"We either feed fear or love."
- Iyanla Vanzant

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk.”

- Anne Lamott, Plan B:  Further Thoughts on Faith

"When he started out his ministry, Jesus proclaimed eight beatitudes, blessed are the patient, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, and so on.  And now, at the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus proclaims a last beatitude, blessed are those who haven’t seen, and believe all the same.  Because of Thomas’ doubt Jesus appeared a second time in the upper room. Thomas should have capitulated to the account of his companions.  He had been a firsthand witness to Jesus’ life, teachings and miracles of healing.   Yet … some pride, some willful obstinacy, some chagrin, perhaps, at having been left out of an experience granted to the rest, Thomas withheld his assent until he could verify for himself.
 
Jesus doesn’t complain or find fault … he looks toward the future and the centuries of people who would have no opportunity to see for themselves, but still believed.  Jesus was fond of paradox.  Jesus knew that seekers must find their own way … through all their own idiosyncrasies."

- Ronald Knox, Benedictine Office of Readings

“Invariably the failure of organized religions, by which they cut themselves off from mystery and therefore from sanctity, lies in the absolute division between faith and doubt, to make belief perform as knowledge; when they forbid their prophets to go into the wilderness, they lose the possibility of renewal.  And the most dangerous tendency in modern society, now rapidly emerging as a scientific-industrial ambition, is the tendency toward encapsulation of human order – the severance, once and for all, of the umbilical cord fastening us to the wilderness or the Creation.  The threat is not only in the totalitarian desire for absolute control.  It lies in the willingness to ignore an essential paradox:  the natural forces that so threaten us are the same forces that preserve and renew us.”

- Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace

“These two cognitive twins (right-brain and left-brain) are not equal.  Language is extremely powerful, and the left hemisphere does not easily share its dominance with its silent partner.  The left hemisphere deals with an explicit world, where things are named and counted, where time is kept, and step-by-step plans remove uncertainty from the future.  The right hemisphere exists in the moment, in a timeless, implicit world, where things are buried in context, and complicated outlooks are constantly changing.  Impatient with the right hemisphere’s view of the complex whole, the competitive left hemisphere tends to jump quickly into a task, bringing language to bear, even though it may be unsuited to that particular task.”

-Betty Edward, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Too often any mission to spread the good news of Christ in foreign lands is seen as a violent clash of cultures and cosmologies.  But maybe, just maybe, there were also moments of spiritual synthesis and mutual understanding in Thomas’ life with the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains of the east.  In India, Thomas certainly encountered an exotic new world of food, music, art, gods, goddesses, and ritual practice thousands of years in the making.  He must have marveled at the myriad of religions and beliefs that lived in relative peace and harmony.  But Thomas also encountered something he would understand well … wandering ascetics, holy men and women seeking the answers to fundamental questions of human suffering and a desire for a spiritual union with the divine.  While the ultimate destination of these men and women were the same, Thomas quickly learned that they followed very different paths … some followed the path of the Arhat while others the path of the Bodhisattva.

The difference in the two types is illustrated in a wonderful story by Huston Smith in his classic text The World Religions of four seekers who, journeying across an immense desert, come upon a compound surrounded with high walls.  One of the four determines to find out what is inside.  The seeker scales the wall, and on reaching the top gives a whoop of delight and jumps over.  The second and third do likewise.  When the fourth seeker gets to the top of the wall, he sees below him an enchanted garden with sparkling streams, pleasant groves, and luscious fruit.  Though longing to jump over, the seeker resists the temptation.  Remembering the other wayfarers who are trudging the burning deserts, this seeker climbs back down, and he devotes himself to directing them to the oasis. 
 
The first three seekers are Arhats, one who, like a focused hermit, seeks enlightenment and union with the divine with prodigious concentration toward that goal.  The last was a Bodhisattva, one who voluntarily renounces this goal and returns to the world to make enlightenment available to others.  In particular, bodhisattvas promise to practice the six perfections of giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom in order to fulfill their vow of aim of attaining enlightenment of all beings.
 
In these wandering ascetics, Thomas found teachers and companions in this new journey.   And the nine small communities of that Thomas would go on to establish found their own place in this harmony of seekers.
 
Excursus #1

The Bodhisattva Vow
Just as all the Buddhas of the past
Have brought forth the awakened mind,
And in the precepts of the Bodhisattvas
Step-by-step adobe and trained,
Likewise, for the benefit of beings,
I will bring to birth the awakened mind,
And in those precepts, step-by-step,
I will abide and train myself.

In the Bodhicaryāvatāra by the monk/teacher Shantideva, the actual taking of the vow is preceded by various other preparatory practices and prayers often done through the recitation of a prayer.  

• Making physical, verbal and mental offerings to the Buddhas
• Confessing one's negative deeds, "one admits to doing the negative deed, one feels true remorse and then one resolves not to do it again."
• Rejoicing in the goodness and virtues of others
• Requesting the Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma (to teach the way)
• Dedicating the merit of all good deeds for the benefit of all beings

 
Excursus #2
 
A story … from a thirteenth century Italian chronicler Jacobus de Varagine in The Golden Legend.
 
“When Thomas’ ship arrived in India the local leader was celebrating the wedding of his daughter.  The king had commanded that the entire city assist in the feast, and Thomas was obliged to attend.  One of the musicians who was entertaining the guests noticed Thomas from across the room.  She approached him and began to sing to him a psalm in Hebrew, ‘There is a God in heaven, who created all things.’”
 
It seems that the world was more connected than Thomas could ever have imagined, Jews had settled in India centuries before he had ever arrived.

The Portiuncula Guild community gathered at Thomas Chapel in early June to celebrate the Feast of St. Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and to bless the new chapel altar created by Stan Fettig. 

Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, a 6th century Celtic bishop in Northumbria, is believed to be both the scribe and illustrator of the Lindisfarne Gospels – one of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon/Celtic art – a multi-year project that he did not live to complete.  Eadfirth is also credited with the restoration of the hermitage/oratory of St. Cuthbert on the Isle of Farne as a place of pilgrimage and prayer. 

In the spirit of St. Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, we honor the artists, craftsmen, designers, visionaries, and laborers who have contributed to Thomas Chapel’s revitalization and emerging life of prayer and work.  We celebrate these local artists as spiritual leaders, illustrators of the sacred stories, or lovers and restorers of holy things

Nancy Strachan gathered images and words inspired by the day's events and we put them together in the following video.  Thank  you, Nancy.