The Art of Zen Navigation

The hero of ‘Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul’ (the book by Douglas Adams),  Dirk Gently espouses the practice of Zen navigation when trying to find his way to a particular location. According to Gently this practice requires that if you become lost or unsure of your way you should follow someone that looks like they know where they are going and follow them. You may not get to your original destination, but you may discover some interesting things along the journey.

I have used this method when trying to navigate labyrinthine road networks or find a way home after a popular event, sometime successfully, and sometimes not. The consequences of those actions may have resulted in some time loss or disappointment but rarely more than that. However the same technique when applied to navigating through the more complex issues of life can have more significant consequences.

Yet, it seems that for many of us we are quite content to do that. In our search for meaning and truth we will often attach ourselves to some prominent and perhaps well-meaning individual who seem to have the answers and follow them. This is no more obvious than in the pursuit of religious truth and knowledge.

The recent panoply of celebrity religious leaders who have fallen into difficulty should serve as a precautionary notice, but if we know anything from history, we will probably take little notice. In recent times prominent leaders have fallen over for reasons ranging from tax fraud, misappropriation of funds, inappropriate contact with minors, verbal and emotional abuse of those under their care and questionable doctrine to name a few. What we can learn is that to blindly follow any religious leader (even those who profess the same faith that we do) is fraught with danger. All men and women are prone to disappoint and none can claim infallibility. Sadly, though, it seems that we would much rather take the road followed by many than make sure that it is the right road.

Following a leader who is convinced they know where they are going may be interesting, even exciting but it may also lead us to the wrong destination. History is littered with examples of sincere people who have blindly followed populist leaders in every arena of life, only to have their dreams and sometimes their lives destroyed.

Jesus offered an antidote to this malaise. He confidently declared that he was the way and the truth, and if you wanted to find your way to your father in heaven, your only option was to follow him. To aid us in this task he provided us with a road map for life that we call the bible. But just like in more recent times, not all of us are that good at reading maps so he also provided a navigational aid, which he called the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit was sent to those that received him on the day of Pentecost and for the years after that those new believers met together to discuss the journey ahead and to agree on the best way to take, with the benefit of this Spirit of Truth.

In more customary language we understand this to mean that a relationship with Jesus himself is the only way to discover truth and it as those who share this relationship meet together that the Holy Spirit discloses truth to them. Each of us has the privilege and responsibility to discover the pathway though the journey of life before us. We will not find it by simply following some enthusiastic, gifted and prominent leader but though a relationship with the author of life and in community with those that we share the road with. Christians are a privileged people, they have been told the way, in the bible, received the gift of the Holy Spirit and communion of others who share the same faith. These things working together will provide all the guidance we need to chart our way through the uncertain journey that lies before us.

God of the Gaps

In 1894 Henry Drummond wrote: ‘There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps. Gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps?’

While this is possibly the first time ‘God of the gaps’ was used in literature, the concept was not new. Many years earlier Hippocrates wrote:  “People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe”

For many God is simply the interim answer to those gaps in our knowledge that we have yet to fill with scientific discovery. An ‘act of God’ is a term used on an insurance claim to explain something out of the control of human kind. When we don’t understand or can’t find an explanation we invoke the name of God. This is very convenient but it relegates the whole idea or person of God to the limits of our understanding. It makes God a creature rather than the creator of our intellect.

God is real and he is personal. He does not want to be limited to the role of filling the gaps of our experience or knowledge. God expects to be a part of every aspect of our life and understanding. He is the reason for our existence and the ultimate purpose of our lives. How does God fit into our experience? Do we like so many others relegate him to finding solutions to those matters that we cannot solve for ourselves, or do we invite him to participate fully in all that we do and want to become? Is prayer a last act of desperation after we have exhausted our capacity and resources or do we turn to him first of all expecting him to engage with us in finding solutions to the problems we face? Has God become the God of the gaps in our life, do we limit him to ‘spiritual’ matters or is he an active partner in all of our experience?

The idea of a ‘God of the gaps’ was once a popular means of trying to prove the existence of God. But God doesn’t need to be proved, he doesn’t require the authentication of human, and necessarily limited, intellect. He needs to be honoured, acknowledged and worshiped. Don’t try to fill up the gaps in your life with God, instead enter a personal relationship in which he fills all of your life and gives new meaning and expression to how you live it.