Matters of faith, God, and heaven

I find that questions about God and heaven are far more important to me than before.   When I was a kid, I sang in the boys choir (75 cents a week!) then became an altar boy and received awards for perfect attendance at Sunday school.   But I confess I didn’t give it much thought; the sermons tended to be dry and pedantic, not having much relevance to how I lived my life.

Since then I’ve been an off and on churchgoer, but truthfully I was a lapsed Episcopalian until about five years ago.  That’s when my son Thabie pointed me towards St. Matthews Church in Sterling, VA.  What a terrific place with wonderful rectors, Rob, and his assistant, Anne, and a friendly congregation.   Amazingly, having doubts did not disqualify anyone from membership.  “If you have doubts,” Rob once said, “this is the place for you to be.”    About three years ago, Rob preached a series of sermons on faith and doubt and sponsored a series of mid-week discussions in which we learned that even the saintly Mother Teresa was a famous doubter.

In fact I believe that approaching key questions from the perspective of doubt leads to convictions that are stronger than they would have been if we just accepted someone’s word.   I recently read a book titled, Why Does the World Exist? by Jim Holt.  Holt, a professional philosopher, visits philosophers, mathematicians, physicists, asking why is there something rather than nothing? Is Nothingness even conceivable?   Did the universe have a beginning?   I confess that some of the theories (using quantum physics, mathematics, philosophical logic) left my head spinning,   Consider the Big Bang theory which holds that the universe originated from a colossal explosion occurring 16 billion years ago.   Can you imagine the density of the substance that exploded?

I concluded that the answers to these fundamental questions are beyond human knowing.  If Nothingness is inconceivable (who’s observing the Nothingness?) then both space and time are infinite.   But since we live in a finite world in which everything has a beginning and an end, we can’t conceive of infinite space going on without end, or infinite time.  Since these infinities exist beyond human comprehension, it’s fair to posit a mind, a being who created the universe, who has always existed, whom we call God.

Further, I had a talk with Rob in which I asked him why he believed in God (Can you imagine the nerve of asking your minister such a question?)   Rob said he believed in evolution but that the result was far too intricate (everybody has vital organs, eyes, ears, mouths, fingers, etc.) to be random.   Therefore God the Creator exists.  And it makes no sense for a Creator not to love his creation.   One of my favourite  definitions in the Bible is “God is Love.”

I’m also newly and keenly interested in whether there is life after death.   To this end I’ve read four books claiming to prove that heaven is real: 90 Minutes in Heaven, Heaven is for Real, To Heaven and Back, and Proof of Heaven.   The first three weren’t especially persuasive (heaven is a place with gold paved streets and angelic choirs in the sky) but the last, written by a neurosurgeon who was in a nine day coma, was more convincing.   The writer knew the brain intimately and the areas of his brain that dream were completely shut down.   All the while he had a vivid and detailed experience of heaven that cannot easily be dismissed.   So I’m cautiously optimistic!

My wife, Qenehelo, and I returning from Easter church.

What's it Like to Be Old

What’s it like to be old?   Today an older woman at the gym asked me, “How are you feeling, Bill?”  It’s a question which invites more than the standard, “fine.”   After I in fact made the standard reply she detailed the information that she’s had a partial hip replacement and part of her lung had been removed.   It’s the way we like to talk even though younger people aren’t much interested.

We have the inspiring examples of people like the 101 year old who’s been running marathons, the Willard Scott centenarians, Betty White (90), Dick Van Dyke (88) New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg (88), Robert Redford (76) Sophia Loren, that is the type of people AARP likes to feature in its magazine.   More power to them, I say.  We also have the residents of nursing homes with their canes and walkers.

But most younger people don’t like to think about getting older, nor should they, except as it makes them resolved to live their lives to the fullest.

I have an idea that there’s a duality when we think about our age at least that has been the case with me: there’s our rational awareness that whatever our age, it’s passing, and our emotional sense that we’re not really getting older. 

I actually was rather surprised to discover that I’d gotten old.  I even said to my wife, “I’m sorry for getting old so soon,” to which she smilingly and mischievously replied “You’re in trouble.”   And then there was the witty observation of Tennessee Williams (I think it was he) that “I know everybody has to die but I always thought an exception would be made in my case.”  Or Tolstoy who wrote “Old age is the most unexpected thing to happen to a man.”

So what’s it like?  My dermatologist, as I update her on my general health, sympathetically replies “Old age is not for wusses.”

True enough, but it’s vastly preferable to the alternative.  I try to convince myself that I’m now living with new parameters and not without considerable blessings.   Most importantly I have my wonderful family: my dear wife who has been a pillar of strength, my son, Don, the AP bureau chief in Brussels, my daughter Sue, a web designer in Vermont, my son, Thabie, a piano teacher in Virginia, and my daughter Palesa, a contractor for UNDP in New York.

And the fact that, though I may totter slowly down the street, I still go to the gym every day and I’m pretty sure I’ve still got my wits about me so I can read lots of books.  And I go to church every Sunday and chart with our wonderful rectors.

What I need, though, is more socializing beyond just the gym and church.