THE ISMS BY WHICH WE LIVE

It all happened some years ago in Edina, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. I had gone there from East Harlem in New York City to become the Teaching Minister of the Colonial (Congregational) Church of Edina. A teaching minister position was an effort to recreate the pattern of historic New England Congregationalism where a church had an ordained preacher and an ordained teacher. It turned out to be a wonderful experience

I remember one man who came to a number of my classes, lectures, seminars and sermons. He was a a delightful member of the church with a wonderful, gruff, but kindly demeanor. He also acted in one or two of my plays. In addition to all that, he was an accomplished scientist.

In fact, he was an outstanding geologist, so outstanding he headed up the federal government's geological survey office in Minneapolis. He had responsibility for geologic activity, especially mining, that took place in America's vast western states

One day, after a noontime luncheon study group, he approached. He asked, "would you like to pay a visit to my National Laboratory to become more acquainted with my work?" Indeed, I would, and he arranged the visit.

In the laboratory, there were displays of most every kind of rock and mineral known to man. But then he led me into a unique experience. They had a special machine that could slice pieces of rock into extremely thin paper-like sheets. His people sliced a rock and then put a small piece under a special microscope, a Polaroid microscope. And there was a sight to behold. The various minerals in the rock appeared in different colors. To my surprise, they were not chemically mixed or bonded. They existed side by side as tiny bricks in a building

Looking into the microscope with continued fascination, I asked, "what holds them together? I mean, what holds the different minerals together to form a rock?"

His reply was one that I have never forgotten. He first joked that each mineral had little hooks which fastened to each other. What holds them together? He then pondered. "No one really knows. Pressure, I guess, but no one really knows." If, as we say, the Earth is in many ways as solid as a rock, and perhaps the universe itself consists of solid rock, what holds them together? Ever since, I have had an uncertainty about the supposed fundamental materialist truth, "solid as a rock."

I had another unique experience with rocks, this time in Washington, DC. (No, I was not trying to get through to politicians!) Instead, it was at the National Cathedral's College of Preachers for a weeklong seminar. In our group there were about 15 or 20 ministers and priests from around the country. In the opening session we were asked to introduce ourselves.

We came to a minister from Texas. He said he was 50 years old and had been at his Texas church for about a dozen years. But that was no time at all compared to this. He then held up a geode uncovered in one of the Texas oil fields. He said, "my 50 years of life and my dozen years in the ministry are nothing compared to the years of the geode that geologists estimated to be two or three million years old."

A somewhat reverent hush descended upon the group. But then it was my friend's turn to introduce himself. He said I have been at my church only 10 years and I am only 47 years old. But I can tell you this, I'll take that 10 years of ministry and 47 years of living self-consciousness over millions of years as a lifeless geode unconscious of anything. Spontaneous but polite applause erupted.

Ironically, these two rock experiences form bookends for our discussion of three important "isms" by which we live: materialism, secularism and mysticism. Which is your favorite ism? Which is mine?

(To be continued)