In addition to everything else going on around the world this week, we today take note of the celebration of the feast of Eid al Adah.  One of the two great holidays on the Muslim calendar, Eid al Adah celebrates faith.  It celebrates the faith of Abraham, one of the greatest prophets of Islam, and his willingness to obey God unreservedly.  Even when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, Abraham obeyed.  He trusted God.

    Would any of us do this today?  As we ponder why we live, why we are here in this bewildering world, and why we live only to die, we do well to consider Abraham's response.  True, the Qur'an states that right before Abraham raised his knife to Ishmael, Allah intervened and provided an animal sacrifice.  Yet this does not eliminate the dilemma:  why did God ask Abraham to do this?  And why would Abraham obey?

    However, given our finitude and innate frailty, we can no more criticize Abraham than praise him.  Whether we like it or not, we're all creatures of faith, be it faith in a broken self or fractured world, or faith in an infinitely trustworthy God.

    Herein is the central conundrum of humanness.

      We in the West live in the shadow of such tremendous disparity.  A few days ago, my wife and I attended a wedding.  It was a beautiful affair, full of life and wonder, overflowing with joy and good will as several hundred people gathered to honor two young people (and their families) who were preparing to join their lives together forever.  It was a grand occasion, one that my wife and I were loathe to leave.

     When, before my morning workout the next day, I picked up the newspaper and glanced at the headlines, my heart sank.  While we were celebrating the riches of an existence that only living in a relatively safe West can bring, across the world, Ukrainians and Russians are battling each other in seemingly endless and absolutely pointless war; two military factions in Sudan, vying for national hegemony, are forcing thousands of innocents into refugee camps; and floods and high waters are slowly inundating the country of Bangladesh.  And that's just the beginning.

    "To those to whom much has been given, much shall be required," noted Jesus.  Those of us who have had the good fortune to live in reasonably safe parts of the world, while we may have the greater material blessings, we also have the greater spiritual responsibility.  What we have should become the foundation of who we are, what we do, and what we give.  After all, what else is good fortune for?
    

    Never do we want to be on our deathbed and wonder whether we could have given and done more.  By then it will be too late.
     Enjoy the gift.
    

     Omphalos?  What is an omphalos?  A Latin term that appeared often in the annals of ancient Rome, omphalos is best translated as "the center of the world" or the "navel of the universe."  As the proud Romans saw it, their empire was an omphalos, the center, hub, the undisputed lord of the known world.  For them, Rome was the zenith, the highest, the beginning and end of civilization.  Nothing could match Rome, nothing dared challenge it. Why would anyone question the center of the universe?    

     

       

    Yet omphalos cannot be the center unless centering is possible.  And in an ordered yet allegedly meaningless world (an oxymoron for sure), how can centering, a centering of thought, meaning, and belief, be?
    

    Do we really want to deny there is a God?

      Perhaps you've seen photos, perhaps you've seen his actual art.  Either way, I doubt you have forgotten it.  I speak of the Bulgarian born artist Christo (his full name was Christo Vladimirov Javacheff), most famous for the gargantuan sized art projects which he and his wife Jeanne Claude staged around the world.

    Christo and Jeanne Claude focused on covering buildings, bridges, parks, even islands, with enormous swathes of brightly colored cloth.  Buildings include the Reichstag in Berlin; bridges the Point Neuf in Paris; parks Central Park in New York City; and islands Monte Isola in Italy.  Some of his projects cost nearly thirty million dollars.  Christo and Jeanne Claude financed every one of them with their own money.

    Curiously, both said that, on balance, their projects contained no deeper meaning or transcendent truth:  they viewed their work as a purely material expression of a purely material world.

    It's odd, however, that even if Christo understood his art as solely material expression, it remains as a way for people to point themselves toward something bigger than they.  That is beauty, that is humanness.  We're made to seek the larger dimensions of existence, transcendent and all.

    Born to stay, born to roam:  born to always create a new home.

     According to some writers in the Western press, millions of people around the world were gripped by the news accounts of the search for the missing submersible "Titan" after it went missing.

    Maybe so.  As some commentators have remarked, however, why was not the world's attention equally focused on the plight of the hundreds of migrants from various parts of Africa and Asia who apparently drowned when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea?

    Though the occupants of the "Titan" were wealthy and influential, they numbered five.  In contrast, the number of people, largely poor and forgotten refugees, who lost their lives in the Mediterranean was in the hundreds.  Various nations spent millions of dollars to look for the missing submersible; some European nations who could have helped rescue the migrants spent nothing.  They didn't even bother to try looking for survivors.

    How sad that wealth continues to be the line that divides professions of faith from acting on it.

     Are we children?  As I review the recent actions of the American Congress, I'm coming to conclude that, not to be too political, children are managing some of the most significant levers of power at the highest levels of the federal government.

    I cite two incidents.  One, the recent action of the Republicans in the House of Representatives to censure one of its own, Adam Schiff.  Why?  Because Schiff led the work that resulted in the first impeachment of former president Donald Trump.  So now, like children in a playground, the Republicans are "getting even."  Getting even for no other reason than because they can:  like children in a playground.  And many of these Republicans claim to be Christians.

    Two, Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene's recent words to Colorado representative Lauren Boebert.  She called Ms. Boebert a "little bitch."  And she did so on the floor of the House of Representatives, on the floor of the supposed seat of power for the duly elected representatives of the American people.  And Ms. Greene professes to be a born again Christian, telling everyone who will listen that Jesus had changed her heart and life.

    As a Christian, I find such behavior enormously difficult to fathom, much less accept.

    It's a call to wonder:  what difference does Jesus really make?

     Like millions of other people lately, my wife and I have been watching the Amazon documentary "Shiny, Happy People."  It's about the Duggar family, most famous for its nineteen children and the reality television based on their lives, and their relationship to Bill Gothard and his Institute for Biblical Life Principles.  For those outside of Christianity, "Shiny Happy People" probably confirms their worst visions of what fundamentalist Christianity can be:  rigid, controlling, misogynistic, insular, and more.  For those committed to Christianity, I suspect the documentary stirs a variety of responses ranging from disgust to calls for nuance to suggestions for additional conversation, and more.

    For this Christian, the documentary makes me think about one, the dangers of interpreting the Bible too rigidly and apart from the cultural context out of which it emerged; two, the way that information, of any kind, can be twisted to suit a political or social agenda; and three, the essential point that God is a very big God and we cannot put him into a box of our own making.  We are little people living in a little slice of history and time:  how do we know the big picture?

    I believe in God, I believe in Jesus.  The Duggars and Bill Gothard do, too.  The challenge that all of us face is therefore learning how to understand what this means:  belief is black and white; interpreting and living it is not.