Islands
when working down there once giving some talks – great job – and they paid for
it. Life is good. The world, the earth,
the universe is beautiful.
So when it comes to God, I wonder at times why did God create the Grand
Canyon and the Grand Cayman’s – while I remember Woody Allen’s comment: “God
created the world, except certain parts of New Jersey.”
So I wonder why the 13 year old gets gunned down – and why Hitler
lived.
I wonder what in the world is it with the faces of certain types of
dogs and monkeys.
So – some of us believe God is the Creator.
All of us know there are things around us – some we like, some we don’t
like, some we wonder about. And we know
they are not nothing. So we ask at
times: “Why? Why? Why?”
Then there are all those wonderful “you’s” – - all those people whom we
meet in our lives. I consider that one
of the best gifts of being a priest.
I remember hearing on TV – William Sloan Coffin [1924-2006] – a famous Protestant
minister. He was being interviewed. One question he was asked was, “What’s the
best part of being a minster?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he must have been
asked the question before, or he had thought about it a lot, he answered, “Oh –
sitting with someone – one to one – and they invite me into the secret garden
of their soul.”
So if Jim Holt asked me his question, I’d say all of the above and say,
“I believe in God.”
I’d say, “I have my questions – my wonderings – my prayers – but especially
my prayers of thanksgiving – because I see the somethings that are – more than
the nothings that are not.”
I’d say, “When I was younger, my prayers were more asking prayers – but
for the past 20 or 30 years – they have become more and more prayers of
thanksgiving.”
As to suffering and sorrow – horror and war – shootings and craziness –
I assume that they are not nothing.
So I am aware that philosophers talk about The Problem of Evil.
I am forever thankful for a
paper I once read by the philosopher, Jacques Maritain – entitled the Problem
of Good. Ever since reading that article, if someone hits me with the problem
of evil – I like to add, “But what about the Problem of Good?”
TODAY’S READINGS
Did you notice the following comment in today’s second reading: “Always
be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your
hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence ….
I hope I’m did that in this homily.
I noticed in today’s readings that we Christians bring Christ into this
question that Jim Holt is asking.
It’s a shame that he dropped out of the family a long time ago – that
what he was hearing in church and Catholic school – did not answer his existential
question – the question that Martin Heidegger asked,
By dropping into a Catholic Church I would hope he would hear what
today’s gospel and first reading are telling us: Jesus. Experience the
existence of Jesus. He is somebody.
I would hope he would hear that Jesus – one of the 3 persons in God –
now that’s a mystery – came down and lived this life on this earth.
He ended up being violently killed because part of being us – the
mystery of us – is that we were gifted with the gift of freedom – that life and
love would be boring – meaningless - without freedom – that the other person or
persons doesn’t have to love us – or be nice to us – but rather they can hurt
us – and kill us or what have you. And secondly, this person, this second
person in God – who became one of us – loved people, healed people, touched
people – embraced children, talked and embraced women – something not to be done
– even back then - in public in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. He
reached out to all. Each in the all was somebody – and he knew if they even
touched the hem of his garment in a crowd. He loved bread and wine, the birds of the air,
the flowers of the fields, alone time in the desert and in the mountains.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “I Love A Mystery.”
I love that I have been created in mystery. I celebrate that I am
someone – not nothing – someone who spends time and thought and prayer with my
two questions:
I
Why?
You
Who?
In fact, I like those 2 questions better than Jim Holt’s life quest to
answer Heidegger’s question: “Why is
there something rather than nothing?”
