On this, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing

Forty-seven years ago, my brother Steve was born. It wasn't quite as spectacular as the moon landing had been three years earlier, but we lived it up all the same.

 The ceremonies began as my brother Bill chased me around the house so that I ran headfirst into a wall and started bleeding profusely. The babysitter, who had anticipated a quiet night, began screaming and called her mother. An ambulance soon was summoned, and I was rushed to the hospital.

 As the festivities spread, my dad soon after excused himself from my mother's side in the neonatal unit and went to check on me. I was admitted and given several stitches to my forehead, all unknown to my mother, who was preoccupied with a newborn.

 Back home as they lay in bed in the darkness amid the glow of the evening's activities, Blair leaned over and whispered to Bill, "David's dead. You killed him."

 I hope this, the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, is a memorable one for you and your whole family.

Hopkinsville Goblins

As every fan of science fiction knows, the universe is a vast place, with terrors both subtle and gross, and wonders to freeze the soul. There are a billion billion stars out there, and some monsters come from places darker than the blackest woods.

That was the case at the Sutton farmhouse in 1955, in the wild expanse between Kelly and Hopkinsville,Ky. Legend has it that the Suttons' guest, Billy Ray Taylor, had stepped outside to fetch water from a pump when he saw lights in the sky.

Being from the big city, Taylor had never seen such a thing before, and assumed they must be those "stars" his friends had been puling his leg about, although these moved through the sky and appeared to land in the middle of the cornfield. (Stars are bright lights that country folk say come out at night once the sun has set. Science fiction writers have run with this idea further, and suggested that stars are like the sun, but more remote and may even have life-sustaining planets like our own orbiting them. No one has explained why the sun should be only star ever visible in big cities, but we'll indulge this silliness a little further.)

Not long after, the house was set upon by a dozen or so small, green and glowing creatures with spindly legs and clawed hands. Bullets soon flew, and those that found their mark echoed with a metallic pa-ting! until the strange visitors from another world left the way they came.

In the morning, the Suttons found notes the aliens had been carrying with titles like "Cure for Cancer and All Human Diseases," "New Agricultural Techniques Guaranteed to end Famine," "You Won't Believe the Simple Trick this Girl Used to Lift her Entire Nation out of Poverty" and "Generals Hate This Combat-Free Solution to War. None of them was readable.

The Suttons, who had fired 57,000 rounds of ammunition, quickly were hailed as true American heroes by the NRA and given jobs by FOX.News to discuss the "liberal menace from outer space."

As every fan of science fiction knows, the universe is a vast place, with terrors both subtle and gross, and wonders to freeze the soul. Some monsters come from places darker than the blackest woods.

That was the case at the Sutton farmhouse in 1955.

ETA: The encounter is depicted in the stage musical "It Came From Kentucky."

Understanding the wounded heart of God

I wonder sometimes about God's attachment pattern.

He claims he wants a close, loving relationship with us, and frequently describes an ideal where all know and are fully known, where our dignity and identity are affirmed, and when we pull away, he pursues.

Think of the Garden, when he comes looking for Adam and Eve after they break fellowship with him; or the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father goes out looking for the son who wandered away, and then for the self-righteous son who won't celebrate his brother's homecoming. These are all examples of a healthy attachment style. He wants to be close, but recognizes our moral agency. He asks respectful questions to understand our choices, but doesn't press the issue beyond what is comfortable,

In practice, he's extremely dysfunctional. You can talk to him for hours, asking the same question over and over, and never get an answer. He says he wants a close relationship, but then have you seen how he treats people who care about him? And on those rare occasions when he does speak to someone, off they go to get psychoactive medication so they don't have to go through that again.

I have a friend with a fearful avoidant attachment style, but at least I understand that because I know my friend's story.

Sometimes I just want to hold God close, let him cry it out, and ask "Who hurt you?" but if I did that, he'd probably just tell me to go to hell.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Building bridges with my Muslim neighbors

Sunday evening found me at the local Islamic center cynically debating the merits of interfaith meetings and events such as the one I was attending, my third iftar in as many years. (The iftar is the sunset breaking of the fast during Ramadan, when faithful Muslims do not eat during daylight hours, to celebrate the revelation of the Quran.)

I've been to enough of these that I have the whole routine memorized. First the director of the Islamic center will say a few words to introduce the hafiz, who will proceed to chant a passage of the Quran. After he finishes, a rabbi from the area will speak, followed by a local representative of the Christian clergy. A few local political figures will speak, followed again by the director of the Islamic center. Everyone will say how nice it is that we're all here together; and everyone will stress our commonality and the value of community.

At sunset, there will be a signal, and everyone will take a date or a candy from the middle of the table and break the fast. (Children often sneak candies before sunset while the adults pretend not to notice.) After this there's a call to prayer and everyone moves into another room for the prayer service. The men pray up front and the women pray in back, everyone face down and turned toward Mecca.

With the prayers done, everyone returns to the dining area and eats the meal, which is delicious as always. Polite conversation ensues between guests and hosts. What's your name? Where do you live? (This year we sat with a gentleman who grew up in Bridgewater, attended Rutgers University, and now lives in Somerset. I'm pretty sure I sat with him the first year we came too.)

The whole evening is congenial and pleasant, but when it's over, we've built no bridges, and closed no gaps. Our communities are still separate from one another, our knowledge of our respective faiths is no deeper than it was before, and that great interfaith moment still hasn't arrived.

Meanwhile the hatred and Islamophobia that has permeated our nation for at least the past 11 years is as strong as ever. This interfaith event, which we attended to light a candle against the darkness, seems weak and pallid. What can it possibly do to thwart a Christian nationalist with a gun?

Never mind the nightmare scenarios, what about the smaller hatreds? For all our pretty words, I'm certain that if the preacher's son at my church attended one of these events and began a spiritual odyssey that led him to convert to Islam, there would be a strong negative reaction from some quarters of our church. A few people would affirm his right to self-determination if not his actual decision, but others would feel hurt, angry and betrayed. Some might even call for removing the pastor as unfit for the job.

I know very little about the internal culture of the local mosque, but I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened should a family member of the hafiz convert to Christianity.

As we all attest at these interfaith events, Islam, Judaism and Christianity do have a lot in common. All three are Abrahamic religions, for starters, tracing a common spiritual heritage to a nomadic Hebrew who lived 3,500 years ago and worshiped one god. Our sacred books tell many of the same stories, about Noah and the Flood, God calling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Solomon and his wisdom, and more.

But for all that we have in common, there remain impressive gaps that keep us separate. Even when our different sets of Scriptures align with one another, our understanding of what they mean often will disagree. All three religions place a premium on peace, but the 1500 to 2000 years of history that we share are marred by bigotry, conflict and even outright war. And, amazingly, we can't even agree what monotheism looks like.

When the evening comes to an end, my hosts at the Islamic center and I are still strangers to one another, belonging to two separate communities that live side by side and rarely interact.

We need to stop waving the Mission Accomplished banners at these events. They're just the start.

I do have hope that we can forge a deeper interfaith connection. The director of the Islamic center laments that his children don't know the Beatles. I've heard Muslim congregants lament when speakers take too long that the food is getting cold, and I've watched as teens in hijab text their friends on the phone during the recitation of the Quran.

With minor variants, these are all things that happen in churches all over America. They seem minor and inconsequential, but they all speak to our common humanity. For all the differences in our religious beliefs, we're all weighted down by the same concerns, faced with the same distractions, and led ever onward and ever upward by the same insatiable longing for purpose and meaning.

It's a mystery how it works, but with effort we can find common cause in our common questions. Even if the answers each of us finds don't satisfy us all equally, still we can learn to appreciate the value others do see in them. Like everything of value, it won't come in just one evening. It will take work, and it will take time – a whole lifetime, to be exact – of respect, listening and open conversation.

As my family left the iftar Sunday night, the director of the Islamic center intercepted us at the door and invited us to come back for Family Night. It involves a talk or sermon, followed by group discussion. He stressed the other parts as well, such as the food and childcare. I joked later to my wife "We've been tagged as potential converts." (I'm sure that's not the main intent. He's probably just noticed we come whenever we're invited.)

So I find as I leave the iftar that I am given the answer to the quandary I mulled when I entered. Want to gain understanding and build bridges with the local Muslim community? Want to dispel stereotypes and poke a finger in the eye of those who peddle hate?

Family night is the fourth Friday of the month. Discussion and dinner start at 7:30 p.m., and child care is provided. This year the talks are based on "Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance," by Imam al-Muhasibi. I have no idea what that means.

I guess I'll find out on Friday.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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The Unremarkable Man at the River

The sun was high above the ground, and the air was filled with the buzz of the crowd when the unremarkable man walked into the river.

He'd walked a long way to get here, over rocks and hills, past sheep and goats, and among both countrymen and foreigners. He was tired from the walking, but even since he'd heard there was a prophet down by the river, the unremarkable man had felt his soul stir within him, compelling him to go see this strange man who wore clothing made from camel's hair.

Everyone in the crowd had a reason to see the prophet. The world was ending, and some of them just wanted to know how to survive. Others were desperate and wanted nothing more than shelter from a life that left them battered and ashamed of what they did to survive, and some were just curious.

For Jesus, visiting the Jordan River was the first leg on a journey of self-discovery.

Ever since he was little, he'd felt out of place in his hometown. It wasn't just the time he'd spent in Egypt with his parents, and it wasn't just the scandal around his birth that people had whispered about behind his back when they thought he and his parents weren't listening. This was something else.

All his childhood and even into his adulthood he'd been just like the other children in Nazareth and yet not like them.

Sometimes he'd felt it keenly, like the year they had gone on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit Herod's temple, and Jesus had decided to stay behind when everyone else had gone home. (His parents rarely mentioned it in the years afterward, but too many times he'd felt his mother's eyes on him and he knew she was thinking of that trip.)

Other times the difference was harder to identify but still felt as keenly as if he had swallowed a coal. His heart would ache with a distress he couldn't understand, or he would see things with such clarity he couldn't understand why everyone else was confused. And through it all was woven a longing he couldn't express and a loneliness even his younger siblings couldn't always lift.

But then the prophet had arrived in the desert, and Jesus knew without anyone telling him that his time had arrived. He'd handed the carpentry shop over to his brothers, and set out for the prophet and the river.

The water was cool when he stepped in, and it cleaned the dirt and dust from his feet as it swirled past. Another step, and it was up past his ankles, and then it was up to his calves and his clothes were getting soaked.

What happened next, people disagree about. Some said that when the prophet baptized the unremarkable man, a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. They pulled their children from the water and looked for a safe place to be when the storm hit. Others looked around, decided nothing was amiss, and shrugged their shoulders.

Others looked at the unremarkable man with curiosity in their eyes and wonder on their faces, as he climbed up the river bank, water streaming from his clothes and hair, and then strode off into the desert. In the thunder, he had heard a voice and he had to know what it had meant.

For the next forty days, he would fast and he would empty himself. The experience would harrow him like no other, but the odyssey he was undertaking would reveal himself to himself like nothing else ever had.

And when he returned, the people who heard him would know he was speaking with the very voice of God.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.

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