Editorial: What I Offer

"It is truly difficult to convince people that they go around shining like suns."
Thomas Merton

August is the stultifying month. August is to summer what February is to winter: the unvarying plateau of what a season has accomplished. Days go by without any real distinction. In August, a coworker once remarked that he didn't know what month it was, because it didn't really matter.

Not that I think we should do away with it. I only mean to say that the lack of dynamacy in the air means that you probably don't want to do much. So I bring you, gentle reader, an offering.

What offering? That, precisely, is the question. I'm participating in a downtown interfaith forum, and as a participant I said why I was there without a great deal of problem: the element of surprise.

That's the point of a transcendent God, really, the thing that all the Abrahamic faiths have in common. A voice comes out of nowhere: "Moses! Moses!" And we go on to make and break nations, all as more or less a complete surprise to us, and not really something we would have thought of on our own.

And never mind our surprise babies. Lesser gods wouldn't dare.

But what do I offer? This was the second question, and it stumped me. I thought of something, but couldn't articulate it. I thought of a moment. And that moment is why I'm in the interfaith forum. And it's why I'm doing this blog, and it's why I'm reading theology and religious history entirely for fun. It's why I do most everything, really, that moment and the larger significance behind it.

During college, I went to this Thursday-night praise and worship scene. If you've never been to one, and don't know what I'm talking about, well, you might well be better off. It's where a lot of young Christians get together and sing along to a lot of mediocre rock music with even more mediocre Christian lyrics.

But it's a Christian college, so there's not much else to do and it's a decent study break and all your friends go, so I went pretty consistently for about two years. And there's a lot of energy in there, so it's not all bad. But eventually, about halfway through the second year I went, I stopped singing. Stopped dead, because I didn't want to go through the same songs anymore, ever.

And I looked around for a while. And it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. People singing full-throated, mouths open with all the joy they could not hold. Eyes shining, glowing in the dark, the most candid expressions of fervor and desire I could ever have imagined. And this was everyone, all together, all feeling, it seemed, subtle variations of the same electric charge, and not hiding any of it.

I almost fell over. And I went back, week after week. And I never stopped watching, though I was only seeing everything I myself could not feel.

So it's my fascination that I offer, really. People are all like gods to me. I never know what any of them will do. They are overfull of their surprises, and I can't help but watch. Secretly, I'm an incurable eavesdrop. At work, I shut my headphones down for the first and last half hour just so I can hear people talk about their days and plans, the helter-skelter minutiae of their lives.

I don't want to gossip. I have no interest in repeating any of it, or making any use of the information. I'm just riveted. Twenty-seven years old, and I'm still wonderstruck by an ordinary conversation. How does it happen? What does it mean? Why do people say the things they say?

As a writer, of course, I want to know everyone's secrets. But this is deeper than that.

My first and long-enduring conviction is that everyone is holy. That's what I offer you, dear reader: You are holy. And I know it. I've held eighteen different world views, but I know this. I've always known this. And I always will.

This is my gift to you. It is all I have, the first thing I have. I just woke up with it. I haven't earned it, it has nothing to do with me. Perhaps there is such a thing as soul-ular DNA, and your holiness is encoded in mine. All I can do is pass it on, and let you know that when I see you, you are blazing like the sun.

Now your holiness is not the result of any particular doctrine. It does not depend on what you or I believe. Though I remember being struck at a very early age by the Scripture that we are all made in the image of God, I cannot explain why it affected me that way. Even at the time, it seemed odd that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

And while, yes, the hero of my childhood Methodism, John Wesley, only believed in holiness for everyone, for communities of faith, I certainly didn't know that at the time. In fact, I didn't know this until last week. In between, I've spend a lot of time distracted by individual acts of righteousness.

And I say distracted because your holiness, dear reader, is absolute and unconditional. You certainly can't increase it, and I doubt that all the sins you could ever commit could subtract from the created and primal holiness of God.

The most that you can do is hide it, and I don't even know if you can do that for very long. You simply can't do anything about it. You are holy. Get used to it, accept it. And then I hope that you will let it be. Let it be your breath, as holiness ought to be.

Thank you.