‘Star’ or stardust?

Good Evening.

That Pygmy prayer
reminds me of an account I read
about a member of the Pygmy tribe
who encountered the Savannah for the first time
as a twenty-something year old man.

It is difficult for us to imagine
what it would be like to live your entire life
in the thick Congo jungle
under the high forest canopy
that does not allow for anything more
that a keyhole view of the sky.

Or to then imagine the experience of spacial distance
for the first time.
To suddenly break through the edge of the forest
where the vast Savannah opens
and the horizon unfolds
as if the beach meeting the ocean?

The account I read,
said the young man screamed
and ran back into the forest.

The sight of endless, empty space
filled him with such anxiety and fear,
that it took great effort to coax him back
and finally tip-toe out into the open.

Think of that image for yourself.

Your life as the jungle
and this moment,
a first look at the edge of a vast open Savanah.
Behind you –
a known,
safe,
comfortable place –
and in front of you –
the utter emptiness of the unknown.

What I am trying to evoke
is the simple truth that
Frame of reference
changes everything.

Our frame of reference
depends on where we are standing
at any given moment.
And as such,
our knowledge and perception
of things like God and life –
the purpose of life in general,
and the meaning of our own lives in particular –
should change
along with our frame of reference.

For example,
there was a time when people heard the phrase:
“In the beginning,”
and what that brought to mind
was Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Then, within the last couple centuries,
“In the beginning,”
began to evoke images of primordial Earth
with its oozing volcanoes and bubbling oceans.

But now, for many people,
“In the beginning,”
brings to mind a bang, as in the Big Bang,
and not Genesis
or even the Earth in primordial ooze,
but the beginning of the entire Cosmos.

Our frame of reference
has been moving from our little planet,
to the vast expanse of interstellar space.
The mythical Garden
is now enshrouded by stars and planets
and the other constituent remnants
of an initial cosmic explosion,
stuff with names we know –
like Black Holes, Nebulae, and Dwarf Red Stars –
but whose substance we can’t even hazard a guess.

Our frame of reference has changed.

At the beginning of every semester,
I remind my students at Canisius College,
that the core of Orthodox Christian theology
was developed at a time
when theologians were certain
that the Sun and the Universe
orbited Earth.

Why?
Because it was all about us!
Humans, we
prefer to keep ourselves
as the frame of reference
no matter what we are looking at.

But think about
how much in the way of human thinking
changes, if our frame of reference,
shifts from ourselves to a Big Bang.
When we realize
that the Earth and Humans
are not the center of all life,
it changes everything doesn’t it?
We go from being the star,
literally,
to stardust,
literally.

When I was a freshman in college,
I took a speed-reading course
in which we were all tested
for speed and comprehension.
Most of us, it was revealed,
tested at a Third Grade level for speed,
and a couple of grades higher for comprehension.
Our instructor assured us
that this was normal.

She explained that most schools,
at least at that time,
stopped teaching How to read
in Third Grade,
and then simply expected that children would
continue reading and progressing.

But obviously,
as we kept reading
without guidance or assistance otherwise,
we plateaued.

That is an apt analogy
for what we do with the spiritual life.
We talk to children about religion,
not the practice of spirituality;
and we talk about it
at a children’s level.
At some early point
we stop talking about it at all.
For most people,
unless they have a particular interest
that provokes them
into further inquiry and searching,
simply stop progressing spiritually.

Many people,
at a young age,
simply hang up their curiosity,
and neglect to continue
growing and deepening spiritually.
Religions of all kinds,
gets focused on convincing people
to assume some set of beliefs
and acting as if spirituality has to do with
believing the right concepts or ideas.

So many people
are stuck in a childhood level
of spiritual maturity
as I was stuck in a third grade level of reading.

It is possible to describe some of the places
people get stuck in the process
of spiritual development.
For example,
if our frame of reference in life or religion,
gets stuck at around age seven or eight,
then we will likely to be very focused on
death and a sense of our own vulnerability.

If our frame of reference
in life or religion
gets stuck at age thirteen or so,
then we may be obsessed with
an attraction or repulsion to affiliation –
the need for a strong sense of identity
with groups and others,
or conversely,
a kind of knee-jerk reaction
against such affiliations.

If our frame of reference
in life or religion
gets stuck in our twenties,
then it may get focused around
the loss of a dream or vision for the future,
or conversely,
with pursuing certain dreams and futures.

The trick is not to get stuck in one place
or one phase
or one stage of development.

Our spirituality needs to change
along with our frame of reference.

What we need from God,
and what we seek from God,
damn well better be different
at age 38
than it was at age 7.
If not,
then we are in danger of a spiritual immaturity
that can lead to an early spiritual death.

Each transition in perspective
is border crossing;
a journey into boundary-waters
that have no clear destination;
a pushing off
into something new as we exit
the earlier and the well-known
and enter the new phase
we cannot see clearly in the beginning.

I love those famous T. S. Eliot verses:

“In order to arrive at what you do not know
you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
you must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
you must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
and what you own is what you do not own
and where you are is where you are not.”

In order to arrive at what we do not know
we must try new ways
of seeking God and
of imagining who God is.

In order to possess what we do not possess
we must give up
our tidy little presumptions
about God
and life
and ourselves that we carry without question.

In order to arrive at what we are not
we must go through a time
of letting go
of what we have been,
and what we have expected,
and simply
be present and open
to the voice of God
as it comes to us
in our present frame of reference.

Our encounters with God
often come when we are in the boundary-waters
between the frame of reference we have just left
and before we land within our new one.

It comes when we are most ignorant of answers.
It comes when we are most dispossessed of our
previous presumptions.
It comes when we seem most awkward…
and the least likely to be a good partner
in the dance with God.

So the question I want to leave us with tonight,
has to do with where we are
and what our frame of reference is.

Are we at the edge of a jungle
looking out upon a vast empty horizon,
OR
have we just crossed that Savannah
and are preparing to enter
the dark and unknown jungle?

Are we still the star
at the center of God’s universe
OR
are we a free-floating radical of stardust
drifting across the Cosmos
and holding God’s hand?

What is your frame of reference,
now,
in this moment,
at this time?
Is there another frame of reference
begging to be given birth
from within you?

In invite us to come forward
and light a candle
to your current frame of reference.

©R Cameron Miller