by Jeffrey Bell-Hanson

Dear Readers, I am in a moment of crisis. The realization dropped on me this morning as I knelt at the altar to receive communion. Had it not happened then and there, the weight of it might have crushed me. For those of you who do not profess a religious faith, I promise that this post is not specifically about mine, and is no effort to proselytize. It does begin, however, with the premise that everyone has faith in something, like the love of a parent, sibling or spouse, her own resourcefulness, perhaps that the sun will rise each morning, or simply the earth under his feet.

I realize, of course, that it is easy to sense an atmosphere of crisis just now. The Caribbean seems intent on launching one massive storm after another at us, parts of the west are burning out of control, our neighbors are wracked by deadly earthquakes, tribalism is on the rise around the world, there are wars and rumors of wars that seem louder and more imminent with each passing hour, and there seems no escape from the disfunction in our society that was once covered with a veneer of civility. What progress we thought we had made appears to be crumbling away, uncovering a cruder, meaner and harsher reality that it has been all too easy for some of us to ignore.

What hit me this morning was not that I was living among crises, but that I am in a crisis, and have been for years. I have been able to distract myself from it with the world around me until now. But in trying to escape the turmoil without I have finally had to face the turmoil within. Its sources are mine alone to confront. What mattered most in that moment of realization was knowing to what I could cling; how to affirm my faith.

Three things presented themselves immediately. One was a story that I heard for the first time this morning in the pastor’s sermon. An American missionary was asked to leave China after the end of World War II, and on the way found himself in India among a community of German Jewish refugees. He cashed in his ticket home to buy them the German pastries that they had told him they so missed, as Christmas gifts. When they said to him, “but we don’t celebrate Christmas,” he replied that it didn’t matter. He did.

That story reminded me of two Methodist pastors that I knew, one from Michigan, the other from Omagh, Northern Ireland, who exchanged pulpits for a month in the late summer of 1998. The pastor from Michigan was there in Omagh when a bomb took more lives than any other incident during “the troubles.” The pastor from Omagh returned to his city as soon as he could, but in the meantime, both of them agreed that the pastor from Michigan would stand with the people in this afflicted place and render whatever token of God’s love that he could—which he did, not from any special connection with them, but because of his connection with his faith.

Standing in faith is not, however, only something motivated by religious belief. It is rooted in knowing in one’s core who one is and what one is about, and then remaining determined to be that person and to do that thing no matter what tumult comes one’s way. Which brings me to Leonard Bernstein, who famously said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

Yes, dear readers, I am in crisis, facing a headwind, as perhaps many of you are too. If you pray, pray for me, as I will for you. If not, keep me in your thoughts, as I will you in mine. Remembering who we are and what we are about, we will stand together against the wind.