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Rick Lewis's avatar

Thank you for sharing this experience. I do not attend a church, so I don't get to experience or reflect on the skills that are demonstrated by inspired ministers in the realm of speaking and storytelling. As I relished the entirety of this piece I reached the last words of the final footnote. "But I do know, when it comes to God, people are not all talking about the same thing." And it struck me how incredibly ironic it is (and perhaps heartbreaking to God) that people throughout time have struck each other down for thinking and talking differently about God. May the "goodness of being" as you've called it, prevail in all of our searches.

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James Bailey's avatar

Tommy -a beautiful and thought provoking essay.

“It’s this needing to know that plants the pain.”

This reminds me of the Buddhist maxim that we are the source of our own suffering.

Your essay brings to mind several things for me. First, is that “faith” if you leave religion aside, is “not knowing.” Getting comfortable, practicing “not knowing” and “trusting” strengthens one’s faith. Second, wanting to know, and trying to control, at their root, come from “fear”. Fear that something isn’t going to go the way you want. We attach ourselves to outcomes, and then try with our might to manifest that particular outcome. When we act with intention and let go of an exact outcome, trusting that the right one will manifest, we don’t suffer AND we are blown away by outcomes that are WAY better than the ones that we imagined and were trying to control for.

It’s easier for me at my age to see this, since I spent the first 40 years of my life acting from this place of fear and suffering, having things not turn out the way I’d hoped, only to see later why they didn’t and see why the outcome that came to pass was right. How did I know it was right? Because it was the one that occurred :)

Last, I’m a very spiritual person, and sometimes I think of God as “the universal connection” between us all. So many people get hung up on God they lose sight of the lesson in the sermon you wrote about. For the non-devout, Who has the Rope? Something much bigger than them, and the person at the other end. Something so big and inconceivable, something universal. To believe that requires faith, trust, and humility.

Im grateful to have a hand on your rope and that you have a hand on mine.

In the words of your brother Jack - much love to you.

(I wrote this in a parking lot and didn’t proof it. I hope there aren’t lots of errors.)

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