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?” 

MARRIAGE

Poem for Today - May 25, 2014

BECAUSE

Because the night you asked me,
the small scar of the quarter moon
had healed — the moon was whole again;
because life seemed so short;
because life stretched before me
like the darkened halls of nightmare;
because I knew exactly what I wanted;
because I knew exactly nothing;
because I shed my childhood with my clothes—
they both had years of wear left in them;
because your eyes were darker than my father’s;
because my father said I could do better;
because I wanted badly to say no;
because Stanley Kowalski shouted “Stella…;”
because you were a door I could slam shut;
because endings are written before beginnings;
because I knew that after twenty years
you’d bring the plants inside for winter
and make a jungle we’d sleep in naked;
because I had free will;
because everything is ordained;
I said yes.

© Linda Pastan

PAIN

Poem for May 24, 2014

ARABIC

(Jordan, 1992)

The man with laughing eyes stopped smiling

to say, “Until you speak Arabic,

you will not understand pain.”

Something to do with the back of the head,

an Arab carries sorrow in the back of the head

that only language cracks, thrum of stones

weeping, grating hinge on an old metal gate.

“Once you know,” he whispered, “you can enter the room

whenever you need to. Music you heard from a distance,

the slapped drum of a stranger’s wedding,

wells up inside your skin, inside rain, a thousand

pulsing tongues. You are changed.”

Outside, the snow had finally stopped.

in a land where snow rarely falls,

we had our days grow white and still.

I thought pain had no tongue. Or every tongue

at once, supreme translator, sieve. I admit my

shame. To live on the bank of Arabic, tugging

its rich threads without understanding

how to weave the rug … I have no gift.

The sound, but not the sense.

I kept looking over his shoulders for someone else

to talk to, recalling my dying friend who only scrawled

I can’t write.  What good would any grammar have been

to her then?  I touched his arm, held it hard,

which sometimes you don’t do in the Middle East,

and said, I’ll work on it, feeling sad

for his good strict heart, but later in the slick street

hailed a taxi by shouting Pain! And it stopped

in every language and opened its doors.

© Naomi Shihab Nye (1952 - )

From Red Suitcase, © 2000

POETRY

Poem for Today - May 23, 2014

INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

Then begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

© Billy Collins.

INTO THE WOODS

Poem for Today - May 22, 2014

THE FOREST LAST DAY

death comes at the end of the chain saw

with spears of shrieks that split the air and red of the sun

biting into  the flesh of wood

that is shocked by the sudden pain and alien din.

its world overturns all, strange as fainting

sap flowing, its essence denying the steel’s

base and supporting roots trembling

In its canopy birds will play

its air made fragrant by the essence of the forest

the sky is witness with clear eyes.

fallen is the cengal

  fallen is the meranti

    fallen is the merbau

      fallen is the pulai

fallen is the seraya

   fallen is the nyatuh

            fallen is the resak

fallen is the halban

                       fallen is the nibung

                          fallen is the rattan

a family of trees aged by the centuries

the beautiful and great lying in the shadow

with a presence in the root’s fibers and shoot’s sway.

heat rushes into the air tunnel, existence is scalded.

the wheel of nature turns slowly

listening to the rhythm of the season and the sun

With a sense of presence in the roots and the sway of the shoots

after the death shatter and scatter of roots

heat rushes into the tunnel, searing existence.

morning-purple flowers fall

as red as cliffs, as white as cloud, as brown as trunks.

buds and fruits on heavy branches fall

lire dotted near the stem or full with the seasons

a universe of colors falls

a hundred stripes of green painting the leaves' personalities

the moon falls, caught by the branches

as light that sketches difference,

morning falls, the afternoon and the night.

with the rustle, tenderness drips from shoots

the secret mist of nature evaporates

the frame of balance is broken, since trees became earth

the quiet beauty filtered by light fades away,

leaves are dumb, branches speechless, no song, no echo

no deer, no baboon, no elephant herd

no pulse of mouse deer’s bleat,  no question.

the full epic of the forest

is ended by a convoy of lorries with tyres of concrete,

a gang of paid lumberjacks who wear no pity in their eyes.

and a bloated logger

who stands on the red desiccated desert

our future.

© Muhammad Haji Salleh -  

Translated from the Malay

 by the author

NADIA ANJUMAN -
AFGHAN  GIRL 

Poem for Today - May 21, 2014

THE SILENCED

I have no desire for talking, my tongue is tied up.

Now that I am abhorred by my time, do I sing or not?

What could I say about honey, when my mouth is as            bitter as poison.

Alas! The group of tyrants has muffled my mouth.
This corner of imprisonment, grief, failure, and regrets          –

I was born for nothing that my mouth should stay               sealed.

I know O! my heart, It is springtime and the time for           joy,
What could I, a bound bird, do without flight.
Although, I have been silent for long, I have not                 forgotten to sing,

Because my songs whispered in the solitude of my               heart.

Oh, I will love the day when I break out of this cage,

Escape this solitary exile and sing wildly.
I am not that weak willow twisted by every breeze.
I am an Afghan girl and known to the whole world.

© Nadia Anjuman, 

Translated from the Dari

by Abdul Salam Shayek

NEW YORK TIMES

November 8, 2005

Afghan Poet Dies After Beating by Husband

By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 7 - Nadia Anjuman, who had been gaining a name for herself as a poet in Afghan literary circles, died over the weekend in the western city of Herat after being beaten by her husband, police officials said Monday.

The death of Ms. Anjuman at age 25 was lamented by colleagues and condemned by the United Nations as a tragic example of the violence that so many Afghan women still face despite their advances four years after Taliban rule.

Ms. Anjuman was knocked unconscious by her husband during an argument Saturday evening, Col. Nisar Ahmad Paikar, chief of the police crime unit in Herat, said in a telephone interview.

Her husband, Farid Ahmad Majid Mia, is in custody and has admitted hitting his wife and knocking her unconscious, Colonel Paikar said. Ms. Anjuman died later in a hospital, he said. "She had a dark bruise under her right eye," he added.

Ms. Anjuman, a literature undergraduate at Herat University, published her first volume of poems this year, titled "Gule Dudi," or "Dark Flower." She was to publish a second volume next year, said Sayed Haqiqi, a local journalist and colleague of Ms. Anjuman in Herat's Cultural Association. Her husband, who graduated with a degree in literature from the same university, worked as an administrator in the literature faculty, Mr. Haqiqi said.

A spokesman at the United Nations mission in Kabul, Adrian Edwards, called Ms. Anjuman's death tragic and a great loss to Afghanistan. Her death "needs to be investigated, and anyone found responsible needs to be dealt with in proper accordance with law," he said.

DO  NOT  LET  YOUR  FACE 

BE  TROUBLED 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 5^th Tuesday after Easter is, “Do Not Let Your Face Be Troubled.”

In today’s gospel – again from John – we have a  recurring theme - about - not letting one’s heart be troubled. [Cf. John 14:27-31]

As I was thinking about that last night while working on this homily for today, I asked: “Does saying ‘heart’ get to the heart of the matter – with what the text is talking about?”

To a Hebrew – in Jesus’ time – heart would not mean the pump. The doctors in those days wouldn’t know what we know about how our hearts work. The word “heart” would mean one’s command center. It’s the me that I am.  It refers to our mind – our personality – our will – our character – our attitude - and a lot more – the me of me.

So translators might do better - by using the word “center” – instead  of heart – when we hear the call to love God  - our neighbor – and ourselves.

So the translation could be, “Let not your center, your you, be troubled.”

Yet on the other hand, we get heart. Think of Valentine’s Day or all those bumper stickers and T-shirts with hearts on them – that say things like,  “Virginia, or Chocolates or Pugs or Naptown is or are for lovers.”

WHAT ABOUT ONE’S FACE?

What would it sound like if we made the sentence go like this: “Let not your face be troubled.”

We can’t see another’s heart, but we see each other’s face.

How many times has someone said to us, “Is everything okay?” And we say, “Yeah – ah ----- uh --- everything’s okay.”  But along with the response there is that tiny biting our lower lip or that slight shrug of our shoulder.

And as they walk away – and for the rest of the day or the hour we wonder, “Is it that obvious, that I’m nervous about X or Y or Z?”

We are sculptors – the sculptors of our faces?  Is that true?

I always remember a page in a book I read some time in the past. I forget the name of the book or anything in it – other than that one page. It had two pictures on it in black and white. The top picture had a table filled with laughing babies. How did they get them all to smile at the same time – and on the same table?  And the picture underneath had a scene of people in a New York Subway car – packed together – maybe on the way home from a long day at work -  and everyone has a closed mouth - and many have a sad face. And underneath that picture were two words: “What happened?”

How many times do we have to be angry – to form a permanent angry face?

How many times do we have to be sad – to form a permanent sad face?

How many times do we have to be happy – to form a permanent happy face?

Smile someone’s taking your picture.

Smile someone’s being affected by your face.

William Shakespeare said, “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” Is that true? What’s your take on that comment?

TWO TRICKS

I guess two tricks are: One - look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Self! What’s going on in there today.” Two - Without looking in the mirror, feel your face from the inside and ask that same question other’s ask us, “Is everything okay?” Then answer that question for yourself.

We’ve all felt our face squinch and squirm and squiggle at times – as we say, “Ah – no - not again. Crud. I hate it when he does that. Every dang time. Dang it! Uhhhhhhhhhhh Ugggggggh!”

William Ernest Henley said in his well-known poem, Invictus, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

I’m wondering out loud in this sermon, “Am I the sculptor of my face.”

And Jesus looks us in the face – and says, “Peace!”

He says, “Peace in there baby, inside there, baby. What’s going on inside your self – behind that face today?”

See his face. Hear that word of “Peace!” Be aware of what that does to our face today.

CONCLUSION

Uh oh! After Mass, I hope nobody here says in our parking lot about us, “Oh no! Was that person at the same Mass I was just at this morning?”