We were watching the news this morning when Katharine nudged me and asked me to look at what she had found on Facebook. You won’t believe this, she said. It was a post from an old grade school friend touting his newly published book. Back in the day he was a football hero, student body president, member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes… You know. He has just retired from his career with American Airlines at age fifty-nine. His new book (his previous books chronicled his professional life as an airline pilot) is entitled Solving the Money Puzzle: God’s plan for Financial Freedom… Yeah, I know.
The author opines that the book is a must read for all ages but most especially for young people planning for their financial future using biblical principles. It would make a great graduation gift, he says. My first thought was that the biblical principles concerning wealth demand that one give one’s wealth away for the good of one’s neighbor… maybe I read it wrong. But upon further thought, this book, or at least the title thereof, smacks of what’s wrong with the theological kitsch that passes for Christianity these days. One, this theology is all about the individual’s self-importance as the center of the religious enterprise, and two, it holds certainty as possible and necessary. Just follow God’s plan and everything will be alright. God’s plan for financial freedom? Just be an airline pilot.
As well we all know, if we but pay attention, life is anything but certain. There is no promise of certainty in scripture, nor of financial success, nor of good health, that our children turn out the way we think they should; no promise that we won’t suffer. And most of all, scripture tells us that life is not a solitary journey, but a journey among friends, a journey necessarily wrought in community. And it is an improbable journey… One thing for certain about a journey is that it will never be what we expect. The future will arrive certainly…. but always an improbable surprise… for us and for God I think. Such is the creative process. The only so-called plan amid the joy and pain of life is that we improvise creatively using the gifts engendered among us.
The pathos of life, its comic and tragic dimensions, its very beauty, lie in its improbability. The life of the psyche, the soul, the life of faith, is ambiguous, improbable. It defies the illusion of a prescribed order. The word journey from its Latin root simply means “of a day.” We live in an eternal present improvising the way ahead, each new day a new creation unto itself… each new day the only reality spawned for improbable, infinite possibility…. each new day a leg of the journey and the journey entire, mysterious, beautiful, improbable. Life’s meaning and beauty are found in its improbability.
To live our lives “of a day” is to, ironically enough, experience the fullness of life. Resurrection Life is an outward and visible symbol of such fullness. The two pilgrims in Luke’s story called the walk to Emmaus encounter on their journey of a day the risen Christ. It is an improbable encounter, mysterious, surprising. The pilgrims at first don’t recognize Jesus. It is not until their fellowship is deepened along the road in passionate conversation, and not until they break bread together, until they have established deep empathy, that they see the risen Christ… and the encounter is fleeting, but profoundly memorable, lasting… Such is the life of a day: We embrace the life we have together amid the improbability of life in its unlikely becoming, and in the space of a day we break bread, share our epic soul stories; own them with all due passion… And there among us is life, life enough for a day, and hope for the day to come… That is all there is, and it is enough… as improbable as it will be.
