February 27, 2007

Steve Ryan's Faith Talk

I know what your thinking... "Oh great.. he's got notes.." It's not that often that you'll catch me on this side of a microphone so you'll have to be patient with me.

I read once that being on a spiritual journey and not worshiping is like being in a boat and not paddling. Welcome and thanks for being here with your paddle.

When I die, I suppose they might say: He was a musician. He was a great soundman. He was a scientist, a physicist in fact... (I didn't know that)... He loved his family. He volunteered... a lot.. He liked to laugh. He had a lot of patents. He liked to make things. He liked to fix things. He was a pretty good skier. He had a lot of brothers. He sure had a beautiful wife!

I suppose they might say some of these things... but there's another story I'd like you to know...

"Dad, I'm not quite sure what I believe."
"Dad, I'm not quite sure what I believe."

When I hear the words a thousand thoughts flash through my brain.. and I'm sure I gap out for more than a moment. It feels like I'm going back in time. Imagine the final scene in 2001 Space Oddessey.

Back more than 30 years... back to my 'DEAL' with God... I remember it like it was yesterday. Lying in a sleeping bag on the basement floor because of the influx of relatives. Relatives making their last visit. Visiting my father, dying of lung cancer.

Lying there in the dark, I reached my hand up and said "God I'm having a little trouble believing right now. If you reached down and touched my hand just a little then I'd believe." I remember thinking how if it actually happened I'd just keep it to myself but that it would certainly remove all these doubts and questions...

Well, it didn't happen.. And my father died. A long agonizing dying... with nearly a full final day of wheezing and moaning in pain... I remember driving my younger brothers back to the house and returning to spend what would be the last night with him and my mother. At some point I began to pray that it would end and that he would just die.. But then... another breath... a long pause... and another. Till eventually, sometime in the early morning it finally was over.

The summer after his death my Mother and brothers moved to Bemidji near my mothers family. I stayed behind to finish my last 2 years of college. But the images of that last night never left. They haunted me continuously. It seemed nothing would erase them. Drinking, drugs, cartons of cigarettes.. One night after a failed attempt to make my connection that day.. I remember waking in a sweat to the same old nightmares... and holding my hand up... again... waiting for the touching... nothing there. I fell asleep again... this time a new dream appeared. In the dream I was on the porch of a house... Bright lights lit the room inside.. I was outside in the dark. Inside there was a party going on. A birthday party for a teenage girl stood in front of a cake full of candles. I didn't know her.. All of a sudden my Dad came out of the doorway. He slowly walked over to me, looked straight at me... He looked strong and well, at peace. He said "Steve, it's OK."

Instantly the dream was over and I was wide awake. I was filled with an intense feeling that I had just talked with my Dad... Like it had actually happened.

I never had the nightmares again. A few months later, while home on a visit I noticed an inscription in my mothers bible about my fathers death. Above it I noticed one for my sister Kathrine who died as an infant. A sister who would have turned 18 years old two months earlier.

Now, I wish I could say that my whole life changed and that everything fit into place... but that's not how it worked either. It wasn't the last time I reached my

hand up... Some things take time...

- The next time I reached my hand up was from a jail cell for DWI..
- Then at the hospital bedside of my first wife's oldest son, in a coma for 9 months following an auto accident on his way home for Thanksgiving break during his first year of college...
- And at his death, his handicapped body found in a river after falling or jumping.
- Again upon coming home to an empty house when my first wife, unable to cope with her son's disability fell victim to alcoholism. Everything gone but the cat's.
My recent participation in Alanon being the last straw for her, she had found someone else. Unfortunately, someone that would eventually murder her in a domestic fight.
- Again when my older brother, in constant battle with drugs and alcohol, was killed. Stabbed in a fight with his neighbor.
- And then when my good friend Dan, died of bone cancer.
- Again when I found my second marriage also in shambles...

Don't get me wrong, my life has changed, but it's a process. Understanding may come in an instant, but real change takes time. You may think you're a million miles away from God, but you're really only... around two feet.. (raise hand here)

We are creatures of faith. We like to think we are creatures of fact. That these facts are our foundation but it's not really true. It's faith that we live by. Faith that my car will start, faith that the bus will be on time, faith to get on an airplane, faith that I will make it home tonight, faith that our kids will be safe.

Most facts, most science, are simply current best guesses. It's commonplace to find that what we previously thought was fact is now thought to be wrong. Those of you as old as I am may remember when 'The Big Bang' was first proposed. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a scientist. I love understanding how things work, what makes things behave the way they do. It's fascinating to me.

The best scientists I have known are people of faith. I'd go so far as to say that being a scientist requires a lot of faith. Faith enough to work years, decades, perhaps a lifetime on something believing there is a better solution...

I hold a lot more stock in faith than I used too. Faith dictates my choices when I don't KNOW what to do. Faith is choosing what I will believe when I am uncertain. It's not about being right or wrong.

Did I really talk to my Dad? I don't know. Someday perhaps I will, but it doesn't really matter.. And whatever the answer, I'm sure it is even more wonderful and amazing than anything I can see right now. I believe that God is much, much bigger than anything we can imagine. I believe that every path to God is sacred.

So,

"Dad, I'm not sure what I believe."

Is the perfect starting point for a journey of faith.