I learned recently that a friend has contracted a form of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). He's the pastor of a Presbyterian church, and he sent me a copy of the sermon in which he officially announced his condition to the congregation.
At one point, he writes:
I'm not looking at this as a terminal illness. First of all, because not all diagnoses are entirely accurate. Second, because I believe in prayer. I think that what we call "miracles" are really "nature unencumbered." I believe that God not only surrounds us, but is actually inside each of us—woven into the very fabric of our beings. God exists in our very own DNA - as well as in the DNA of the universe. God/nature is always spawning new life to spring forth, always developing new "connections" between our nerve fibers as well as between our bodies and our spirits and the universe: always reshaping things to fit together and connect as they were intended. So I'm practicing the art of "unencumbering" the natural health of my body by trying to live each day with love and hope, rather than fear and anxiety.
One of the things that I find remarkable about my friend's thoughts is how completely different they are from those of the standard television evangelist. I often think that the militant—should I say evangelical?—atheists miss, among other things, just how broad and diverse religious thought is.
Although I probably still disagree with my friend on many points (we live on opposite coasts, and haven't had an evening's conversation in years), I'm really quite amazed at how close the quote above comes to my own view of the world.
I wouldn't use the word "God" anymore, but for more complex (not necessarily better) reasons than most atheists. On the other hand my friend has, for years, argued that the power of prayer was not its effect on the exterior world, but the effect it had on the person who prayed. (Also, he doesn't believe in Hell.)
Once all of that is factored in, we may have different world-views, but the overlap is impressive.
I particularly like his phrase"nature unencumbered".
It's very close to the idea of natural spirituality, which has been on my mind recently—a return to human nature, unencumbered by some of the more poisonous ideas which have been handed down by religions and states over the course of civilization.
I've been working out some of the details of that approach from a secular viewpoint, and it sounds as though my friend has been blazing a similar path in a religious context. It reminds me of the aether, again—of the idea that all honest plans lead, finally, to the same place.
Ultimately none of us can escape the fact that reality is mystery. So our deepest connection to reality is not in our theories, but in the fiber of our being—our natural, unencumbered being—in the deepest connections between our neurons, as well as our connections with truth, with hope, with love, and with each other.
Speaking of which, my friend and I will soon have one hell of an evening's conversation.
