Transthought

Sunday Morning is Not Wasted!

It is Sunday morning. It used to be on Sunday mornings I would deliver a homily (sermon) to whatever congregation I was serving in my pastoral position. I did that for over forty years until I tired of it, or caught on that I was not exactly changing the world. Now I hardly ever darken a church door and that seems even more comfortable. I recall an article in Life Magazine, I believe, in the Fifties (?) entitled something like "Sunday Morning: The Most Wasted Hour in the Week". Its theme was that with all the sermonnizing going on at that time, why did the world continue to have such negative behaviors on every side? Not much has changed since then, has it? Religion is trying to change the world, it seems. We have religious warfare, literally and metaphorically, in greater numbers than ever before. So I must resist the temptation to turn these pages into sermons, to offer MY answers to world problems. The best I can do, I guess, is to learn to cope with whatever it is I run up against, and to hope that I do not become part of the problem.

I used to be good at giving answers, but then I discovered that it is the asking of questions, not the giving of answers, that is the most noble activity of them all. Answers hardly ever satisfy, questions challenge, probe, provoke, and stimulate. Questions lead to searches, to learning, to excitement. Answers close doors, shut off learning, and exclude possibilities. So as this exercise in writing continues and develops, the reader (if there is one!) will see that my words are inquisitive, not definitive, and that will have to do. Every once in a while, of course, an answer comes that brings a sort of peace or certainty, but such whiles are few and far between, at least in my experience. So I go on, searching and pressing, hoping that the questions will lead to some rich and unknown perceptions that will help in the coping struggle. And I am content with that, for I know that whatever benefit is derived, it is mainly one that will enrich me and not necessarily be one required for all persons to adopt.

Wayne's Words for July 16, 2006

posted by Wayne Olson @ 8:39 AM