Published: May 20, 2008 06:17 pm            

McDONALD: Faith — The choice is yours

“O, God thy sea is so great and my boat is so small”

— Prayer of the Breton fisherman

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Sunday evening I was walking the dog when I looked up at the sky to see the full moon break from behind a cloud. It was incredibly bright in the night sky and as I gazed upon it I recalled the quote “O, God thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

I love that quote and I have not thought about it in a very long time and I am not quite sure why I remembered it at that moment. It made me realize anew again that as human species we are but a spec in the universe. We are but dust in the wind. Our lifetime is only a blink of an eye in universal time.

Things like this will periodically happen in my life when I become too focused on the events of the world at hand and the events of my own life. Moments like that start me down a long road of reflection. As I looked at the moon in the vastness of space I remembered, in a moment of sarcasm, what C.S. Lewis said “Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.”

The dog really hates it when this happens on our walk and she looks up at me as if she were saying when are we going to get moving? It was only a couple of moments but it was strange how quickly the mind will begin to categorize thoughts.

The two of you who are regular readers of this column will know that I don’t often delve into religion. I don’t because first of all I am not a religion writer or an authority on the subject. Secondly, it makes some folks uncomfortable and I always get at least one e-mail questioning my faith.

As I stood there with my mind categorizing thoughts for the moment, debating in my mind my own faith and doubt (by this point the dog gave up and laid down on the street) and the meaning of why I exist (for the dog that was easy, the walk).

Life is not a pointless effort. It cannot possibly be about getting up everyday, earning a living, buying a house and car, raising a family and competing. If that is in fact is the case, at the end of eighty or so years being lowered into the cold earth and nothing more, what would be the point?

If you dare risk starting yourself down this line of thought just go to the Internet and GoogleEarth. Look up your address and instead of zooming in; zoom out as far as you can go but slowly. Realize that your street is in a city, in a state, in a country, on a planet in a universe of thousands of universes. You can either realize that you are like an ant in a colony or a part of something infinitely bigger than yourself with a larger purpose.

It is simply how you treat people in your various spheres of influence. If your influence is a positive one then the person that you influence may influence another individual positively with care and compassion and so on.

I am reminded of a scene from one of my favorite films “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart. Stewart, as freshman Senator Jefferson Smith is a speech defending his reputation and the integrity of the United States Senate says

“I wouldn’t give two cents for all your fancy rules ... If behind them they didn’t have plain, ordinary everyday kindness. And... a little looking out for the other fellow too.”

We have a choice in our actions that affect others. We can choose to be encouraging to others or we can choose to tear them down. We can choose to help others or we can choose to hinder them. Whether you believe in God or not, you cannot deny that you have free will.

I realized a couple of things the other night. One, I am but a spec in the cosmos but I will choose to make whatever small positive difference I can within my spheres of influence. Secondly, I am a human being and subject to the occasional bad choice or mistake.

C.S. Lewis also said, “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” The challenge is realizing how does one person fit into a larger and grander purpose?” That indeed is the challenge and sometimes takes a lifetime. It just may be that kindness and looking out for one another is the key to that purpose.



Tim McDonald can be reached at timothy.mcdonald@agsfaculty.indwes.edu

        

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