Many Rooms

As I was talking about the summer adult education program at my church, someone told me they thought I needed to remember Jesus' words "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Lord except by Me." The implication was that none of the people we met in our summer explorations are going to Heaven.
My mother had that sort of view, bless her heart. Somehow, she was convinced that somewhere in the Bible one could find a verse that said "Thou Shalt Believe and be a Missouri Synod Lutheran or suffer the torment of eternal Hell." Note the King James language. There was a time she criticized a Biblical translation I was using by saying, "Why can't you just read the Bible the way God gave it to us?" In her mind, God uttered the words of the Bible in King James English. There were some battles just not worth fighting with my mother...
I'm not a Greek scholar and what little knowledge of Greek I used to have is rapidly leaving me, but what if Jesus' words (which were probably Aramaic anyway) had to do with I am showing you the way, the truth that leads to true life? The emphasis then becomes looking at the teachings of Jesus and the examples set in Jesus' life rather than the belief in Jesus that characterizes the Christian. I happen to believe that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, but I rather like the idea that Jesus showed us how to live our faith in every day life.
I especially like this interpretation of the verse when I consider another verse, "In my Father's house, there are many rooms." If Jesus, the fully divine, became fully human to demonstrate for us a way of living, it means there may be other ways besides believing in Jesus as God to get to the end result -- the Father's house of the second verse. One of the things that has woven itself into our summer experiences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam has been the universal seeking of enlightenment which some define as the God Within, some call Enlightenment, still others describe as walking with God or the still, small voice. Regardless of the terminology, all of us are seeking something beyond ourselves that I personally call God. I wonder if the many rooms are the many ways that people find God?
Our priest this morning talked about faith in God as the most elaborate, surprising, exotic meal -- beyond anything we could ever imagine that shocks and surprises us with each course to be treasured. He described this meal in terms of constantly revealing to us new aspects of our relationship to Jesus. Our summer of field trips has been just like that and, perhaps surprisingly, the experiences of the summer have strengthened our individual relationships with our Lord. Our Father's house has many rooms and we are constantly finding new ways to get to that glorious home!

Kilauea Point

The first time we tried to visit this gorgeous lighthouse, it rained so hard we could barely see the lighthouse. We went on to Ke'e Beach and came back to take some pictures of this lovely place. We even had actual sunshine!

From Kilauea Point

From Kilauea Point

The birds were incredible and it was interesting to look down at the variety of colors in the water.

From Kilauea Point

Of course, I couldn't resist taking pictures of this charming Episcopal Church in the nearby town.

From Kilauea Point

I thought the grounds of the church were spectacular.

From Kilauea Point

Simple Gifts

Every so often something happens that grabs my attention and changes my perception. I call them cosmic 2x4s, as in "I got hit over the head by a cosmic 2X4." I've been working pretty hard on our church's Lenten programs. I'd been recruiting speakers from other faith traditions to talk about how their faith influences their choices at the difficult times of life. I delegated the first week of the series to our priest who wanted to make contacts within one particular denomination. It wasn't going well for him and I was pretty close to just canceling the first week in the series. Disappointing, but not a total disaster. Then I called to confirm with a speaker and that fell through. Now I'm thinking things are not looking good for the series. I'm a determined soul -- some say stubborn. I called a friend in Kansas City who suggested I call the Jewish Community Relations Council in Denver and explain the situation. "Hello," I said to the person who answered the phone. "I have a difficult request and I understand if there's nothing to do about it. I need a speaker this coming Sunday or the following week to talk about how their faith informs their decisions in challenging times." Janet Sherman, Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, faces challenges straight on. She had a couple of ideas, she sent out an email and other people forwarded the email and a couple days later, my phone rang. So, I've already seen one cosmic 2x4 in a woman who didn't just blow me off, even when she had every reason to do so. Now I'm about to be hit by a second cosmic 2x4 -- Ilan Glazer. This young man is an ordained maggid -- a storyteller and inspirational speaker -- and he is available to talk to our adult ed class on Sunday.
To make a long story short and, I admit, it is a bit late for that already, Ilan was one of the most successful outside speakers we've had. He had "frozen chosen" Episcopals humming traditional Jewish tunes the rest of the day and searching Amazon.com for CDs of Jewish music. People have been repeating the stories he told.
So just when things seemed to be falling apart, something happened that was even better than what we hoped.
The themes of the Shaker song, "Simple Gifts," have been coming up in my head ever since the inauguration. "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to come down where we ought to be..." We don't have to be the gift, we just have to be open to letting the gift work through us, to "come down where we ought to be." It seems to me that Janet and Ilan were where they needed to be when they were needed. I was lucky enough to go along for the ride.