All faith springs from hope and despair. Studs Terkel
I was listening to an interview with Studs Terkel that marked his death at the age of 96. Krista Tippet was interviewing him at the age of 92 after a bad fall that left him dependent upon others for help. I only caught a piece of the interview so this morning I visited the web site for the complete program. He was a remarkable ordinary man who was able to see the extraordinary in all the rest of us, drawing out of us through interviews what we never knew lived in our hearts and souls. His life was spent listening and recording the collective wisdom and questions of our age. Krista began to ask him about his belief system in the face of his wife Ida’s death and his living with death close at hand. He described himself as an agnostic, then chuckled as he gave a definition... a cowardly atheist. All faith and religion, he said, is born of hope and despair. Those who are true believers are blessed with an innocence, not naivete, but an innocence that knows the despair while choosing hope.
This innocence is the heart of Advent for me. When I read the old, old story of a young mother to be riding a donkey into a strange country where she will give birth to an ordinary baby boy who is extraordinary in ways she can not know, I am struck dumb by the innocence of it all. Mary must have had despair for a traveling companion at times. Pregnant, uncomfortable in her last days before birth, traveling without mother or sister to help her in the coming hours of pain, humble and unimportant to those who saw her, she must have wondered what in the world she had gotten herself into. I wonder if she chose hope and thanksgiving, faith and patience as she rode that donkey towards Bethlehem.
As our Thanksgiving holiday draws near, I am choosing innocence and faith even as I give thanks for despair, death, grief and darkness. I ride my donkey through the suffering that comes to us all and I remember Mary, the mother of God Among Us. I choose to sing with her “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...” Thanksgiving is not real until you have journeyed to the far off land and returned home. Coming home with wisdom, sadness, joy, innocence frayed around the edges but still choosing faith, hope, love and light in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I am grateful for the journey and thankful for the choices.
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