Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
Wanted: A Few Good Magi
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
[Diocesan Life, January 1997)
There was a plot device used fairly frequently in the old "Twilight
Zone" program. It involved a story where the main character lived
through a terrible experience, only to have it begin all over again,
and repeat itself endlessly.
I have been having, and watching as others have, a repeated experience
lately, one with an unhappy ending. Circumstances have required
me to take some stands on issues lately, and some of the reactions
I've gotten in the mail are fascinating. Whether they come from
people who are very conservative or very liberal on the given issues,
they are all very much the same. They all assume that they know
exactly why I said what I did -- and ask no questions. They all
go on to lecture me on a wide range of subjects that have nothing
to do with what I was thinking when I did or said what was in question.
And of course, they all assume completely different things about
what was going on in my head and heart.
This "mind reading" is not very different from the way we work
in family arguments at home. Somebody says something we don't like
or don't agree with, and we assume that we know what they were
thinking. Based on that assumption, we tear into them. They then
assume they know why we said what we did, and off we go for an
unpleasant evening. More than one divorce has started this way.
How often have you heard a spouse say, "You think that because..." or
words to that effect?
Unfortunately, this kind of talking right past each other is what
we sometimes call "dialog," and then wonder why people don't get
along with each other, in either public or private situations.
The church is by no means spared this problem. In fact, because
in the church we often care very deeply about certain issues or
positions, we can get very defensive about them, increasing the
likelihood that we will strike back at what we think someone is
saying, without ever getting a clear picture of their viewpoint.
It will soon be Epiphany, the time when we remember the three
magi. They were probably priests of Mithras, experts in astrology.
They got a signal that something -- very different from anything
they had known -- was happening. If they were right about who had
been born, their world was going to change, their religion would
certainly have to change. Instead of worrying about their jobs
or worrying about whether their picture of the world would change,
they went to see what was going on.
The poet T. S. Eliot once wrote some verses about the journey
of the magi, in which he tried to convey what it would feel like
to undergo a long journey in a world with few comforts for travelers,
especially when they were old and jostling along on camels. But
he added something else: in the poem, he tries to convey what it
would feel like to be on a journey where one is fairly certain
that life will not be the same again.
We know the happy ending to the story of the magi -- but on their
camels they didn't know that yet. Nonetheless, because they wanted
to find out what would have happened -- who would have happened
-- they got the strange signal, the star they saw for the first
time.
The magi had enough curiosity, enough hunger for truth, that they
suspended what they thought they knew, and went into strange territory
to find out what was going on.
Things would be very different in the church, very different in
our relationships, if we were to remember the cardinal virtue displayed
by the magi: curiosity. A person who knows how to be properly curious,
never reads minds -- something that cannot be done in the first
place. A person who has healthy curiosity does something else when
they hear something that is different from what they believe or
is totally out of their world of thought or experience. Instead
of attacking or defending... they ask a question.
How much different things would be in the church if there were
more curiosity among us! When we hear or read something very unlike
what we think, we would respond by saying something like, "Oh.
Why do you think that?" Then dialog might actually happen. Then
we might either learn something or have the chance to help someone
else learn something from us. All without calling names or making
someone feel attacked or guilty.
To be curious is to always be on a camel, so to speak. To be curious
is to share the bumpy ride taken by those who do not know exactly
where they are being led. But to be curious is also, from time
to time, to find Bethlehem, to find more than we could have imagined
we would ever know.
The magi came to offer gifts to the infant Messiah. When we deal
with one another in mutual respect and real curiosity, we may find
that there are, indeed, gifts to be shared. Next time something
seems so totally wrong that you feel like attacking or defending,
try instead to saddle up your camel, ask a few friendly and curious
questions, and see whether you are going to get a gift, or perhaps
give one.
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