If there is ever a daunting period in my week, it is that leading up to the deadline for this article. Inevitably, I ask the question: Why do I do this? Who am I to write a sentence about spirituality, much less some five-hundred words, more or less?

Then, I picked up the book I had mentioned a few articles ago: Why Faith Matters by David J. Wolfe, the chapter on What Does Religion Really Teach?, to be exact. He tells us that looking up at the night sky is both frightening and promising.

Does it show emptiness or the sparkle of design?

In the years when he denied the possibility of design, he felt as though he were so wise and strong, he could face the universe without the support of faith, an atheist, what Harry Emerson Fosdick described as “the theoretical formulation of a discouraged life.” Volpe tells us that faith is not the child of hope. Belief bestows hope.

Later, he goes on to say that, in a period of remission from cancer, he prayed, not that he be saved, but that God stay close – connection, not magic.

He explains that in prayer some believe that you ar pulling God closer to you, but in fact, God is pulling you closer to God. His prayer, that he might be healed of cancer, was a prayer, stripped of all its utmost layers, to be assured that whatever happened would be all right. Volpe believes that every prayer prayed in this way is a prayer for peace.

One evening, as a rabbi, he was called to pray at the bedside of a dying woman in a coma. He felt confused, unworthy, and told his wife his feelings. She told him he was right. He was unworthy, “which is why God worked through you.”

As we face a New Year, filled with hopes and fears, let us pray and trust that God is always pulling us toward Him, and surrender to the tug of His rope. God bless you, and you, and you, and all of us.

Happy New Year!
With love, and hope, and peace, Amen.
Ruth

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