In a broken world, a world in which things do not always go as we wish them to, a world marked by tremendous joy and tragedy alike, we humans are prone to long for control.  Why can we not control the affairs of our lives? Why can we not ensure that we are not surprised by darkness?

     In this season of Lent, we have opportunity to rethink our longing for control.  Lent is all about giving up.  We give up our time, we give up our pursuits, we give up our lives, we give up control.  We recognize that we live in a world beyond our control.  We acknowledge that if we try to control everything, we will inevitably end up creating a world of us and us alone, a world without any real point except poor little us.  We reduce ourselves to a collection of atoms spinning madly in a nexus of space and time, avoiding everything but ourselves.

     Lent is one of God's ways of telling us that though we are remarkable creatures, entirely capable of directing the course of our lives, we will never understand and control it all.  We are finite, we have limits; our marvelous attributes can only take us so far.  Sooner or later, we encounter a bump:  we realize that we are not so remarkable that we in ourselves can decide what we are or what existence means. How could we?  We are only us.

     We are like the "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog," standing before the world, watching, planning, and waiting, yet bereft of ultimate control over that which we see.

     And that's precisely God's point:  in order to gain control, we must give it up.  We must give up who we are now to find whom we are destined to be.

  

    One of the most dazzling musicians of the Romantic Era, Frederick Chopin in his too short life (he died at the age of 39) composed a host of memorable pieces for the piano.  His works are marked by an exuberance of life that bursts with the sounds of memory and contemplation.  We listen to them and think about how his modest Polish origins blended with his relatively cosmopolitan lifestyle (he was well acquainted with Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and the novelist George Sand) to produce melodies that speak to many parts of our souls.

    As Lent continues apace, we find special call to remember Chopin.  We remember his creativity, we remember his vision.  We remember his angst and his too brief existence.  And we realize, again, that we live in a beautiful yet tragic world, that we dance on a very narrow line between being here and not, and that we, human beings, magnificent creators though we be, find our humanness most profoundly when we submit to the mystery of whom we may not really believe we are.

    But what we will one day be.

     

      Perhaps few people have been so convinced of the greatness of humanity (and the absence of God) as the twentieth century anarchist Emma Goldman, whose fiery speeches and voluminous literary output spurred on countless movements to set workers and, in truth, all humanity free, free from its oppressive bosses, free from its restrictive governments, free from its social conventions and, most importantly, free from religion.

     An unrepentant atheist, Ms. Goldman once wrote in The Philosophy of Atheism, which she published in 1916, that, "Atheism in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty," and that, "Under the lash of the Theistic idea, this earth has served no other purpose than as a temporary station to test man's capacity for immolation to the will of God."

    

    On the one hand, it's not difficult to disagree with Ms. Goldman.  Wrongly interpreted, religion does tend to reduce our existence on this earth to a way station, a stepping stone to something much greater but which, absent a direct vision or attestation, cannot be fully proven.  In addition, religion, as it has sometimes been interpreted, tends to denigrate the human being, claiming that humans are little more than the spittle of the divine.  Also, needless to say, religion has, alas, been responsible for countless pain and wars throughout 

     On the other hand, rightly interpreted, religion has brought immense joy and happiness and meaning to millions, perhaps billions of human beings.  It has also provided many answers to ultimate questions.  Religion has brought hope.  While this of course doesn't make religion true, it certainly proves its worth in the human experience.  Religion is not wholly without merit.

     Ms. Goldman asserts that atheism is the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty.  Countless adherents of religion would assert this about religion, too.  But we can't have it both ways.  If humanity is solely material, how can it have eternal longings?

    It's hard to escape eternity.

    

     Shusaku Endo was a prolific Japanese author who passed away in 1996.  A life long Catholic, Endo wove religious themes into everything he wrote.  One of his most memorable novels was Silence.  Silence tells the story of an American priest who comes to Japan to evangelize one of the least Christianized nations on the planet.  Unsurprisingly, the priest encounters much apathy, even antagonism, as he attempts to carry out his mission.

    Eventually, the priest is arrested.  He subsequently endures what I can only describe as spiritual torture.  Slowly and steadily, his captors force him to confront the full import of the silence of God, to ask himself why God seems to be doing nothing to help him.  Why God seems absent and gone.  Why God has abandoned him.

    Subsequently, the priest appears to change his perspective. He rejects the Christian God and embraces the Buddhism of his captors.  His life is good.  Along the way, however, he sees numerous Christians, native Japanese who have converted as a result of Western evangelism, choosing to endure horrendous torture and painful deaths rather than abandon Jesus.  Even if God seems to do nothing for them.

    Even if God seems silent.

    Many years later, the priest dies.  Per custom, his body is placed in an urn to be burned.  As his material self slowly immolates, however, we read that he still has  one thing in his hand:  a crucifix.

    What of faith?  Even if God seems silent, be it for a moment or be it for decades, he is still there.  Transcendence may be elusive, but it is never gone.

 

     Did you fool yourself on April Fools Day?  Despite its frivolity, April 1 is also a day to remember one of the greatest of the Romantic pianists:  Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Born in Russia, eventually emigrating to America and, shortly before his death in 1943, becoming an American citizen, Rachmaninoff (my wife's favorite musician) composed some of the richest music ever written for the piano. His work blends intense and mournful melody with powerful and intricate chords and keyboard movements, beautifully capturing the deepest spirit of the Romantics.

    Rachmaninoff's music gives us a poignant window into our perennial struggle with the vast and unyielding import of sentient existence.  It shows us that however intellectual we may suppose ourselves to be, we are, in the end, creatures of heart and imagination.  We live as sensual beings.

    Rachmaninoff helps us realize that although reason is an essential part of who we are, we make our biggest decisions with our heart.  To put this in theological terms, although we may believe, as a matter of intellectual assent, in a particular religious tenet, we can only trust its truth for our lives with our heart.  Trust is the wellspring of rational belief.
    

    As much of Rachmaninoff's music tells us, though we live for the moment, we flourish in the eternal, however we conceive it to be.  We affirm transcendence even as we live in the immanent.