Gloucester
Oliver Wendell Holmes in a memorable paragraph said, “no man has the right to intellectual ambition until he has learned to lay his course by a star which he has never seen.” The learned Bostonian was talking about faith. He was saying the same thing that the author of the letter to the Hebrews said when he referred to face the as “the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.” (11/1)
The Advent season is particularly appropriate to the serious consideration of faith. We live in a world that seems like a speeded-up newsreel. We seem to have little opportunity and only slight desire to reflect on and speculate about this word faith – which seems to hold so much meaning –but also engenders so many doubts and so many confusions.
Twentieth-century America is not particularly noted as a country of deep and abiding religious faith. Such a description always seems to apply to far-away lands or far-removed ages. Yet someone has said facetiously that nowhere it is there such a faith as exists in modern America. The reason is that “among those enterprises which depend for success on implicit faith are love, democracy and hash.”
What is faith? If this were the summer season (and yesterday I thought it was) I might quote that definition which says that “faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move.”
There has been some excitement in the religious press about the alleged miracle of faith which occurred in fact Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. So ‘tis said the sun danced in the heavens and a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared with the message that the Russian threat could be ended with a prayer. I do not doubt for a moment that the hot sun of Portugal may cause visions and the bright glare might be brilliant enough to so daze optic nerves that the sun may appear to be dancing and moving in a most natural or supernatural manner. But is this faith?
Very recently a great stir and fuss was caused by a photograph published nation-wide which claimed to be one of the United Nations and Communist planes engaged in combat over Korea. The white clouds had parted against the darker space in such a manner that it seemed to portray vividly a vision of Christ, miles and miles in the area with every feature perfectly delineated.
Thousands of inquiries flooded the wire service which published the picture. Surely many thought this is a vision of Christ in a world that seems to have completely and finally rejected his teachings of love, good-will and willingness to go the second mile and not give blow for blow. But as usual it was demonstrated that faith does not so manifest itself. Closer investigation revealed that this was the usual fake photograph – a picture of planes in combat over Europe in World War II had been cleverly retouched to picture the head of a man, supposedly Christ.
The thought occurs – even if this had been the real stuff – an unvarnished, completely accurate and authentic miracle, what would it prove? Other than demonstrating that the Italian and Spanish artists had been completely correct in portraying Christ as possessing the Latin type of feature, rather than the facial characteristics of the Semite the Bible tells us he was, what would it have meant that he was approving or disapproving of war? Did he favor the North Korean or South Korean? Communist bloc or United Nations? How would one know?
Faith is not only an attitude toward such things as whether or not God exerts the power of the Universe through such things as miracles. Faith must also be an act. “Faith is dead without good deeds,” said the author of the letter called James. (Goodspeed, 2/26). Faith is an act of giving – not only one’s time and money, as with the duties of a churchman to keep the institution alive and functioning, but the giving of one’s self. To be completely bound up, “sold” on a certain philosophy of life, or way of life, that all one’s deeds are dictated by it and one’s life is completely transformed by that powerful influence – that is faith.
One of the most inspirational and symbolic stories in all the sacred scriptures of the world religions is the story of Abraham, found in the early chapters of Genesis. Abraham is the patriarch of the Hebrew people. Jesus and every other Hebrew prophet looked back to Abraham for a sign of God’s approval of the Children of Israel. The old folk-story tells how God singled Abraham out. But the literal truth does not disclose the meaning of a parable.
Terah was the father of Abraham and lived in the ancient Chaldean city of Ur. We are told that Terah took his son Abraham and other members of the family and emigrated to the land of Canaan. But they never reached there. They settled somewhere else along the way and gave up the dream – the star they had never seen – and settled for less than their goal.
But the son, Abraham – he may have been of a more determined mold – or was moved more strongly by the vision of the land of Canaan – by the star he had never seen. The ancient story, with its lovely symbolism, tells how he had a vision of the Lord and how the Lord told him to start again for that promised land and if faithful he would be blessed. Then in one of the most interesting single verses in scripture, “Abraham was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abraham took his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot, with all the property they had accumulated, and the persons they had acquired in Haran and they started out for the land of Canaan; and to the land of Canaan they came.” (Genesis 12/5 – Goodspeed).
Faith was a vision – a star that was not seen – and an act of allegiance to that dream that transformed it into reality.
But we would be missing the point completely if we sought only the faith of Abraham, or the faith of Jesus. For to do so is an erroneous effort to move back into the past. Abraham’s faith was not that of his father. Terah was satisfied to go only part way. Abraham was determined to go to the land of Canaan “and to the land of Canaan he came.”
One of the mistakes that large segments of people in any age seem to make is to find themselves slavishly devoted to the past – because it is the past – and content to labor at the impossible task of understanding explicitly the dream of another age and time. If your religious duty consists only in guarding the sacred records of an ancient past, then you are being cheated out of one of life’s most adventurous and stirring quests. We must realize through our own eyes, not through the eyes of some ancient prophet, that there is a “star we have never seen” and that with devotion and genuine commitment to the ideal, we may glimpse it.
John Dewey once said that religion like poetry and art is a “precious thing.” It cannot be completed and fulfilled by staying in the past and hoping that the first century can be restored. One of the most overworked stories that I know of is the one where a man announces that he has just bought two million 1949 calendars for a few dollars. The straight man asks, “what in the world will you ever do with two million 1949 calendars.” “Nothing right now,” says the comedian, but if 1949 ever comes back, think what a fortune I’ll make.” The story is humorous because in most everything but religion everyone knows that the past will never come back again.
Science, industry, and the political movements of the centuries make it utterly impossible to recreate the world of Abraham, Jesus, Luther, John Murray or even the world of the warm-hearted Universalist evangelists of a half-century ago. John Dewey said further, “We are weak today in ideal matters because intelligence is divorced from aspiration.”
In the light of today’s knowledge we know that the scientific faiths and religious acts of at least he first seventeen centuries of the Christian Era were intolerant, unintelligent and many times created an unhealthy emotional slavery. No serious student of history of religion will question it. It could be claimed that religion, at least in its institutional form, has always been a child of its times like politics and science. What was high religion for two centuries ago, cannot be today. The world has moved – so faith must keep its struggle dignified and decent by stirring men with a star they have never seen.
Have I told you that little anecdote about the early New England Parish meeting, where the devout Calvinists passed three resolutions? Quite evidently Universalism had not permeated that particular community with its wholesome teaching of the power of God’s love to bring all mankind to salvation. Anyway, this Calvinist community passed three resolutions:
1. Resolved that God’s elect are foreordained for salvation & heaven.
2. Resolved that God’s elect are the saints.
3. Resolved that we are the saints.
Is that a faith for today?
Sophia Lyon Fahs, who prepares much of the church school material for the Unitarians and Universalists has a very instructive and important article in the latest issue of the “Standard” publication of the Ethical Culture Society. In it there is a story about trying to use an outdated faith in the world of today:
Margaret was a five year old whose mother had given her Christian instruction. Margaret had been told the stories of the Bible, of Jesus and God and had been taught to pray.
“One morning Margaret was swinging in the church school playground, pushing the swing higher and higher. So confident was she that she did not even hold on to the ropes as she was swinging. ‘Margaret!’ called the teacher in charge, ‘You had better hold on to the ropes or you will fall.’ But Margaret called back, ‘Oh no, I don’t need to hold on to the ropes, I am not afraid to go high, high, high! Jesus will not let me fall!’ In a few minutes the child did fall. Bewildered, she pulled herself up from the ground, rubbed her scratched arm, and ran over to the teacher. She held out her arm, asking mutely for a little sympathy. ‘Anyway, I didn’t cry,’ she muttered.”
An equally dangerous stumbling-block for a committed faith is the danger of replacing the worn-out creeds and ideas with nothing but scoffing and criticism. There is no particular advantage in freeing one’self of crude superstitions if in their place is installed nothing but a flat, bitter derision of any hope that we can earnestly and honestly set up a quest for the good, the true and the beautiful.
There is an old fable about a convention in Hell. Satan had gathered all the subordinate Lucifers and Old Nicks from the far-flung parts of the underworld kingdom to discuss an important matter. The chief devil had received word that a spiritual revival was in progress on the earth and if steps were not taken immediately the smoothing working gears of the operation of evil influences would be jammed and halted. So the devil offered a great prize for the best solution to the problem of halting this spiritual progress.
The winning entrant submitted a three part plan: 1. Convince man that there is no heaven. 2. Convince men there is no hell. 3. Convince them that there is no hurry. Symbolically this says that the attitude that proclaims that nothing matters and it doesn’t make any difference, and it’s foolish to get excited about things because there’s nothing can be done is the great repudiation of spiritual values, the supreme antithesis of faith, the casting out from our hearts the vision of a star we have never seen.
Commitment and a working faith will keep up spiritually alive for cynicism and unending despair are deathblows to spiritual values. In a recent National Geographic the thrilling story of another adventure of Capt. Donald B. MacMillan, the famous arctic explorer, was told in the usual fascinating manner. As the trip began Capt. MacMillan was beginning his forty-second year of explorations in the frozen North. As the famous vessel was made ready for departure, a familiar question was asked Capt. Mac: After forty years of hardship and adventure, why do you go? His answer is significant, “To learn something.” I don’t know how MacMillan thinks his theology, but in his actual life he is a man with a vital faith. Because a vital faith is always willing to learn – and such a readiness can overcome cynicism and despair.
MacMillan has a vision of his task and has spent his life trying to make reality out of the vision. Prophetic vision, the star we have never seen, is a very uninteresting even cumbersome thing if we fail to try to make a reality out of it. The point of the story of the three Wise Men may be that astrologers had been predicting that one day there would be a star for them to follow. Then came the day when it came into their vision – and they followed it to journey’s end.
Miracle, if a miracle be a happening that is completely supernatural, is not needed for our perplexities and confusions. Naturally we have powers to realize something of the visions of faith. A couple of months ago I was talking to an aeronautical engineer and I asked him what I guess was a familiar question. I had heard that the body of a bee is so weighty and cumbersome in relation to the gauzy thinness of its wings that by all the laws of aerodynamics it is impossible for a bee to fly.
Is it so? “Yes,” he said, “As an engine a bee is just impossible.” From the standpoint of what we know about aerodynamics, wing surfaces and other facts of engineering, a bee cannot fly. But it does. So, (the aircraft man went on) the problem is not one for the aeronautical engineer because the bee has a different kind of energy than the revolutions of a motor. That energy is tied up with the fact that the bee is a study not for the aeronautical engineer but for the biologist. Life makes the difference.
So with faith. A dead past even with its vital lessons cannot save us. A present that denies that there are stars we have never seen (“peace on earth, good will to men.” is one of the stars we have never seen) will make a mockery and a perversion of all that makes life really worth-while. Life, together with a faithful commitment to the highest ideals we hope for, even though still unrealized, will give us a natural energy powerful enough to overcome even the most imposing of obstacles.
When the Psalmist said As the hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee, O God” an affirmation was being made of the religious quest, the search for the star we have never seen. Behind the oriental imagery there is a hope of a supreme existence, the vision of a spiritual accomplishment not yet achieved.
No teacher can instruct us in such a faith. Even the best of guides can but point the way – the experience must be our own. That experience is the living, acting knowledge of faith.
Let me close with another story that Dr. Sophia Fahs tells out of her long experience with children. The story needs no moralizing to point up its vital clue to the nature of genuine religious faith.
Jimmie was an eight-year old who was disturbed inwardly because of his slowness in learning to read. He was so retarded in his reading in comparison with the other members of his class that he felt disgraced. (p. 61) “His teacher finally decided to give him special attention for a while. She worked with him alone on one specific bit of reading until he felt confident of himself. Then he was given an opportunity to read this small section in a public program given by the class. Jimmie did so well in this instance that the other children recognized his achievement and complimented him. “Why, you can read well!” “Who said you couldn’t read?” “You’re a good reader, Jimmie,” – the boy’s feeling of personal worth grew rapidly.
“That night before going to bed, he was saying his prayer as usual. Now I lay me down to sleep, Bless Papa and Mama and Auntie. He stopped, usually he went on to say, “and help Jimmie be a good boy.” His mother waited. ‘And – and ...’ she started to help him. Finally came the words from Jimmie himself, ‘help me’ – but then he stopped and lifted himself from his knees, ‘I guess I won’t say that tonight. Jimmie has done pretty good all by himself today.” FAITH
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