Powerful Literature

I am fascinated with Quantum Change stories. Read my blog post for an explanation.

In last week's post, Our Resourceful God I mention two Russian literary powerhouses, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Though they never met, they lived and wrote during the same period in the 19th century. Both men had interesting religious conversion experiences, which empowered them to affect spiritual awakening in a dark period into the future, during the Communist Soviet era.

I like the dramatic story of Dostoevsky (1821-1881), whose writings continue to show up on the lists of "top 100" novels of all time. Philip Yancey, best-selling American Christian author calls The Brothers Karamazov the greatest novel ever written. Anyone who has ever attempted, and succeeded, in slogging through the dense material (paragraphs can run on for many pages!) and heavy themes, (and keeping up with all those Russian names and nicknames!) is rewarded by an insight that is potentially life-changing.

What makes Dostoevsky's plot and characters so relevant, more than 130 years after his death?
His literary works delve into the troubled human condition of 19th-century Russia which is not so different from the troubled human condition of any era.

The young intellectual Fyodor was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for attending secret Utopian society meetings which the Czar Nicholas I believed were subversive. A few years into his Siberian imprisonment, he learned that his sentence, along with many other prisoners, had been changed to execution by firing squad. While Dostoevsky waited his turn, three prisoners, clothed in white burial cloaks, were matched in front of the armed men, kissed a cross offered by a priest, tied to a stake, caps pulled down over their eyes, and waited for the guns leveled at them to fire. The prisoners waited in cruel, exaggerated suspense. Then the guns were lowered and the caps removed. It had been a malicious hoax.

Dostoevsky immediately wrote his brother about how the experience had changed him:

"When I look back on my life and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift . . . I will be reborn for the better."

While still in prison, Dostoevsky was the recipient of a peasant's unwavering friendship. One day the peasant looked at Dostoevsky with overwhelming brotherly love, and another layer of Dostoevsky's soul was peeled away:

"When I got off the plank bed and gazed around, I suddenly felt that I could look on these unfortunates with quite different eyes, and suddenly, as if by a miracle, all hatred and rancor had vanished from my heart."

Dostoevsky went on to write some of the most powerful literature in the history of Russia, awakening a spiritual  yearning in future Russian intellectual heavyweights in the 1970s like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn was exiled to the United States in 1974 because his writings raised global awareness of injustices in the USSR, for which he had earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

A great paradox. Out of suffering often comes life-changing insights and victory. One of Jesus' most repeated themes in the Gospels it that one most lose his life to save it, not physical death, but death of "Self," followed by rebirth in the Truth of God.

The most compelling "proof" of God? A changed life.

Our Resourceful God

I have been off my writing schedule lately, and on a speaking one. I will be honest. I much prefer writing, where I can pour out thoughts, edit, cut, paste, save, revise, save, and sleep on it before I hit publish. People listening to me practicing being a speaker probably think I am still following those steps!

One group I had the pleasure and honor of speaking with was a group consisting mostly of young mothers. They had recently finished reading But the Greatest of These is Love as their Bible study book. (The very idea is humbling!) As we sat around a table sharing questions and comments, some expressed their fear in ever studying a book like Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God. I wrote of the power of that study to open my eyes in 2000 and expand my faith exponentially. My new faith came with a high cost—obedience to do the unthinkable—to adopt a Russian orphan in 2002.

My new mom friends found this surrender to God's will as challenging as I had. Small wonder! No one wants a comfortable life disrupted, least of all me, but I cannot deny that the changes were all positive, and the consequences continue to this day. Has it been easy? Never! But it has been life-transforming in surprising and life-affirming ways!

We know that God's plan for us is the best, but we are fearful just how destructive that plan will be to our comfortable lives.

I quelled the fears of the guarded young moms, or maybe not, when I said that if God had not used Blackaby's book, He would have used another. I believe God could have used any means to reveal Himself to me at my time of seeking.

I think back to class assignments from college days, when youth and fear of falling behind in assigned reading prevented me from absorbing the message of two 19th Century Russia novelists. Tolstoy's and Dostoevsky's writing kept popping up on this English major's syllabuses. (Maybe that is why I eventually became an Art major!) As a slow reader, I will admit to using Cliff Notes to slog through the dense material, otherwise, I truly couldn't keep up. I wouldn't learn until decades later how influential these writers were, especially in their own country when it would become the godless Soviet Union.

 Malcolm Muggeridge, British World War II soldier, spy, and journalist, was an early Communist sympathizer. But by the time I was in college in the 1970s he was an outspoken anti-communist. Yet, he was surprised to learn that many Soviet intellectuals, writers, artists, and musicians in the early 1970s were experiencing a spiritual awakening. Muggeridge interviewed Anatoli Kuznetsov, Russian writer and defector to England, asking how this was possible, given the "anti-religious brainwashing job" done on the citizens of the U.S.S.R., and the banning and removal of all Christian literature, including the Bible and the Gospels. Kuztensov's response was memorable—the authorities had failed to remove the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, which he called "the most perfect expositions of the Christian faith of modern times."

God could use any means to reveal Himself.

Tolstoy and Dostoevsky both had interesting conversion stories, or Quantum Changes, described in a former post. Their stories deserve a post all their own. One day!

The Power lies not in the words of the authors, no matter how great, but in God Himself! This gives me hope. Grim statistics about the secularization of American paint a dismal picture, as in this article, Atheism to Defeat Religion by 2038. But, as the former, godless Soviet Union can attest, according to  this article, Russia emerges as Europe's most God-believing nation, God cannot be blotted from existence, simply by denying Him.

Our resourceful God is in the business of spiritual awakening.

Science versus Religion?

Since I published But the Greatest of These is Love last fall, started this blog, and began the tedious task of book promotion, I have become acquainted with social networks. I have recently joined a few "religious" forums to share what I have learned along my journey, and learn from others.

I am getting quite an education. I believe I have discovered what "Free Thinkers," (atheists) discuss at their meetings. Suggestions must include: "Join religious forums and redicule believers." I am dismayed by some of the "discussions" on "Religion" forums that go something like this: "God is real." "Is not." "Is too." "Is not." No kidding. Sure, the language is sometimes a little more sophisticated, but the sentiment is the same. When the "conversation" becomes demeaning, disrespectful, and antagonistic, I am tempted to take my ball (or computer) and go home. One atheist responded recently to one of my comments about faith by saying that I pray to the "baboon in the sky." Very mature. It sounded like the equivalent of "your god wears army boots."

God certainly doesn't need me to defend Him. But believers who haven't been on the journey long might be knocked off course for a while by insulting insinuations of ignorance, and worse. Apparently, atheists come at their "beliefs" on the basis of "Science," and the accusation of "no proof" of God. I am learning that organized atheists often resemble any other belief systems, proselytizing to the masses, fighting for converts,  intolerant of differing opinions. Interesting that "intolerance" is the sin they will not tolerate in religious types!

So, I had to ask myself, are most scientists atheists? Certainly not the scientists I know. (Granted, this artist/writer's eyes are tempted to glaze over at the mention of science, but this post and the accompanying material is even simple enough for me to understand, so please stay with me.)  

According to a Science Daily article, a study by Rice University suggests that only 15%, of scientists at major research universities see religion and science as incompatible. So the large majority, 85% consider both religion and science as "valid avenues of knowledge that can bring broader understanding to important ideas."

Works for me.

Many scientists have followed the evidence where it led them, to a belief in a Higher Power.  Francis Collins, current director of the National Institutes of Health, was an atheist evolving to agnosticism, searching for answers about God when his life was transformed 35 years ago by reading C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. (Lewis was, coincidentally, an atheist once too, until debating the absurdity of Christian beliefs with his close friend, J. R. R. Tolkien, a believer, when the proverbial Light bulb went on.) Collins wrote The Language of God, describing his work with human DNA, a code, a language, that, in his educated opinion, required an author—God. 

Michael Behe, a PhD biochemist, is an  "Intelligent Design" advocate. Despite much progress by science in understanding the complexity of biochemical systems, Behe feels that the progress has been insufficient in explaining  how such complex systems could evolve in a slow, gradual Darwinian fashion, instead of all at once. This short video illustrates Behe's point using flagella as his example. He is a scientist. I am not a scientist. While I can't quite wrap my head around flagella, I have always been curious about birds, with their wings evolving slowing and gradually over millions of years. How did they evolve into birds and not become extinct, as in prey, as they flopped around unable to fly. 

What I am discovering about science and scientists is not news to me. If atheists are hanging their hats on science to be their savior from God, they are not looking past the blinders on their hat brims. 

"A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world."  Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. Taylor is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate (1993), for his co-discovery of a new type of pulsar. (I am not sure what a pulsar is, but I trust it is important, if its discovery merits a Nobel Prize.)

The easiest to understand science quote for me is from Sir Francis Bacon, " A little science estranges a man from God, a lot of science brings him back."

I have a dream

 I am saddened that, in 2013, we are still having a conversation about racism. Fifty years have passed since Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his speech that has come to be know as the "I have a dream" speech. What was King's dream? That we should not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. We should all strive to make that dream a reality!

In the years that followed the speech, racism seemed to quell for a time. Now, again, we are experiencing racially motivated hatred, on all fronts. Why do we find it so hard to love our fellow man? Why can't we at least be nice to one another?  How is our character defining us? What is keeping this foul pot of racism stirred?

Lots of unanswered questions.

We have no control over what what sex we are born, or in what country we were born. Nor do we get to chose our personality type, our intellect, color skin, or the color of our eyes.  We can work hard and set our mind on a goal, but there are some things, regardless of what common trends in education and parenting teach us, we will just not be able to achieve. I can practice for years, but I will never be able to sing. (Well, I sing, but it doesn't sound like music!)

I was raised in the south, notorious for racism, yet I felt that racism was on the wane in the early 1970's when I was in high school. We had friends who were black. ("Black"was the proper name to call an African American then.)There was smart Roslyn, lovely Geraldine and Cynthia, "hot" Troy, very tall Jeff.  We were coming out of a very dark period in American history. We were trying, and making progress.  We were proud to have one of the first black football coaches in a newly integrated school, (think Remember the Titans after the students' enlightenment and transformation) who was the subject of a book, Black Coach. Everyone loved Coach Jerome Evans. It was "cool" to be tolerant and loving.

The more we practiced, the more it became real. 

Reminiscent of "The Help," I had a black . . . maid? . . . nanny? . . family member? I am not sure what to call Christine. She watched us three children while Mama, a single mother, worked. We were not wealthy, by any standard except happiness, so there was no "social class" differences between Christine's family and ours. Christine called us on our birthdays long after we required her care. She and my mother still go to lunch occasionally, when one of the children help them with their walkers. I still send Christine Christmas cards. We loved, and still love, Christine. (Update, both Christine and my mother died in 2014.)

Now fast forward more years than I can believe, we are again dealing with ugly discrimination. It isn't one sided. Where does such hatred come from? As a kid, I knew an old man who was an unashamed racist. His hatred made him ugly and terrifying.

The following video is rather long, but very captivating. It is from my era. Maybe it was training like this that made us more accepting, less judgmental. Let's try it again.

And let me be perfectly clear, I love you all, even those of you with blue eyes!

Learn something from the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s

Quantum Change

It isn't likely that many readers will identify with Ebeneezer Scrooge. He was a hardhearted, miserable miser until, in the course of one night, he made a 180 degree turnaround, transforming into a giddy, compassionate, altruist.  Does this kind of change happen in real life?

For most of us, change happens so gradually it goes unnoticed until we look back and everything is different. For some of us, change is more startling.

William R. Miller and Janet D'de Baca, PhD clinical psychologists and teachers of traditional approaches to self-improvement, became intrigued by stories of clients' experiences of sudden, dramatic change. Miller and D'de Baca placed an ad in a local newspaper for people to share their stories of unexpected, personal transformations. They were shocked by the deluge and content of responses .


They were struck by the diversity of the responses, and also by the common thread that ran through them. The personal testimonies included "bolt-from-the-blue" and "seeing-the-light" types of mystical encounters to  life-changing insights and "powerful, sudden moments of consciousness." (I describe my own transformation experience in But the Greatest of These is Love as "the scales falling off my eyes.)

To document their data, Miller and D'de  Baca published  Quantum Change, When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives (2001). They define Quantum Change as being marked my four elements: vivid, surprising, benevolent, and enduring. It is vivid in that it is an identifiable, distinctive, and memorable moment when the transformation occurred, or at least began. The person is aware that something extraordinary has happened, providing the element of surprise, or awe. Even though the experience is often unsettling, there is a benevolent quality to the event, an overwhelming quality of "loving kindness" surrounding it. The change is enduring. Even decades after the event, the transformation is still intact.

These transformations are mostly dismissed by the Western world  as delusions (Science) or presumption (Religion). But the "evidence" exists in a changed life. Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx would have likely scoffed at the idea of Quantum Change, yet, William James, their contemporary, often referred to as the father of American psychology, wrote about the same phenomena in The Varieties of Religious Experience (originally published in 1902 and still available today). Stories of Quantum Change are common among spiritual giants like St. Paul, St. Augustine, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Teresa. In fact, most spiritual giants have a Quantum Change story.  The experience has shaped the lives of great thinkers and writers like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and C. S. Lewis, who said he got on a bus an atheist, and got off, a believer. Quantum Change has been the impetus of many social reformers like Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, and Bill Wilson.

After my spiritual metamorphosis in 2000, a friend who was aware of my experience, shared an article from Christianity Today which led me to this book, which I immediately ordered, ravenously read, and wrote Dr. Miller. He wrote me back, stating that Quantum Change isn't as rare as one might think. People hesitate to talk about their experience because of the inadequacy of words to describe their experience,  and they "feel odd." I understood this awkward difficulty. Still, it gave me hope. Miller described himself in the letter, not in the book, as a "devote Christian" and described these as "born again" experiences. Yes, me too!

In the surveys of respondents, Changers reported their priorities reversed. Characteristics that seemed important before the change, like wealth, pleasure, attractiveness, abruptly diminished in importance. The biggest single gain was in the priority given to spirituality, which previously had been at the bottom or close. Many reported that Quantum Change was a process, a series of changes, like a "primary earthquake, followed by a series of aftershocks." Many Changers felt moved to acts of compassion and service to others. My experience paved the way for my adoption of an older Russian boy.

The final chapter, "Message to Humankind," sums up that Changers acknowledge there is a Truth in the experience, "sensing a great Whole of which all humans are a part" (Italics mine). A common theme in the aftermath of Quantum Change is humility, and a feeling of unworthiness of the experience. And immense gratitude. I must be a textbook example—I related to all "symptoms."

 Read the book, (and mine!) Consider your own spiritual journey. If you have experienced a Quantum Change, be it an epiphany or a sudden insight that sparked change, please leave me a message. Share your testimony. You are in excellent company!

The Good Life

I am not a big fan of war movies. I spend most of the time shielding my eyes from the gore and violence.

Saving Private Ryan is one of the few exceptions. Set during the Normandy invasion in World War II, Steven Spielberg's 1998 masterpiece chronicles the mission to find and remove from combat one Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon). Ryan's three brothers, all soldiers, have been killed in recent days in combat.  Captain John W. Miller (Tom Hanks) has the mission of locating Pvt. Ryan and returning him safely to his mother.  General George C. Marshall has issued the order himself, believing that three sons were more than  any mother should have to contribute to the war.

My favorite part was the end when the Allies stormed in for the surprise rescue, but unfortunately, too late to save Capt. Miller. As he lay dying, he struggles to leave Pvt. Ryan with one enduring directive, "James, earn this . . . Earn it."

"Earn this." Ryan's rescue came at a high cost. Of the eight soldiers commissioned to save him, only two returned relatively unscathed.

As Ryan kneels close to the dead captain, his face transitions to that of an old man visiting the Normandy American cemetery with his family, fifty years later. The elderly man kneels by his captain's grave. Ryan explains to Miller that he has tried to live a good life. He hopes he has. Unsatisfied, he turns to his family standing back. "Tell me I've led a good life . . . Tell me I'm a good man."

We instinctively understand why Ryan feels compelled to live a good life, as payment for the sacrifice of his captain and the others. But why is goodness the payment for the debt? Why not revenge, by killing all former Nazis?

While he was still an atheist, C.S. Lewis struggled with what he saw as a mystery, when confronted with what he called the "Law of  (Human) Nature" or the "Rule of Right and Wrong." He experienced an uncomfortable, nagging suspicion that he might be wrong about his belief in no god. He wrote in Mere Christianity that people seem to be appealing to a standard of behavior that all parties are aware of. "If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently?" Where does this innate sense of decency or fairness come from? What is this standard?

I have recently joined an online "faith" forum where I can post my ideas along with others. I feel "called" to write. For God! No pressure!

I am amazed at the strong presence of atheists on these sites. They ask challenging, thought-provoking questions, present good arguments, provide videos expounding the wisdom of their gods, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and mentor vulnerable converts. Their have their own religion! Certainly atheists can and do behave decently. As a matter of fact, there have been studies that conclude that they behave better than people of faith.  But the question remains—where does this innate sense of honor come from? Evolution? Survival of the fittest? More thoughts on that another day.

"Evidence" from atheists will not sway me, even though they claim my experience with God, my testimony, is, at best, an illusion, and at worst, a contrived, manipulative hoax. Will we ever find common ground? One day.

Chuck Colson, in his excellent book, The Good Life, which inspired this post, wrote that we are "irresistibly religious."  A French philosopher unknown to me stated that human life is characterized by a "divine restlessness" which puts us on a quest for the meaning of life, a command imprinted on our "unextinguished souls."

We are all on the perennial quest for the meaning of life, and our purpose in it. Ironically that search for meaning is often what gives our lives meaning. We are all searching for something, probably because we are born with knowledge of the Truth, and a desire to know it.

Pope John Paul II summed it up succinctly, " One may define the human being as the one who seeks the truth."

A worthy pursuit! 

Refined by fire

(Roma has read and approved this message!)

My son just got his drivers license yesterday. Finally. I haven't been as eager as he, for I love the fine people of my community. I have been reluctant to put lives in danger by unleashing another teenage alpha male on the road! (If you know Roma, you are shaking your head with gratitude!)

Roma will be 19 soon. I postponed the inevitable as long as possible. Roma is my baby, and maybe I am a little overly protective of him. I need to let him go, even to make his own mistakes, but he has had a head start on practicing mistakes.

"Roma!" I am always saying (and always with an exclamation point!), "Learn from the mistakes of others! You cannot possibly live long enough to make them all yourself!" Big mistake on my part—so now he is doubling up, testing my assumption, accepting my dare!

I pray for his thoughts and actions, and his safety. I lay him down at the feet of God. I want him to linger there, for a nanosecond, or two, at least. But he keeps getting up and running off. Is it my job to keep dragging him back, thrashing in protest?

We adopted Roma eleven years ago from Russia. The story is documented in my book, But the Greatest of These is Love, published last fall. I wrote the book because I could not NOT write it—the book sort of wrote itself. This story is who I have become. It oozes out in my daily life, my conversations, and my on-going, pray-without-ceasing dialogues with God, which usually begin, "God, help me mother Roma." and sometimes include clinched-teeth bargaining with God, even wrestling with God.  (Hey, I am not the first!) My hope in sharing our story is so others will see God in the details of their lives, and be blessed. To recognize the miracles of God's grace is a blessing. To have eyes that have been opened to see the glory of God is a blessing. I hope my story gives hope to others who are wrestling with God about the plan He is revealing to them. God sees the big picture. We do not. God has mysteries that we cannot fathom with our little ant brains.

God doesn't want us to always be like ants. He wants to transform us. Often He refines us by fire. Not literal fire, but by trials, even suffering.  I do not mean to make it sound like raising Roma has been on par with some people's genuine suffering. The biggest trial in my life has not been raising Roma, but surrendering to Got when He revealed His plan for me of adoption when it was not my plan. Getting on board with God's plan was the challenge. And Roma has continued along that path, challenging me! Every day!

"Trials." Sure, trials bring with them many qualities like perseverance, character, and hope, but who signs up for trials?  We would rather be refined by a massage while meditating with a glass of wine. I guarantee more would be signing up for that! But as an old story goes, the process of purifying precious metals is complete only when the one doing the purifying can see his own image reflected in the metal. It is in the process that we are refined.

Is it easy? No! It was never meant to be easy. What do we learn from "easy"? I know I have learned a lot from "hard"!

Through the years, well-meaning friends have stopped just short of asking THE question. I have read it in their skepticism, in their careful comments. Only one person ever verbalized THE question—a middle school teacher who had previously taught my older, calmer children, and had her hands full with my charming, exuberant, bouncy Roma—"Do you ever regret adopting?"

Older adoptions are more complicated, when neglect has had time to complicate a young child's psyche. For a child to spend the first seven years of life in a setting we can not imagine, leaves an impression and an impact that have consequences.

But never for another nanosecond do I regret claiming the jackpot that is Roma. It would be like saying I wish I had never been born. Because of God's impact on my life through Roma, I have been born again. We thought we were saving a little boy from Russia, yet we were the ones who were saved!

Oh, there are moments (MANY) when Roma and I lock horns and my prayer is for Roma's protection from ME! But he is my son in every sense that matters. His love has changed me. For the better. I pray mine has done the same for him.

And as he drives away, I pray for his safety and decisions that come with his new freedom. I have to let him go.

Stop by Facebook, "like" to get updates, and scroll to the beginning, to see more photos of my delightful, exasperating boy! And if you live in the vicinity, keep your eyes peeled for a dark green, 2000 Chevy Impala. I would give you the tag number, but it will be moving too fast to read!

Has my life been blessed? Oh, yeah!

To continue with more "Roma Stories," go to The Hound Of Heaven Winks