“So, Dad. I have never asked you this question, and I think it is about time. What is your theology?” I asked one day during a visit to my parent’s house.
I had to ask, because he had never volunteered the answer himself. After
all, it was Dad who mastered the fine art of sleeping soundly through
the sermon in church without ever twitching a muscle. As
a kid, I was very impressed at his ability to sleep sitting bolt-upright on a hard pew. Of course, he stays awake when he comes to hear me preach. He’s proud of me, and makes that special effort no matter what I might utter. But my goal as a minister always has been to preach in a way that would keep him awake even if I wasn’t his beloved son!
He never complained about what he heard in church when I was growing up, whether the sermon kept him awake or put him to sleep. That was true even when he wasn’t as hard of hearing as he is now. For him, just being in the pew was an adequate statement of faith. His church is his community, an extension of his family, which is his highest value. In sleep and in wakefulness, Don Burklo
is rock-solid in his devotion to the people he loves.
Dad never spouted dogma, doctrine, or beliefs about religion to me. His religion is simple. At
night, when we kids were all asleep, or pretending to be asleep, he
would open the bedroom door and stand there and look at us worshipfully
for a while, and then quietly close the door. I caught him doing that many times, and it was all the religious education I ever needed from him. To
this day, he still stands outside whenever we leave after a visit, and
he smiles sweetly at us until our car disappears around the bend. His wife and kids and grandkids are all the evidence he needs for the existence of God.
I
was infected, early in my life, by his sense of awe and wonderment in
the face of the natural world during our camping trips and travels as a
family. He
made no attempt to wrap it up in religious lingo, as I tend to do, but
he made it clear to me that in the beauty of earth and sky, he sensed
the reality of God.
“So, Dad, what’s your theology?” I asked.
“Well, that won’t take long to answer,” he laughed. “But you will have to ask on a starry night.”
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Receive A Spiritual Affirmation
Go to this website:
http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/frameset.php?frame1=talk
and type in the "enter text" box:
"You are a child of God and unconditional love is your inheritance."
Set the "voice" to "Audrey UK".
Then click "say it!"
Receive your affirmation and pass it along.
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For a look at a very funny but pithy "viral video" for Evolution Sunday, which is this weekend, 2/11, go to www.crosswalkamerica.org
. Also on that site is a podcast interview by Eric Elnes of Dr. Joan
Roughgarden, author of "Evolution and Christian Faith". I interviewed
her for last week's "musing" - she'll be speaking at Sausalito
Presbyterian this Sunday at 9:30 worship.