Tag: Brian Doyle

What if we believe?

Today (December 21) is the Feast of St. Thomas. Thomas was one of Jesus’ inner circle of 12 disciples, who we read about a few times in the Gospels, most famously in John’s Gospel, after the risen Jesus has appeared to the disciples in a room when Thomas wasn’t with them. They tell him that they’ve seen Jesus, but Thomas wasn’t having it. He lets them know in no uncertain terms, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

And that’s where we get the nickname, “Doubting Thomas.” Of course, Jesus loves Thomas and waits for him to be gathered with all the disciples and Jesus appears to them all and tells Thomas to, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

Thomas declares his faith, thankful for Jesus giving him the proof that he asked for. And Jesus finishes up the exchange by saying, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

In a world now with AI videos and illustrations, maybe Thomas would double-down on his need not only to see, but to touch and experience Jesus for himself in order to believe. This week, I’ve been sitting with and mulling over what it is to believe and what believing does for us.

I stumbled across this from one of my favorite writers Brian Doyle in his book “How the Light Gets In And Other Headlong Epiphanies”—

“The miracle is that we all believe there’s a miracle.
If we didn’t believe in the unbelievable there is no
Mass and no Church either, and then where would
We be? The church is a vocabulary for that for which
We have weak words.”


On the one hand, what we do in faith is to believe in the unbelievable. Using our rationale faculties alone, we might all be in the same boat as Thomas. But faith is more than just reason. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (11:1)

Faith, hope, and trust are strands of the same rope, wrapped around and strengthening each other. When I sit still in prayer or meditation; when I get to the top of a trail and stand on rocks looking down at the countryside below; when I watch the sunrise or stare up at the stars at night, it’s not reason that lights up.

When my daughter Ava and I are decorating the Christmas tree and thinking back over years of Christmas memories and laughing at the talking Dwight Schrute and Michael Scott (The Office) ornaments she bought; when Holly and I are sitting in a Charlottesville brewery talking with friends about life, hope, loss, and dreams–it’s not my rational brain that lifts me into elevating thinking and feeling.

There are so many ways to look at the lives we are living and life around us. This morning I was reading in “Spirit Wheel: Meditations of an Indigenous Elder” by Steven Charleston, who is both a member of the Choctaw Nation and has served as the Episcopal Bishop of Alaska.

In “One of Those Days,” Charleston writes (excerpted)–

“Today I believe in the final victory of hope over fear.
I believe in the worth and dignity of every human being.

Today I believe all will be well with me
Through the love and grace of the Spirit.

I may have bad days again
But this will not be one of them.

Today I choose to stand again as a believer
In the future before me.

Some days I believe I can change the world.
This is one of them.”


Believing, like loving (agape love, loving God and your neighbor, loving Creation) is a choice. We decide what and whether we will believe; we decide if we are going to live and act with love for others. If we wait for hard, fast, rational proof to decide whether we are going to love or whether we are going to believe, we may spend our lives waiting.

Maybe that’s why Jesus says, “Blessed (helped) are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

What if we decide to love first. What if we decide to believe and see what happens. Maybe in some small way, like Charleston, we might try to change the world.

* Featured image/art by Jean Paul Avisses

Sitting by the river

Solitude is a gift.

Silence is a gift.

Sunlight is a gift.

Sitting by the river with a strong breeze moving the water and blowing against one side of my face while the sun warms the other.

I woke up in a warm house, while it was still dark and made coffee. Made a to-go breakfast for my older daughter for her drive to work. I laughed with my younger daughter taking her to school.

Now I am sitting in the sun and the wind by the water praying, reading, writing, listening, smiling.

Behind me is a cemetery where my grandparents, family members, and friends rest peacefully. Memories and love dance between us and connect us.

The books in front of me are titled “Pilgrim” and “Gold.”

Talking to God, Rumi writes:

“Today you arrived beaming with laughter–
that swinging key that unlocks prison doors.

You are hope’s beating heart.
You are a doorway to the sun.
You are the one I seek and the one who seeks me.
Beginning and end.

You greet need with generous hands.
You flood us with spirit,

ringing from the heart,
lifting thought.”

Reading this, he and I say it together. I like to think God smiles in the sunlight.

Across the cove the sun and the wind dress a weeping willow tree. Geese float tucked away from the tide.

When I am fully here, in this moment, with a full heart and an open mind, and time alone with God, what more can I ask for? I am not alone.

Thank you for this view.
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for this life.
Thank you for your love.

Amen.

* My practice/devotion for Lent this year is to write a “proem” (prayer-poem-prose) in the spirit of Brian Doyle each day of the season. I will share some of them. This is day #3.

Thank you for things that grow

Creator God, thank you for things that grow and change and bloom in their own time.

Thank you for patience so that we can wait with hope on your timing.

Thank you for giving us grateful hearts so that we can appreciate the impermanence, the fleeting moments–nothing remains in bloom and that makes each opening, each unfolding, each blossom special.

Thank you for making us able to grow, able to change, able to seek you, to seek beauty. Thank you for making us new creations in response to the shining of your light, your truth.

God, we thank you for helping us let go when it is time. Lord, I am not always good at this. Letting go hurts. I want to hold on to the blossoms, hold on to the people, hold on to the perfect moments–I want to stay in those wonderful experiences, found and lost in time, captured and forgotten in memory. Like Peter, I want to build dwellings to stay right there.

All around us, you show us that’s not how it works. You show us in your creation that everything has its time, its season. You show us the petals, the leaves dropping off, falling to the ground, coming apart, and going back into the dirt, back to dust.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

From dust to dust.
From dust to seed.
From seed to sprout.
From sprout to bud.
From bud to flower.

Thank you for the dust we are and the blossoms we can become.

Thank you for your love that helps us grow and bloom.

Thank you for things that grow and change and bloom in their own time.

In your time.

Thank you.

* My practice/devotion for Lent this year is to write a “proem” (prayer-poem-prose) in the spirit of Brian Doyle each day of the season. I will share some of them. This quick prayer on Ash Wednesday is the first.