A counter comment is always welcome

I receive many responses to the columns that I write. Some are angry rebuttals, some are gentle corrections and some are affirmations. I mostly do not reply. There are too many of them. To some I respond with a genuine “thank you.” Others initiate an email conversation.

One of my readers is Owen Vigeon, a retired English Episcopal priest. He is a very fine poet and sends me poetry that is pertinent to a particular column. With his permission, I have used some of his poetic material in columns. When he read my recent column about the Big Bang, he quickly wrote a poem in response. With his permission, I am sharing the poem with all my readers.

With a very modern telescope, you can see a million years.

And very nearly penetrate existence’s frontiers.

We marvel at the vastness that defies imagination,

The beauty of the galaxies, and the physics great equations.

We seek to solve the mystery of big bang’s first great function,

To find a way to co-relate the macro-micro junction.

You see them on the telly, “Mathematical high priests.”

And marvel at the intellects of these physicistic beasts.

We see a blackboard full of chalk and formulas forever.

Our timid minds retreat in shame because we are not clever.

But then we recollect that these are not the first great seekers,

And modern science not the first to claim the great “eurekas”

For those who search the mystery of how things came to be,

Have since the dawn of history reached out to find the key.

And souls as great as any minds we see at work today

Have thought computerless to learn what universities say.

And those who gave their lives to this as pilgrims of the heart,

Will tell us that the intellect is not where we should start.

By thinking we shall never find the source of our totality,

But love alone can lead us to discover “singularity.”

I hope my response to Owen was adequate. I wrote to him that in our search for salvation (wholeness) it will always be the poet, the song writer and the storyteller who will show us the way.

Earlier today I watched Simon Schama’s “The Story of the Jews” on television. I expected history. I watched a story. The history that is used in the story is important and I recognize it as being acceptably accurate. But history reporting is clearly not the goal of the film; rather, it is an attempt to explain why Jews have survived and even thrived in the face of incredible misunderstanding, persecution, hatred, torture and utter rejection. My reaction to the film was affirmative. Yes, Jews are a great people unlike any other clan that has roamed the earth, unlike any other clan that I have known over my lifetime.

I have often pondered the specialness of Jews. Did God choose the Israelite clan to be a special people? I have long suspected that it was the other way around. The Israelites chose the Lord God to be their only God.

This commitment to God is clearly articulated in the Shema. In a faithful Jewish household, the words of the Shema are the first words learned by a child. This special confession is repeated daily and is a part of all Jewish ritual. Shema is the Hebrew word for “hear.” The full first sentence of the Shema is: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”

As recorded in the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, the paragraph continues: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of these when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

When this command is faithfully turned into daily practice, the imprint on mind and heart are indelible. It is Simon Schama’s point-of-view that the Shema imprinted on mind and heart and the daily reinforcement of the Shema message that have made the Jews the distinct people that they are. This total commitment does not allow for compromise or assimilation. Jews over their history have adjusted to all kinds of distasteful and painful circumstances, but their commitment to Shema simply does not waiver.

Owen Vigeon’s poem and Simon Schama’s “The Story of the Jews” make the same point. Compared to the commitments of the heart, the Big Bang is a minor footnote in the pages of human history. Love alone can lead us to discover “singularity.”

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

Opinions expressed on the Faith page are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, its staff or its parent company, Wick Communications Co. To submit a column or other news for the Faith page, send email to news@frontiersman.com, or call 352-2250.