Lit From Within

A sermon for faculty and staff to begin Eureka College’s school year.

Chaplain Bruce Fowlkes, Eureka College

August, 2014

Years ago the Lilly Foundation funded discernment programs on campus across the U.S. encouraging students consider ministry vocations. But the program has grown and expanded since then, and so has the philosophy and approach to discernment. The program discovered that the need was broader than just religious vocation and career exploration, and the resources they developed have a much broader appeal and impact, reaching students and professors with no particular interest in religion, but who want to explore and clarify their deeply-held core values, and how those shape the meaning and direction.

Religious traditions have a vocabulary for this process, and they, of course, claim that God is involved, in different ways according to their particular traditions. (And as a non-sectarian, liberal arts school, Eureka College wouldn't want to promote any particular tradition’s approach as normative over another.) So, the process of vocational discernment (which is not about career, but could impact it) is an intellectual journey of both the “heart” and the mind. When both are engaged then a deeper sense of “calling” is possible.

Religious folk bring theology and spiritual disciplines to the process, certainly, but those are tools and a vocabulary unnecessary to non-religious folk, but who are, arguably, on the same journey for meaning. One approach is not better or deeper than the other, but they can share an intellectual language of discernment, and students of all viewpoints enrich the journey’s conversation.

So why am I telling you this? You have a vocation. You have a calling. You have a journey that speaks, a story – a plot, a set of characters, dialogue, tone, setting, dramatic turns – that speaks meaning to the world. Your life is a living, breathing sermon. “Preach the gospel often. And when necessary, use words.” – St. Francis of Assisi

Greatness. What is greatness? Is your story a story of greatness?!

In a New Testament letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul said (with just a little of [author Steve McSwain’s] paraphrase):

Even if I hold a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics, know Hebrew, Greek, Japanese and dozen other languages but have not love, I’m just another noisy voice in a busy airport terminal.

If I know, not just the Christian religion, but Buddhism, Islam and a dozen others as well, but have not love, I’m just another well-informed and open-minded religious person.

If I know theology and scrupulously maintain a more pure orthodoxy — if I am more correct than John Calvin or more courageous than Martin Luther, but have not love, I’m just another narrow-minded Christian person.

And even if I could outdo Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and give it all away, but have not love, I’m just another generous, but bankrupt fool.

Even now, with all my advanced understanding, I see so very little and I know ‘litt-ler’ still. I’m hardly as wise as I think. One day, however, I’ll know. One day, however, we’ll all know.

Meanwhile… What matters in this world — I mean, what really matters — is faith, hope and love. But nothing matters more than LOVE” (adapted from 1 Corinthians 13). — http://www.stevemcswain.com/

Mo Rocca’s cooking show My Mother’s Ravioli is unique, just like Mo himself – sharp and very funny. His show brings on grandmothers and grandfathers nominated by family members to teach Mo how to cook. In the process of teaching Mo the secrets of a family-favorite recipe, we glimpse what the show is really about: why we love our elders and how that gets associated with food. “If we pass along her recipe, Granny will live on” families seem to be saying. As I listened to an NPR interview Mo said some of these grandmothers (now he calls “my grandmothers”) seem to be “lit from within.”

In the act of telling who we are, we become who we are. The world aches for life-giving stories. Deeply true stories. Wise, honest stories. Stories of what truly matters most. Brave, fierce stories of love. But in the noisy, unfiltered tsunami of words and images from every intrusive media of modern life, we feel our stories are irrelevant or lost in translation.

The modern accessibility of story is not all bad, sure. (But me binge-watching 40 years of Dr. Who on Netflix is not healthy!) There’s some wonderful stuff out there, but finding it involves wading through so much drivel, so much meanness, so much hype. So when we discover a great story, we can’t help comparing our little story to those of giants! “How do my little thoughts of my little life measure up to the big beleaguers, to the TedTalk rock stars, the ones that are packaged so well?!”

You hear my internal struggle? I’m trying my best not to covet my neighbor’s story, pining for the story everyone wants to hear. I want my story to pop, get legs, go viral! I want the trappings of a great story-teller, an influencer, to be seen. I want the glory – OK?! Well, part of me does anyway. The other part wants to remain a shy person, content to read the stories of others.

But then I remember. The most powerful, transformative, authentic stories ever told came from those who were lit from within. Their story, their truth, came from them, but it was not about them. Not really. They burned with a story that was not their own, but one that pointed to a truth greater than they could possess or contain. They were servants to the Masters’ story. They communicated, pointed to, witnessed to, a Holiness, a Word, a Way that transcended the mouth that spoke it.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) In the words of Brian Wren’s hymn: “God constricted into maleness.” The fullness of God’s story, God’s Logos, in Chinese the Tao of God – the Way of God came to be told through our humanity. How is that a good idea?! Yet that is God’s Way.

The tragic part comes when the story-teller becomes famous afterwards. The fall comes when we let fame’s spotlight shine brighter than the light from within. Fame is so very gratifying. Being lit from within is the only flame that endures, but fame’s glare is fleeting. Fame’s pedestal is tempting, especially for us preachers. Thank you, God, for your grace that follows every fall.

We are involved in a bait and switch at Eureka College, if we succeed, that is. We have a secret plan for all our students. Did you know that? Here it is:

Students come in seeking a diploma, and they leave seeking illumination, the light from within. In the hunt for a job, they discern a vocation. Pursuing a career, they discover Meaning, their deepest held values. On the lookout for a mate to “complete” them, they discover that wholeness within comes first. Needing a place to reside, they find a community to call home. Pursuing answers to fill in their blanks, they uncover a passion for questions. Seeking self-understanding, they catch a global awareness. In the hunt for I, they discover the power of we.

“… I was up (on the space station) for five months and it really gave time to think and time to look at the world, actually to steal 90 minutes at one point and just float by the window and watch the world, go round the world once with nothing to do but ponder it.

And I think probably the biggest personal change was a loss of the sense of the line between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

It’s really we sort of teach it to our children, you know. Don’t talk to strangers, this is us. This is our whatever – our family, our house, our neighbors, our relatives, your school.

It slowly grows where the line between us and them is. I’ve been around the world thousands of times, 2, 593 times – and that line we impose on ourselves of where us ends and them starts, just keeps diminishing and it wasn’t conscious. I noticed maybe a third of the way into my half year stint up there that I just started referring to everybody as ‘us’. Unconsciously there was some sort of transition in my mind that ‘Hey, we’re all in this together.’

And I think you come across any city in Australia and you see the pattern of the downtown and the suburbs and the surrounding farms and the water and the rail and the communications, just the standard human pattern. And then if you just wait until you cross the Pacific – takes about 25 minutes and then you come across the Americas and there’s that exact same pattern again. And then you wait another 20 minutes and you come across northern Africa – and there’s that exact same pattern again.

And we solve the same problems the same way, all over the world. It’s just ‘us’ and everybody just wants some grace and better chances for their children and a chance to laugh, understand it all. And that inclusionary feeling was all pervasive and unavoidable, having seen the world the way I’ve seen it and it was part of my motivations in doing my best to share it when I came back.”

- Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/an-astronaut27s-guide-to-life3a-chris-hadfield/5653184

That astronaut has a vocation now because he has a story to tell, he has a story to tell because he has a calling to fulfill.

We are mentors for our students as they discover their purpose for being here, at Eureka, and on this planet. That is what you are – a mentor! They are listening to you, watching you. Hearing you tell your story, and watching you live your truth. Your story of what is truly important to you, and to us. If we do that faithfully and well, they will get it. And if the college faithfully tells the stories that light us from within, the stories that are ours and ours alone, the stories that point to a truth greater than the story-teller, then the world will know Eureka College.

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