Womb Wisdom: Is There a God?

Elizabeth Esther runs a meme in which on the first Saturday of the month bloggers select their favorite post of the month and share it with other bloggers. The links are posted at Esther's site: here.

It was difficult to select a favorite for November: there were three contenders in my opinion. While The Walnut Tree: An Example of God's Bounty is my personal favorite, Dona Nobis Pacem received the most comments, so I have copied it below. (f you wish to read the 19 comments that were left there, click on the link.)

The blogosphere, as most of you probably know, is celebrating today as a peace movement day. More information can be found at Mimi's site, where you can read the contributions of other bloggers on this theme.

As so often happens in my life, I experienced a moment of synchronicity as I was preparing this blog post. In the afternoon, I was in Arizona to give a graduation speech to a class of Arabic specialists. Without giving any thought to today's peace blog, I nonetheless spoke about peace, beginning my speech in a way not atypical of graduation speeches I give whenever linguists are among the graduating students. The Cold War, I tell them, was not won with weapons. It was won with words -- the words of Americans who understood Russian language and culture and the words of Russians who understood American language and culture. I was thrilled back then to be one grain of sand in the cement of the span that bridged the two superpowers and brought both to a cautious ally status. So, too, today, it will most likely not be weapons but the efforts of the Americans who speak Arabic and understand Arabic cultures and Arabs who speak English and understand American culture who will bring the current hot war to an end. General Abizaid has ascribed the success of the surge in Iraq to the contribution of American linguists.

Years ago, at the approaching end of the Cold War (although no one knew at the time that the Cold War was going to end), I served as interpreter for a remarkable man, Pyotr Volkovich, then vice president of the Belarus Peace Committee. During the Cold War, every major city in the USSR had a peace committee, composed of citizens dedicated to promoting world peace. You see, the Russians were honestly afraid that the USA intended to start a war against them. The members of these committees can today be considered veterans of the Cold War, So, too, I would argue can be that handful of us Americans working and studying in Russia at the time and those Russian scholars living and studying in America. My daughter, Lizzie, cherishes a button that says "Veteran of the Cold War." As the only Westerner in her Soviet 7th grade classroom, coping with distrust and dislike of Americans at the time, she considers rightfully that she has earned the title.

Pyotr I knew from my work in Belarus, one part of which in 1989 was to prepare bilingual documents for the Ministry of Education for an exchange with the USA. Therefore, I was subsequently brought to Portland, Oregon in 1990 to put together the corresponding set of bilingual documents for one of the Portland school districts to establish an exchange with Belarus. Since the Peace Committee provided the financial support for the exchange from the Belarus side, Pyotr had come along with the superintendent of Minsk public schools. The timing had been manipulated to allow Pyotr to be the keynote speaker at the International Rotary Convention that took place in Portland that year. I went to the convention to provide moral support for Pyotr or so I thought. However, Pyotr surprised me by ditching his Soviet interpreter and called out as he approached the podium, "Beth, so mnoi." (Beth, come with me.) And that is how I ended up being the interpreter for his very moving speech which focused on the need for peace. (I have posted details of his speech on Mahlou Musings.)

Perhaps the most potent advocacy for peace I have ever encountered is a poster drawn by a child, who contributed it to a contest for peace advocacy organized by the Moscow Peace Committee. Against a pure blue (sky?) background, the child had drawn a chalky white frame of a house encompassing a globe inside. At the top, the child had scrawled five words: "U nas net drugogo doma." (We have no other home.) No other words were needed, I think. That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? So, let's wrap the only home we have in the protection of peace!

Womb Wisdom: Is There a God?

*















A friend came across the following anecdote on a Russian atheism site today, obviously not posted by an atheist. We don't know the author; otherwise, I would be very happy to give an attribution. Perhaps if I had thought about some of these things back when I was an atheist, God would not have had to conk me on the head to get me to "see" reality. Here is the anecdote, which I have translated into English:

A conversation between twins in the womb:

- Do you think there is life after birth?
- Hardly! No one has ever returned from there.

- Do you think Mother exists?
- Forget that fairy tale! Have you ever seen Mother? Look around: everywhere there is only darkness and fluid.

- But Mother is everywhere. She is all around us. She even sometimes talks to us.
- Oh, brother, so you are hearing voices? You are becoming schizophrenic!

I will add no comment. The anecdote speaks for itself!

*image by Rosalie Rosalie

Monday Morning Meditation #9: Give Me Proof!

I may well be the slowest Bible reader in the world. Another week, another chapter. So many thoughts and images come to mind that I do not want to speed through anything. In chapter 4 of Exodus, which is where I have been living this week, there is much to think about. This is the story of Moses's encounter with God and God's request of him to go to the Pharaoh of Egypt and demand that the people of Israel be released. Quite a tasking, and Moses is a bit overwhelmed by it, as I assume anyone would be!

Reading: Exodus 4

Meditation: Reading this passage, I could not but notice Moses's concern that he had no proof that he had spoken with God. He feared that no one would believe him. Let's face it, if someone today were to relate a similar experience, there would be immense skepticism. No wonder those who have had an extraordinary spiritual experience become a little reluctant over time to relate it. (I have met people who have been favored in this way, but the skepticism with which they meet numbs their tongue, much in the way Moses's tongue was numbed such that Aaron had to speak for him.)

I, too, find myself cautious at moments about the experience I had in being overwhelmed by God's presence, but with God's support, I plunge into the story anyway. Some people believe me; some don't. It truly does not matter since I don't have to lead anyone across the Red Sea. I know what happened. God knows what happened. I share, and the rest is up to the listener/reader -- and God.

I find it interesting that people are more willing to suspend their disbelief (to use Aristotle's terminology) when it comes to all kinds of far-fetched tales related to psychic events, horror stories, fairy tales, and faulty journalism, but if the story is about God, they want proof. This statement is, of course, the pot calling the kettle black since I did test God (unfairly and with far greater temerity than I would now have) when I demanded that if He existed I wanted to feel His presence. (Whew! I have learned over time that His presence can be so overwhelming that it pins me to the spot, but you know, naivete will take you in directions that even angels fear to tread.) And then of course there were the two miracles I asked for as "proof." It only took one to chase me into church; however, God in his great kindness granted both, much as He gave Moses signs to give to the Pharaoh, has given me many miracles since, and has led me to see ones that He had blessed me with earlier but to which I had been blind. I no longer ask for proof, and I am embarrassed that I ever did -- but I guess God has run into that attitude more often not.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to increase the depth of my "willing suspension of disbelief," to express my regret for the times in the past that I demanded proof and, before then, when I failed to see even when I had proof right in front of my eyes, to give thanks for His great kindnesses to me in spite of not deserving them, and to offer praise for the depth of His patience and love even in the face of my disbelief and the disbelief of so many who have ultimately followed and obeyed Him.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, hoping and trusting that this great God will continue to infuse me with that which is difficult to believe -- and I will try to become better at believing.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 4 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to export the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Have a good day and a blessed week, filled with all good things -- and may God increase your trust so that you do not need proof anymore (if indeed you ever did).