Faith, Meaning, Hope and Christmas

Faith is certainly not theology to me these days. Church (for me a local Greek Orthodox church) is just one of the places I look for answers to the only real question I have: Why do we long for meaning?

For me faith is best experienced in the twilight in the medieval hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at Christmas time. Every November a group of volunteers -- mostly middle aged and elderly ladies working under the direction of the museum's conservancy department -- put up the "Angel Tree" and decorate it with Neapolitan eighteenth and nineteenth century terracotta and wood silk-clad figures: beautifully painted faces gentle and innocent; swirling robes of silk, rich as thick smoke curling heavenward -- a nativity scene to break even my cynical heart.

Off to one side is the entrance to the halls holding the Byzantine collection, a glittering reminder of how Greek and Roman art merged seamlessly into the Byzantine world, carrying forward a message of beauty and civilization. People are coming up from the cafeteria downstairs buttoning their coats, getting ready to leave and intending to hurry past the tree. But they linger. I linger.

There are Christmas hymns playing quietly. An art purist might call the seasonal tableau sentimental. But the Met and museums everywhere, fight to preserve the human meaning found in our most precious artifacts, and many of those artifacts -- from Syrian gods to Italian Virgin and Childs -- reflect the fact that we humans take hope in the irrational.

The moments that changed me, perhaps for the better, have not been those I chose, let alone was in charge of or planned. America's best movie maker, the late Robert Altman, said: "You can pick the best six things in anything I made and none of them were planned. It's the mistakes I'm interested in. That's where you hit the truth button."

It is no accident that in my novel Baby Jack I have God quoting Altman. For me there have been some pivotal "Altman truth buttons": Marrying Genie because I broke my sullen teenage rule and went to dinner one night instead of huddling in my studio in splendid isolation in my parent's mission... Having Jessica, our "mistake," because I was too lazy, horny and/or stupid to use a condom... My son John volunteering to serve our country and connecting me to my country in a different way... My finding what I want to do for a living by stumbling into writing novels because of Genie's nudge after failing in the movie business...

I find little snippets of the answer, or an answer, in unexpected places. For instance, I spent a day with my son Francis at his school recently. I had asked him if I could visit. Francis was teaching a humanities class to seniors. My son answered questions and paced the room. His gestures reminded me so much of my late father, the way Francis put his thumb under the chin, index finger placed alongside his nose, when listening to a question. I felt close to Francis, and through him so unexpectedly close to Dad, as if the three of us were gathered in the room.

I had only planned to see my son in action. (I wanted to take pictures for our family scrapbook.) The mistake intruded and I "saw" my dad as a young energetic gifted speaker, as he must have been back in the 1940s when he was a pastor of his first church.

Sometimes the "irrational" and the intuitive, is the only thing that I count on. Merry Christmas.

Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back (Now in Paperback).

Comments

[PNOGUY]

Thanks for the glimpse of continuity between your dad and your son.

[lewes17266]

I am glad you became a revolutionary. Mistakes are just stepping stones. Thank you for this very personal essay.

[bdaved]

Frank, if you're not a singer you ought to give it a try. You know how to lay it on the line. That's what catches most people.

[hardybear]

b) More personally meaningful, it may well be grounded in the spiritual evolution of my
late grandmother, Gramma Bea. An intelligent, funny and wise woman that never apologized
for her beliefs. Not when I was a too-big-for-my-britches adolescent, nor when I grew
into a devoted atheist during the undergrad years. I saw her weather a number of life's
most trying circumstances, not perfectly, but with a strength and flexibility that would
be envied by Gandhi. Certainly her wisdom and unique sense of humor helped her
walk those paths, but so did her faith ~ and weekly place in the local Congregational
Church. At age twenty, would not most of us decline to accompany our elders there?

Unsurprisingly, I still struggle with the above questions. When someone here posts a comment
seemingly anti-Christian/anti-religion, I can relate. When another speaks from their faith,
I can sometimes relate. Perhaps it is a good place to be, in the midst of a process addressing
these timeless matters. I hope that I always value the questions more than whatever
answers I might presume to possess.

However, on this day, let it simply be 'God Bless'. Certainly plenty of cynicism will be
available to me tomorrow.

[hardybear]

a) Thank for that meaningful and pertinent Christmas message. I admit to struggling,
here and elsewhere, with an embarrassing lack of contempt for all thing religious. As
much as I would intellectually like be dismissive of anything having to do with faith, an inner
'anchor' holds me back.

It is perhaps based on unforgettable visits to churches and temples abroad, wherein history
and architecture combine to overwhelm. More deeply, though, were registered the times of
simple validity involved in standing next to a local not there to snap a photo, or check the
destination off of some list. Being in the presence of someone seemingly at right with
their own beliefs was as powerful as I allowed it to be. When that particular sense of quiet
understanding happened, it was always more impressive than the architect's intended 'grand'
effect on a visitor. An elderly woman paying tribute in a Shinto temple outside Kyoto, young
children reluctantly trailing into a Tanzanian mosque, exchanging smiles with other young
women replacing their shoes before leaving the Pashupatinath temple in Katmandu ... these
could not help but become more than photo-ops. If I truly valued travel as expansive to my
world view, how could I dismiss those experiences as less meaningful, or less educational,
than formal meetings with government emissaries?

[JohnBryansFontaine]

I wish to thank HuffingtonPost for losing, at least for Christmas Day, that ubiquitous ad for 'The God Who Wasn't There"

You have made my Chrismas all the merrier.

[Pema]

dang i was looking for that....