Taking a leap of faith isn't crazy

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

Just in time for Halloween, I've dug up an obscure Bible passage. It describes a "Night of the Living Dead" long before George A. Romero's 1968 black-and-white zombie film.

It's a passage from Matthew 27:52-53 following the crucifixion of Jesus and seems randomly injected into the Passion narrative.

"The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and . . . appeared to many people."

You say you've not heard that one before?

That's not surprising. It goes largely unmentioned by us clergy because most of us would rather put a stick in our eye than try to explain it.

It won't help to try another translation. I've tried. The verses are too problematic. Some people are confounded by the verses because they seem to encourage what other passages discourage, i.e. hangin' out with the dead and whatnot.

Despite problematic verses like these, there exist enough plainly spoken passages to cause 97 percent of regular churchgoers to believe in an afterlife. Eighty percent of Americans overall believe.

Those who study near-death experiences offer their version of proof. There even exists a Near Death Experience Research Foundation, which works to catalogue the almost 800 daily near-death experiences in the United States.

NDE commonly describes the phenomenon people report after being resuscitated from something like a heart attack. People often report seeing a bright light, a tunnel, a circle of loved ones and a heavenly presence telling them to return to Earth.

But there remain plenty of doubters. According to a recent CNN story, Dr. Kevin Nelson, a neurologist in Lexington, Ky., says NDEs offer no proof of an afterlife.

He says people who report NDE stories are likely dreaming due to rapid eye movement, which can cause vivid and intense dreaming. He says the REM state also causes the bright lights.

Nelson says the tunnel effect people describe probably is caused by the lack of blood flow to the eye, and you can get much the same results from fainting.

If that's not enough to cause some doubt, most scholars believe Matthew's Halloween passage concerning the Night of the Living Dead was added by a group of overambitious translators.

Could be, I suppose. I don't know. But I don't put all my faith coins in one basket either.

"Pay your money, take your choice," said my Baylor theology teacher Bob Patterson about such conundrums. At the end of the day, I think that's why it's called faith. It's a faith that something about our belief is right. It's not because our faith proves us right.

Proving there is or isn't a heavenly afterlife seems to me like a fool's errand. Jesus concurred in Luke 16, when he asserted that if people don't believe in the afterlife, ". . . they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead."

So, my guess is that somewhere along the search for such proof, we will find a huge chasm where we will be required to make a jump, a jump the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described as a leap of faith.

But let me assure you, the lack of empirical evidence doesn't make this a crazy leap into the dark or even a zombie walk. On the contrary, faith will always be a joyous leap out of the darkness and into the marvelous light.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You also can follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.

Taking a leap of faith isn't crazy

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

Just in time for Halloween, I've dug up an obscure Bible passage. It describes a "Night of the Living Dead" long before George A. Romero's 1968 black-and-white zombie film.

It's a passage from Matthew 27:52-53 following the crucifixion of Jesus and seems randomly injected into the Passion narrative.

"The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and . . . appeared to many people."

You say you've not heard that one before?

That's not surprising. It goes largely unmentioned by us clergy because most of us would rather put a stick in our eye than try to explain it.

It won't help to try another translation. I've tried. The verses are too problematic. Some people are confounded by the verses because they seem to encourage what other passages discourage, i.e. hangin' out with the dead and whatnot.

Despite problematic verses like these, there exist enough plainly spoken passages to cause 97 percent of regular churchgoers to believe in an afterlife. Eighty percent of Americans overall believe.

Those who study near-death experiences offer their version of proof. There even exists a Near Death Experience Research Foundation, which works to catalogue the almost 800 daily near-death experiences in the United States.

NDE commonly describes the phenomenon people report after being resuscitated from something like a heart attack. People often report seeing a bright light, a tunnel, a circle of loved ones and a heavenly presence telling them to return to Earth.

But there remain plenty of doubters. According to a recent CNN story, Dr. Kevin Nelson, a neurologist in Lexington, Ky., says NDEs offer no proof of an afterlife.

He says people who report NDE stories are likely dreaming due to rapid eye movement, which can cause vivid and intense dreaming. He says the REM state also causes the bright lights.

Nelson says the tunnel effect people describe probably is caused by the lack of blood flow to the eye, and you can get much the same results from fainting.

If that's not enough to cause some doubt, most scholars believe Matthew's Halloween passage concerning the Night of the Living Dead was added by a group of overambitious translators.

Could be, I suppose. I don't know. But I don't put all my faith coins in one basket either.

"Pay your money, take your choice," said my Baylor theology teacher Bob Patterson about such conundrums. At the end of the day, I think that's why it's called faith. It's a faith that something about our belief is right. It's not because our faith proves us right.

Proving there is or isn't a heavenly afterlife seems to me like a fool's errand. Jesus concurred in Luke 16, when he asserted that if people don't believe in the afterlife, ". . . they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead."

So, my guess is that somewhere along the search for such proof, we will find a huge chasm where we will be required to make a jump, a jump the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described as a leap of faith.

But let me assure you, the lack of empirical evidence doesn't make this a crazy leap into the dark or even a zombie walk. On the contrary, faith will always be a joyous leap out of the darkness and into the marvelous light.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You also can follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.

Two columns in one mailing

I forgot to mail the column last week, so here is two at once. These columns are about two of my children.



Children must find their own way to God

October 17, 2009

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

"I'm not even sure there is a God," said one of my children.

It was about the most hurtful thing a child could say to a chaplain dad.

The questioning reminded me of two patients I met during my rounds as a hospital chaplain. Both patients were pastors' children.

The first child was a 10-year-old boy with cancer. He lay in his bed, using controllers to throw punches at the villains in his video game.

He gave me a cursory glance to see whether I was medical staff bringing needles or anything else that might hurt him. I had no such instruments, just a harmless Dalmatian marionette.

He shot me a dismissive look that referred me to his father standing at bedside. I took my cue and turned toward his pastor dad.

"My guess is that you're finding a place for prayer during this illness?" I said, leading the conversation.

"Yes," the father answered, while stroking the head of his distracted son.

We spoke a few more minutes about the support faith brings to illness until a phone call took him out of the room.

Left alone with the patient, I asked him the same question about prayer that I'd asked his father.

For the first time, he took a long gaze away from the video, over his shoulder and past me toward where his father was engaged with his phone call.

Making sure his answer would be confidential; he silently shook his head.

"Not at night or when you're scared?" I pressed.

He did a double take toward his father and repeated his negative gesture.

A minute later, his father returned, and we cordially finished our visit.

Ready for some grown-up conversation, I caged my Dalmatian and went to see a woman with a high-risk pregnancy.

Upon realizing I was a chaplain, the woman discarded the common salutations to announce, "My father is a pastor."

No pleasantries. No "How do you do?"

I inferred from her tone that her spiritual needs were met in her DNA. Her dad was her holy guy.

Responding in a half-mischievous tone, I said, "Oh, really? We're both PKs (pastor's kids). Can I have a seat?"

She studied me and decided it might be OK to talk.

As we spoke, it quickly became apparent her dad was not her holy guy. In fact, her new spirituality was such a radical change from her Evangelical home that I was sure her dad now saw her as a member of a cult.

There is an old scriptural proverb that says, "Start a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

But what's a parent do to do when your child no longer sees any wisdom in your faith?

There really are only two things you can do. First, accept that we cannot choose our child's spiritual DNA. We can no more choose faith for our children than we can chose their love.

Second, take comfort in your own faith journey and recall the path God laid out for you. In doing so, your confidence will be renewed that God also will lay out a journey for your child, just as he did for you.

It's hard, of course. It means letting go in far deeper ways than just letting your child drive off to college. You have to let go at your core.

Letting go doesn't mean you approve of the route your child has taken, it simply means that you trust your child to the heavenly parent who gave you this child in the first place.


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October 10, 2009


Treat marriage vows as you would your commitment to God

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

Standing under a family of firs -- white, red and Douglas -- our family paused before beginning the wedding.

This was not just one of the dozens of weddings I've officiated; this was the wedding of my firstborn daughter among the sacred aroma of sugar pine and the incense cedar of the El Dorado National Forest in northern California.

I began the ceremony by sharing my long-held secret to a good marriage:

"If you were to ask me what is the most important lesson I've learned in my almost 30 years of marriage, I'd have to tell you that love is a choice, not a feeling."

So today, I wasn't going to ask this couple about their love. I knew they loved each other. Attesting to love is only a testimony of the present.

No, today I would ask them to make radical promises of their future will. That's a much scarier proposition.

On this day I asked them to make willing promises about loving, comforting, protecting and forsaking all others. Would they be faithful? Not until love parts, but rather, as long as they both shall live?

"I will," they declared.

I once was approached by a couple with handwritten vows that declared their promise to stay married until "love do us part." I politely asked them to find another officiator, because this chaplain always will say, "till death do us part."

Eighteen months later, the love she had for another man parted the newlyweds.

Why didn't this marriage last? Why do so many fail? I wish I knew the complete answer to that question, however, I believe it often is because people don't realize that wedding vows are everyday, not just on the wedding day.

If taken seriously, the future promise of the will means that they look for ways to perform acts of kindness and compassion, whether practical things like doing their fair share of housework, or relational things like good listening.

In my house, this is the kind of willing love that keeps on going whether I burn the toast or burn my temper. It is the kind of love that tells me I am forgiven before I can ask. It is the kind of love that "halves a sorrow and doubles a joy."

Like many couples, my wife and I sometimes go to bed dead tired. We easily can find ourselves too tired for the fun I seek and too tired for the cuddling she requests. But we rarely are too tired to talk out our day and absolutely never too tired for our three good night kisses and "I love you."

It's the intentional building of a relationship where independence is equal, dependence is mutual and our obligation is reciprocal. This kind of daily choice -- day in and day out -- brings something deeper and far more lasting. It brings Jesus' words to pass, "The two shall become one flesh." (Matthew 19:5)

Without a daily commitment of the will, relationships easily degrade. It's too easy to become like the husband who stopped telling his wife he loved her.

When she confronted him with this deficiency, the husband replied, "I told you 'I love you' on our wedding day. If I change my mind, I'll let you know."

At the end of the day, not only must we declare our love regularly, but we have to assert our will to make things work -- till death do us part.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You also can follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.

Love keeps no tabs on offenses, but justice does

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

1 Corinthians 13, commonly known as the "Love Chapter," says, "Love keeps no record of wrongdoing."

While love doesn't keep a record of wrongdoing, I'm grateful that the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has kept an unwavering record of Roman Polanski's wrongdoing.

Polanski is the Oscar-winning film director who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old in 1977. To escape sentencing, Polanski, who was 46 at the time, fled to France, where he's been hiding behind the laws that prevent extradition of French citizens.

While the victim received a civil award, legal issues remain unresolved because Polanski continually refuses to attend hearings. Prosecutors argue it would be a "major miscarriage of justice to allow a man to go free who allegedly drugged and raped a 13-year-old."

Finally, last month, justice reached out for Polanski while he was en route to the Zurich Film Festival. According to a CNN story, industry colleagues have been in an uproar ever since. They say Polanski is just a man who "made a little mistake 32 years ago" and should be excused because of his "exceptional artistic creation and human qualities."

The logic is that since people love his work, "love should keep no record of wrongdoing."

Well, drugging and raping a 13-year-old isn't love, and it isn't just a "little mistake." If raping a child is just a "little mistake," then shouldn't we at least pardon Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick for running dogfights?

I wonder how people would have responded to this creative logic when Catholic priests were being arrested for child molestation. Might we have said their glowing accomplishments should overshadow their "little mistakes"?

No. These priests were rightly ferreted out from wherever they were hiding and faced criminal, ecclesiastical or civil judgment, no matter how much time had passed.

Sacred texts record a famous story with similar elements involving King David. On normal days, Dave was a caring ruler. But on one particular day he, too, made a mistake and impregnated an officer's wife, Bathsheba. Fearful he'd be discovered, he had the officer killed by placing him in the leading edge of a battle. In a dubious display of chivalry, Dave took Bathsheba as his wife.

King David's sin was discovered. And when his incitement was read by the Prophet Nathan, David pleaded guilty before God. The penalty was the loss of their child. David found no loophole for his indiscretions. There were no lawyers and no place of exile.

Polanski may have teams of lawyers, but they'll find no loopholes for such things.

Much of our law is based on The Ten Commandments, and they do not contain loophole jargon like "Thou (hereinafter known as the Party of the First Part) shalt not covet thy neighbor's (hereinafter known as the Party of the Second Part) wife, excepting insofar as the Party of the Second Part fulfills the obligations hereinafter set forth, including, but not limited to, all sections and subsections listed below."

No. Moses was clear: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

I presume that also implies your neighbor's 13-year-old daughter.

I'd ask my regular readers to pardon me if this column sounds too much like it was co-authored by a high-voltage radio talk show host and short on love. But in this case, I'll side with the German theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who said that the highest obligation of government is not love, it's justice.

The sooner Polanski comes back to face justice, the sooner he can reap the benefits from 1 Corinthians 13, and love will keep no more records of this wrongdoing.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.

Three strikes doesn't mean you're out with God

NORRIS BURKES
SPIRITUALITY

After returning home from a recent Florida speaking engagement, I shared the audience's wonderful compliments with my wife.

Noticing the big-bang theory at work in my ever-expanding ego, my wife interrupted to ask whether I ever share my not-so-good stories with audiences.

"Why don't you tell your readers about the times you've struck out and been kicked out of a patient's room?"

"There are a few," I reluctantly admitted. "But some were for a good cause.

The very first hospital patient I ever visited was a "dirty old man" who was making inappropriate attempts to satisfy himself in the presence of his nurses. Loaded up with chivalry, I "ordered" him to cease and desist. He maintained his activity and "ordered" me to get out. Eventually, he required some restraints.

But not all of my strikeouts have been for such a righteous reason.

Later the next year, a nurse sent me to see a woman who was awaiting test results for pancreatic cancer.

"She doesn't know yet," the nurse cautioned in forbearing tones.

I started my pastoral visit by asking the patient how her treatment was going. When she responded with optimism overdose, I started playing the what-if game.

"What if the tests are bad?" I asked.

Then she'd fight it, she promised.

"And what if you can't beat it?" I asked.

That's when she left the polite demeanor of a flight attendant and declared: "I think you better leave! Chaplains should make you feel better, not worse."

My attempt to rush the woman through her grief stages was unprofessional.

She died a few months later while declining all suggestions to talk to me.

I'd like to say I perfected my chaplain skills after that, but it's not true. There remain times when I try to strike myself from a room or situation. These are times when I want to run because of my lack of comforting words.

A few years back, a nurse asked me to talk to a cancer patient with a newborn.

"She's knows she's not going to see her son's first birthday," the nurse said flatly.

I remember walking in the patient's room feeling numb. I suppose I was hoping that my simple presence would be an adequate reminder of the holy, but even that seemed to fail me. There was a stony silence in the room that voiced a rage rejecting all sympathies.

I quickly excused myself, telling myself that I was honoring the couple's desire for privacy. But that wasn't entirely true. With a daughter of the same age, the situation terrified me.

I left the room and leaned against the wall outside her closed door. A fog settled into my thoughts as I recalled the words from the biblical book of Lamentations -- a book filled with the curses and cries of those who faced injustice.

"My eyes fail with tears," proclaims the writer. "My heart is troubled. I am poured out on the ground."

The woman died the next year after seeing her son's first birthday.

Three strikes should mean I'm out. But God doesn't play that way. Whether you're a chaplain or just a caring person, there always will be days when we say the wrong words or we simply cannot find the right words. This possibility of failure must not keep us from our attempts to come alongside people and give them a supporting arm.

At the end of the day, even after a failure, I find that my faith remains strong in a God who not only hears our praises and prayer, but who forgives us our failures and moves us forward to his purposes.

Norris Burkes is a syndicated columnist, speaker and author. He also serves as an Air National Guard chaplain and is board-certified in the Association of Professional Chaplains. You can e-mail him at Norris@thechaplain.net or visit his Web site at thechaplain.net.