Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

Off and on for years I have considered writing something autobiographical. Many of the people who live in my retirement community, Pilgrim Place, do so, as do some of my academic peers. But I have repeatedly postponed such an enterprise for a variety of reasons and might easily have kept postponing until my ability to carry it out was long gone. Current opportunities and needs always seemed more important. Indeed, I was not sure of what use any autobiography I might write would be.

We all want power. We should not be ashamed of that. Jesus was very powerful, and so were Socrates and Buddha. The question is, what kind of power? Do we want the power to control and limit others, even to injure or kill them? That is not the power embodied in Jesus, Socrates, or Buddha. Their power was the power to inspire, to persuade, to enable, to empower, to liberate to wider horizons, to open minds to the truth, in short, to lead into authentic life. That power is divine. It is the power God exercises in each of us all the time. It is the kind of power God gives us. It is the kind of power of which no one can have too much."