REFLECTIONS
February 6, 2011
Friends recently gave me a book titled, A Continual Feast. It is a compilation of quotes on spirituality edited by Jan Karon. A couple of my current favorites are as follows. “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” This remarkable saying is attributed to Marcus Aurelius who wrote in the first century C.E. What makes the quote, is the fact that we tend to think of these early times as serene and trouble free, and the saying would indicate they were anything but so. Another saying comes from the popular science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, who said, “Sometimes you have to jump off cliffs, and grow wings on the way down.” The indication here would seem to be that risk is part of the freight of an adventurous life. The central element being what a life might cost.
In I Corinthians 2:1-16 the Apostle Paul wades in with his unique take on the value of a spiritual existence. For Paul a life of faith could not be separated from day to day living. For him, who we are, and what we are about, emanates from a spiritual foundation. In this passage, he writes to the people of Corinth with instructions on how to interpret a life in the Spirit. Because others followed him into this region saying, “They had the real truth, and Paul along with his followers had only part of the story.” Paul’s words are direct and to the point. First of all the story he told of the love of God in Jesus is not new or very complicated. So the gospel of God is not a new philosophy, but one rooted in an historic interpretation of how God interacts with humanity found in Scriptures which Paul refers to in his letters. Second, and even more importantly, is his insistence that mystery is part of a life of faith. He does not run or hide from the fact that we don’t get to know every thing. Later he embraces this thought fully when writing that what we see now is like looking in a dark or imperfect mirror, but in time we will see with greater clarity.
In this day and age any person, place or thing which strikes our fancy, we can Google and obtain a great deal of information. This is a wonderful aspect of technology. The issue resulting from our ersatz internet encyclopedia is that we often mistake data for understanding. What Paul is saying is that understanding is an act of the Spirit not of the brain. They both have value, yet where the mind eschews the unknown the soul embraces, even longs for it.
Dr. Joey K. McDonald
First United Methodist Church
4832 Tujunga Avenue, North Hollywood, CA 91601
