By Greg Pence '06
May 3, 2007
Rollins Chapel
John 8:32
I’m thankful for the opportunity to speak with you today. I’m supposed to
give my thoughts on faith and reason, and whether or not I judge both can
co-exist, or even better, harmonize to illuminate God’s world.
The world seems a pretty dark place right now. So where’s the nightlight?
That seems like a reasonable question to me.
The last time I was standing on an altar (or I guess this is a rug, huh?) I
was a thirteen-year old altar boy. Don’t be fooled. I was not a New
Testament altar boy. I did not smile. I did not sing songs. I did not
frolic. I made a point to be an Old Testament altar boy. I
glared at wealthy churchgoers. I marched to receive gifts of bread and water. I
swung the urn around like a mace to make sure the farthest corners did not
escape God’s awesome musk.
I took my job very seriously.
But I’ll let you all in on a little secret. I also enjoyed being an altar
boy. I liked feeling righteous. I liked feeling needed. I liked standing next
to the priest when he delivered his homily. It felt right. I felt safe.
Just in time for puberty, the sexual abuse scandals rocked the Catholic
Church.
Shortly thereafter I was no longer an altar boy but an angst-ridden teen
seeking authenticity in suburbia. I left the altar. The priest stayed.
Maybe my point didn’t come across. Let me try again.
Right now I draw cartoons. I can’t say I draw cartoons for a living.
Yet.
Growing up I liked to read the Sunday Funnies. “The Far Side.” “Calvin and
Hobbes.” Sometimes “Doonesbury.” However, I had a soft spot for “Peanuts.” Here
was a strip that Charles M. Schultz drew every day for fifty years without
missing a beat. Not one cartoon missed. Not one reader neglected.
But his work was no longer original. Jokes lacked creativity and
inspiration. Critics and naysayers said Shultz should have retired decades ago.
Even I sometimes skipped panels to the punch-line. The old man was getting
repetitive.
And then there’s the classic football joke. You all know this one, right?
The sardonic Lucy van Pelt asks the naïve Charlie Brown to kick a football. He
invariably agrees. She sets the ball, he charges, the punt-of-a-lifetime seems
assured. But then she pulls the football away at the last moment, sending
Charlie reeling into the air only to land with a thud and the one-liner, “Good
Grief.”
This joke was funny when I was younger. As I grew older, however, losing
became less funny. My respect and admiration for Schultz slowly became disdain
and even scorn. Why did he insist on the same tired joke?
Why was Schultz’s hero a joke?
By sixteen I’ve stopped reading comics all together. I liked gangster rap
and hanging out with friends.
I was very angry. I was also authentic.
Schultz died on February 13th, 2000, the evening before his last
cartoon was to be published. He once said, “My life has no purpose, no
direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What
am I doing right?”
Sorry, again. Maybe my point didn’t come across. One last try, I
promise.
So Jesus is at the Garden at Gethsemane. It’s nighttime. His close friends
are outside the gates, asleep when they should be awake. Jesus is upset. Really
upset. He knows the end is coming and he’s praying. He’s praying so hard he’s
sweating blood. The Son of Man is a mess.
He looks to the sky and asks for God’s intercession. Nothing happens. No
angels. No chariots. No miracles.
The moon flips Jesus the bird.
Jesus flips the bird back at the moon. He doesn’t run away. He stays. And
His world ends the next day.
Can faith and reason co-exist; can they harmonize to illuminate God’s love?
Maybe. But does that make sense in a world that abandons love, that mocks love,
and that kills love? Isn’t love, in fact, totally unreasonable, totally
irrational, and totally crazy? Can’t love be destructive?
I can’t answer all these questions. They’re way too big and I’m way too
small. But for some reason I now love the priest, the cartoonist, and the
Man-God now more than ever.
And I have faith that my love will be a reason for my life.
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