Some of you may know that Lisa and I spent this past week vacationing in a lakeside cabin in a small town in Vermont.
While there I stumbled upon an article that references The Sound of Music, and was reminded that the real-life von Trapp family relocated to Vermont after escaping the Nazis in 1941.
To this day descendants of the famous singing family operate the von Trapp Family Lodge and Resort, located a two-hour drive away from our lake house.
You all know the story. Maria, a nun, becomes the nanny for the seven Von Trapp children in Austria in 1938. While there, she falls in love and marries the children’s father, Captain Von Trapp. In order to escape serving the Nazis, the Captain leads his family to escape in Switzerland.
What you may not know is that much of the movie is a fabricated. The article’s author, Rick Herrick, knows this because of his friendship with the daughter of Kurt, one of the von Trapp children.
Herrick states that, despite learning about these historical inconsistencies, the movie always had and continues to ‘take me to another place.’
And then he tells a story involving his own family. It’s the day after Thanksgiving…the leftovers dinner is done and, to his surprise, his adolescent grandkids let him choose the film for movie night.
Not surprisingly, he picks his all-time favorite, The Sound of Music. But it became clear about ten minutes in that nobody was ‘taken to another place’ except, once again, him.
Recounting that evening he – a writer for Progressive Christianity – said,
“As the von Trapps were hiking over the mountains to Switzerland, I turned off the movie and closed my eyes. My first thought was how similar this situation was to the authenticity of the Bible. Historians can only authenticate the barest outline of the Jesus story…that he was a Jew, that he was born in Nazareth, and that he was crucified by Pilate.
Scholars who have spent a lifetime of study trying to locate the historical Jesus differ widely on the details of his life. Despite these problems, many Christians, upon reading or hearing stories about Jesus, are taken to another place. This even applies to Progressive Christians who are pretty sure the stories lack historical validity.”
And then Herrick continues with the story of his own family…specifically about his grandson Landon who had fallen asleep during the movie. Landon is the only evangelical Christian in their otherwise progressive family.
That Sunday Landon asked his grandfather to go to church with him, and Herrick says, “The religious scientist in me couldn’t resist, and I wasn’t disappointed.”
He describes the service as 15 minutes of beautiful gospel music, followed by a long sermon in which the minister spoke of Christ dying for our sins so that we might be saved.
Unexpectedly, the same inner movement that occurs when he watches his favorite film began to occur again. But not for the reason you might think.
Herrick recalls, “The minister’s words had nothing to do with it. In fact, my thought was child abuse. Why would a God of love put his only Son through a horrible death in order to save us from sin? This central tenet of the Christian faith has never made sense to me.”
It wasn’t the minister’s messaging that caught, inspired, and held him. Instead, it was his grandson beside him.
He writes, “I looked over at Landon, and his eyes were closed. He was obviously processing the moving idea that Christ died for him. His face had an expression filled with beauty, and a light seemed to be emanating from him. My heart swelled with love for my grandson. I had a deep sense of he being a beautiful human being. The visage of his face sent me to another place.”
At this point in the article turns, and the story about his family, for me, became a story about our NCC family. It was the rubber-hits-the-road part of the article, and I immediately thought of us and what we are discerning these days.
This progressive grandparent, clearly moved by observing his religiously conservative grandchild, goes on to say that the truth that we seek from religion – in all its manifestations – has nothing to do with the various rituals we exercise, which holy writings or scripture we embrace, or even which beliefs we espouse.
Instead, truth – this ultimate thing (or idea) that we all seek – truth lives in the intimacy of the relationship we have with God.
The other things are trappings, side dishes of a Thanksgiving meal, with the main course being what those things support… connection with our beloved divine Creator and Sustainer.
Specifics/details are dwarfed by the Reality that resides in this relationship.
Not everyone would agree. The story of my own family bears this out.
Among the 7 of us – 2 parents, 5 kids – there has been (in age order):
an evangelic protestant a dyed in the wool, ‘one true church’ Catholic a Unification (known widely as Moonies) member another evangelic protestant a progressive Unitarian a devote Catholic and one more evangelic (super evangelical) protestant
As is often the case, in my family with its array of faith flavors, it seems that the further you move to the conservative end of the arch, the hungrier folks are for the side dishes.
That’s the case in my biological family. It is decidedly not the case in my chosen church family.
And so, I thought of us here at NCC while reading this article because of our affiliation discernment process, where belief and specific doctrine issues are front and center.
You might be thinking, “Yeah, I’m thinking that too, because your affiliation survey is plastered with this BS” (that’s beliefs and specifics).
Yes, it is.
Thus, it may sound like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth to say that I couldn’t agree more with the author’s supposition about where the truth, big R Reality lies.
Herrick makes a fascinating assertion that, because our brains are inherited from reptilian ancestors, we’re hard-wired for survival, and are, therefore, inherently self-centered.
And yet, each and every one of us have some kind of a relationship with our Creator (even if we don’t recognize it as such).
So, despite being side-blinded survivalists, there are times when we momentarily set our base instincts aside, and freed up to get brief glimpses of another Reality.
I have this visual of me on a rock-climbing wall – something I have never and likely will never do in reality (speaking of).
You know those manufactured walls with peg-like bumps that supposedly help you to climb to the top?
Although this activity is decidedly not in my repertoire, there are times when I imagine myself on one of those walls, clinging precariously for, well, survival.
It’s the clinging part that’s key here…what do I, what do you cling to that inhibits the presence of a bigger Reality?
Herrick beautifully describes this other Reality as “a reality of goodness, beauty, and love.. I define these glimpses of goodness and love as revealing, as an encounter with God, because the reality of the experience is so different from my normal, everyday consciousness.”
He goes on to say that what brings us to this deepened sense of awareness differs from person to person, but universally, those ushers aren’t the ultimate truth, but instead simply offer a pathway to it.
It’s the Reisling that goes with the dessert, not the dessert itself. The sweetness of which I speak goes beyond any doctrine.
Herrick makes this point when he recalls travelling in Northern Europe, and asking the guide about religion in her region. She answered that the vast majority have Lutheran backgrounds, but only a small percentage are church-goers.
She quickly clarified that they embrace God and love, and aren’t atheists, but have problems with Christian doctrine. From reading your survey responses, I know many of you can relate.
And then there are many like the author’s grandson who are clearly moved by those beliefs.
It is ours to identify what brings out the most flavor in our sweetest of desserts.
Often these reminders of God’s presence come in whispers, subtle messages that float through our awareness and have the ability to take us to another place.
And that, my friends, was the message that Jesus brought… Listen to these whispers and act on them.
If you bypass all those ensuing doctrinal details and ‘start at the very beginning’ you know that Jesus didn’t speak of labels. He spoke of love.
Then the world becomes a better place. Each of us becomes a better place.
And our Community, my NCC dear ones, becomes a better place.Our church is on the move, discerning a place to call home, considering with whom we will affiliation. Our metaphorical halls are indeed alive with the sound of movement.
But let us never, ever overlook the deepest, truest movement of all. The movement for which we were created.
The rest…the actual halls that house us, the human-constructed traditions with which we affiliation…these things matter. But only as side dishes.
The entrée of our life’s meal, for which we give our deepest thanks, is the soulful movement that we hear about in our Belief Statement:
When we use the word “God,” we refer to a Mystery which moves us to awe.
We’ll continue to move through our affiliation process, and it has its place among all the things on our plate right now.
May we, nonetheless, ever uphold as primary, the greatest invitation…
To love God with all our heart, with our entire soul, with the expanse of our mind, and to love each other in just the same way.