CREEDE HINSHAW: Answeing deep religious questions

I meet every Tuesday with a group of men to drink coffee, share friendship and study either a book of the Bible or a subject relating to matters of faith. Currently, we are reading excerpts from various Christian authors. This morning’s reading came from Henri J.M. Nouwen’s journal “The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery.”

Nouwen lived for seven months in the monastery at Genesee, N.Y., in 1973. His record of that pilgrimage is a daily record of what he did, thought and prayed. There is a fetching simplicity here as Nouwen works alongside the monks washing raisins, keeping bees, pulling stones from a creek, involving himself in the daily life and work of this holy community.

The reader catches the depth of this monastic life as the priest sings and prays the psalms, muses over the meaning of worship and ponders what it means to follow Jesus.

The men in my group found intriguing a passage that Nouwen recorded on Aug. 12, 1973, when he asked his spiritual director “… a question that seemed very basic and a little naïve: ‘When I pray, to whom do I pray? When I say “Lord,” what do I mean?’”

One might conclude that these questions are reserved for monastics who have the luxury to ask and answer such questions. Most of us probably conclude that there is no time to ask such questions, let alone answer them. We’ll leave such explorations to priests, rabbis or holy men and women gathered in the monastery.

But I find the question intriguing. It’s one that I’ve never asked myself, although maybe I’ve explored it in other ways. Most of us seem more concerned about whether prayer “works” than about the identity of the one to whom we pray.

But Nouwen’s question is as basic as you can get. To whom do you pray? What do you call this deity? Do you address God as “Father Almighty”? Is God male? Are your prayers more general and unfocused? To whom are you speaking and who is speaking to you?

Nouwen’s spiritual director does not give a rote answer because there is no single answer. Here is a part of his director’s reply: “Your question leads directly to the question, Who am I who wants to pray to the Lord? And then you will soon wonder: Why is the Lord of justice also the Lord of love, the God of fear also the God of gentle compassion … Is there an answer? Yes and no. You will find out in your meditation.”

If this answer fails to satisfy, it is because we like our spiritual and religious questions to have neat and simple answers. And we want somebody else to work them out for us.

That’s not how things work in faith and spirituality. The deepest answers to life, the truth, must be worked out in prayer, fasting and meditation by each individual. Others can provide or even be a signpost but the answer must come from the seeker.

And you don’t have to go to a monastery to do the seeking.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw at [email protected].