A
circle that takes others in
Life’s
too short to pretend you’re not religious
Author:
David Dark
Pages:
199
The
story, as told by F. W. Boreham, illustrates an underlying theme in David
Dark’s Life’s too short to pretend you’re
not religious.
Jeff Kilbourne was a young citizen of
the United States
who happened to be studying art in
Paris when the War broke
out. He felt the thrill of the stirring
movements by which he
was encircled, and longed to have some
part in them. Yet how
could he? He could not return to
America to enlist, and, anyhow,
the United States had not, at that
stage, entered the field
of hostilities. So he joined a French
battalion and soon became
the most popular member of it.
Everybody loved Jeff. His comrades
would have laid down their lives for
him; the people of
the village in which the regiment was
quartered became wonderfully
fond of him; the old priest felt
strangely drawn to Jeff,
and was always the happier after
catching his smile.
But one day the company was sent into
action and most
of its members fell—including Jeff.
Next day the old priest
was called upon to bury the dead in the
graveyard beside the
church and then a serious complication
arose. For what about
Jeff? Jeff was a Protestant; how could
he be buried with his
comrades in Catholic ground? The good
old priest was full
of grief; but he saw no way out of the
difficulty. He did the
best he could by arranging that the men
should be buried in
rows across the graveyard—rows that
stretched from wall to
wall—and that Jeff should be buried in
one of those rows but
just outside the wall. He would thus be
in the company of his
comrades; the wall alone intervening.
The burial took place, and the old
priest, weary with his
labors, returned to his well-earned
rest. But that night the villagers
arose in the moonlight and, joined by
Jeff’s surviving
comrades, they pulled down part of the
wall and rebuilt it in
such a way that it took Jeff in!
Religion
can draw lines that exclude. In what might be the best book on religion that I
will ever read, Dark defines religion to take others in.
Just
the word carries baggage and makes others ill at ease. But Dark’s perspective
makes it winsome, which is what it ought to be. Just like when I read Boreham,
religion becomes a beautiful thing. It can be healing.
Dark
helps to make sense of it all, to find meaning in everything, even pop culture.
Isn’t that part of our shared longing? Give me knowledge, understanding and
wisdom that can be applied to every situation.
It
requires openness. Oswald Chambers observed that when we are rightly related to
God even a flower can carry God’s message. With Dark, it might be a Radiohead
song, or a scene from a movie.
Mindfulness
is essential, becoming aware of what we truly believe as shown through our
actions. We all worship, and our propensities and controlling thought processes
are some of the indicators of the altars at which we serve.
Reality
is defined in relation to others. One of the most telling illustrations, which
highlights our interrelatedness and need for each other, comes from Dark’s then
four-year-old son. “Giving voice to his specific love for the antics and
escapades of Scooby-Doo and the community with whom he makes his way through a
harried world, he once told me that he especially likes the moments in which
Scooby and Shaggy get scared to the point of paralysis. In what I suspect is a
touchstone in every episode … there comes a time when Scooby and Shaggy respond
to duress (a man in a monster costume, for instance) by leaping into one
another’s arms and quivering together for a couple of seconds, a precious
moment in which it’s hard to say where the dog stops and the man begins. They
hold each other, we might say, but in
his effort to articulate what delighted him so, the child put it much, much
better: ‘They hold their ’chother’” (138-139).
Further
on in the same chapter he aptly summarizes one aspect of the concept, “Our life
is one long process of mutual aid, and what a relief it is when people act on
this knowledge. I want to keep within me and hold to the wit and the
sensitivity of spirit to see, feel, appreciate, fear and revere the inescapable
fact of my own caught-uppedness in the web of other people’s kindness” (150).
I
need this book. Too often I withdraw and want to hold others at a distance. I
need more of the religion that teaches me to include, as much as possible, rather
than exclude. It’s not about compromising convictions, those remain intact. It’s
more about getting closer to the heart of God, who values mercy over sacrifice,
and welcomes the prodigal home. That’s me, not some other person!
As
Boreham puts it, “True spirituality is magnificently inclusive. What is it that
Edward Markham sings?”
He
drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic,
rebel, a thing to flout;
But
Love and I had the wit to win;
We
drew a circle that took Him in.
