Part 23 (1/2)

Comment 2:

How We Might Think of Religion or Faith

In light of this larger view of our creatureliness, we can see that religion or faith is not a question of whether or not we choose to (as it is so commonly put) ”have a relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d.” Looking at our life in a larger context than just our life here on Earth, it becomes apparent that some sort of relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d is a given for us, about which we have absolutely no choice. G.o.d and we were and are related, during the time of our soul's existence before our birth and in the time of our soul's continued existence after our death. The only choice we have is what to do about The Time in Between, i.e., what we want the nature of our relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d to be during our time here on Earth and how that will affect the nature of the relations.h.i.+p, then, after death.

One of the corollaries of all this is that by the very act of being born into a human body, it is inevitable that we undergo a kind of amnesia-an amnesia that typically embraces not only our nine months in the womb, our baby years, and almost one-third of each day (sleeping), but more important any memory of our origin or our destiny. We wander on Earth as an amnesia victim. To seek after Faith, therefore, is to seek to climb back out of that amnesia. Religion or Faith is the hard reclaiming of knowledge we once knew as a certainty.

Comment 3:

The First Obstacle to Executing This Mission

This first Mission of ours here on Earth is not the easiest of Missions, simply because it is the first. Indeed, in many ways, it is the most difficult. All we can see is that our life here on Earth is a very physical life. We eat, we drink, we sleep, we long to be held, and to hold. We inherit a physical body, with very physical appet.i.tes, we walk on the physical earth, and we acquire physical possessions. It is the most alluring of temptations, in our amnesia, to come up with just a Physical interpretation of this life: to think that the Universe is merely interested in the survival of species. Given this interpretation, the story of our individual life could be simply told: we are born, grow up, procreate, and die.

But we are ever recalled to do what we came here to do: that without rejecting the joy of the Physicalness of this life, such as the love of the blue sky and the green gra.s.s, we are to reach out beyond all this to recall and recover a Spiritual interpretation of our life. Beyond the physical and within the physicalness of this life, to detect a Spirit and a Person from beyond this Earth who is with us and in us-the very real and loving and awesome Presence of the great Creator from whom we came-and the One to whom we once again shall go.

Comment 4:

The Second Obstacle to Executing This Mission

It is one of the conditions of our earthly amnesia and our creature-liness that, sadly enough, some very human and very rebellious part of us likes the idea of living in a world where we can be our own G.o.d-and therefore loves the purely Physical interpretation of life, and finds it anguish to relinquish it. Traditional Christian vocabulary calls this ”sin” and has a lot to say about the difficulty it poses for this first part of our Mission. All who live a thoughtful life know that it is true: our greatest enemy in carrying out this first Mission of ours is indeed our own heart and our own rebellion.

Comment 5:

Further Thoughts About What Makes Us Special and Unique

As I said earlier, many of us come to this issue of our Mission in life, because we want to feel that we are unique. And what we mean by that, is that we hope to discover some ”specialness” intrinsic to us, which is our birthright, and which no one can take from us. What we, however, discover from a thorough exploration of this topic, is that we are indeed special-but only because G.o.d thinks us so. Our specialness and uniqueness reside in Him, and His love, rather than in anything intrinsic to our own being. The proper appreciation of this distinction causes our feet to carry us in the end not to the City called Pride, but to the Temple called Grat.i.tude.

What is religion? Religion is the service of G.o.d out of grateful love for what G.o.d has done for us. The Christian religion, more particularly, is the service of G.o.d out of grateful love for what G.o.d has done for us in Christ.

-PHILLIPS BROOKS, author of O Little Town of Bethlehem Comment 6: The Unconscious Doing of the Work We Came to Do You may have already wrestled with this first part of your Mission here on Earth. You may not have called it that. You may have called it simply ”learning to believe in G.o.d.” But if you ask what your Mission is in life, this one was and is the precondition of all else that you came here to do. Absent this Mission, it is folly to talk about the rest. So, if you have been seeking faith, or seeking to strengthen your faith, you have-w.i.l.l.y-nilly-already been about the doing of the Mission you were given. Born into This Time in Between, you have found His hand again, and reclasped it. You are therefore ready to go on with His Spirit to tackle together what you came here to do-the other parts of your Mission.

Some Random Comments About Your Second Mission in Life

Your second Mission here on Earth is also one that you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and that is, to do what you can moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place-following the leading and guidance of G.o.d's Spirit within you and around you.

Comment 1:

The Uncomfortableness of One Step at a Time

Imagine yourself out walking in your neighborhood one night, and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by such a dense fog, that you have lost your bearings and cannot find your way. Suddenly, a friend appears out of the fog, and asks you to put your hand in theirs, and they will lead you home. And you, not being able to tell where you are going, trustingly follow them, even though you can only see one step at a time. Eventually you arrive safely home, filled with grat.i.tude. But as you reflect upon the experience the next day, you realize how unsettling it was to have to keep walking when you could see only one step at a time, even though you had guidance you knew you could trust.

Now I have asked you to imagine all of this, because this is the essence of the second Mission to which you are called-and I am called-in this life. It is all very different than we had imagined. When the question, ”What is your Mission in life?” is first broached, and we have put our hand in G.o.d's, as it were, we imagine that we will be taken up to some mountaintop, from which we can see far into the distance. And that we will hear a voice in our ear, saying, ”Look, look, see that distant city? That is the goal of your Mission; that is where everything is leading, every step of your way.”

But instead of the mountaintop, we find ourselves in the valley-wandering often in a fog. And the voice in our ear says something quite different from what we thought we would hear. It says, ”Your Mission is to take one step at a time, even when you don't yet see where it all is leading, or what the Grand Plan is, or what your overall Mission in life is. Trust Me; I will lead you.”

Comment 2:

The Nature of This Step-by-Step Mission