The Prestige

 The Prestige - link to podcast.

To be a person of faith is in some ways to believe in magic. Like, believing for joy in terrible sadness or to hope for change in a person who seems too far gone. Is it all just hocus pocus??

I’ve always loved the cartoons of Michael Leunig.  He seems to share ideas and concepts that often are so simple yet profound.  One sketch he has done is of a man praying to a carboard box.  Some smart alec people come around and blow the box over and say “see completely hollow”.  Then the man rebuilds the box, now wonky and held together precariously with sticky tape and keeps praying. 

This idea has always been helpful to me as I have had to find ways to remain authentic while my understanding about God and prayer changes and matures.

I actually don’t think God or the universe has changed much as I’ve been deliberating about these things, but it is unsettling to have any sort of crisis of faith or disruption to long standing and important personal beliefs and it takes a bit of courage to be honest about it.

The alternative is to stay stuck in a rigid and in lots of ways irrelevant sort of faith.  The sort of faith that just believes stuff that does not actually land in any way in our actual living and behavior.  We can go along with traditions and religious practices for years sometimes, without ever stopping to really examine how these beliefs impact our lives.

When I was a teenager the challenge was put to me one time. If my claim to be a genuine follower of Jesus was put on trial at a court of law, would there be enough evidence to convict me? I was happier to avoid thinking about this too deeply, as I was quite keen on money, chocolate and the pretty young ladies in my life at the time and Jesus didn’t seem to me to be keen on any of those.  He seemed a lot more interested in being humble, the injustices towards the poor and prayer. 

All the same, I did take seriously the challenge of being a proper Christian and often threw myself into church life at the salvos, learning more about living an authentic Christian life and being a good sort of a guy. 

When the lovely Sue and I were young and in love, don’t get me wrong we are still in love, but it’s a bit less energetic and idealistic these days.  We prayed that her short leg would grow into a full leg.  We asked for the God of miracles and healing to bless us with something so spectacular and beyond reason that it would change the world.   

Well Sue still has no femur in her left leg and as we get older this presents more and more challenges.  Either the answer was “no” or it was that God is not quite as powerful as we had hoped or maybe we needed to be better Christians or we needed the right faith healer to come to town or maybe God wanted to use this challenge as an example of His power in the midst of suffering.   Neither Sue or I were ever keen on the last one, but as it turns out that is probably the most realistic out-come.  Sue is sometimes quite frail and vulnerable, but she also shines brightly with love, joy and hope.  People often say she is an inspiration. 

Either way, I was hoping for some magical physical healing to take place and it never did. 

In fact much of what I have expected from God and the church has not come to pass.  But new and often richer pathways and realities have emerged.

My life better than I ever thought it would be to be honest.  I was not confident that I would be able to sustain a healthy and happy marriage, but the lovely Sue is still likes to hold my hand and we  hang out together quite a lot. 

I have a heap of soulful but fun friends who are people of depth and substance.  I read the bible and discuss it with friends and we have honest conversations about what seems ridiculous and what seem to be helpful.  This is a rich sort of fellowship.   

I still get weepy at kids hugging their parents, sunsets and puppies and have a sense of Awe and gratitude about how good it is to just be alive.

There are still fabulous ways to serve as an officer with the Salvos that make sense to me and give me great joy, purpose and fulfillment. 

I am healthy to the point that it has been said of me that it looks like I’ve been in a good paddock for many years. Maybe too good a paddock!

I even have a folksy melancholy side to me now where I strum a Ukulele and hum tuneless melodies in a happy zen like way for hours…………..  until the lovely Sue throws something at me and jolts me back to reality.

So my faith is not what it used to be, but it is still an important, if not mysterious part of my life.  

Magicians often use the words hocus pocus to introduce a magic trick.  These words came from the latin words “hoc est Corpus” and were used by Catholic priests during communion to describe the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Chirst.

This magician theme is worth consideration here.

In a magic trick there are three stages.  The pledge, the turn and the prestige. 

In a coin trick, the coin is presented and shown to the audience and this is the pledge.  It is then hidden in some way, slipped into a sleeve or dropped into a hidden pocket.  That is the turn.  And then it reappears in some amazing way that defies logic.  That is the prestige.

The trick is always done by using two coins.  A second coin is placed or hidden under a cup or in another item of clothing, creating the illusion, but the coin that went missing in the turn is not the same coin that appears in the prestige.  

It just looks the same, and so magicians get away with it. 

 

In communion the bread and wine are presented.  The pledge.

The elements are then consumed and disappear.  The turn

And then the service finishes and we are left with nothing.  However we soon say g’day to our friends and see if they are OK and maybe plan a way to love our community better and “hey presto” the God of love and power we hoped to encounter in the act of communion is amongst us.  

In the same way our faith is a bit like this. 

We perceive God as best we are able with what we can see and understand and then, He seems to either disappear or change so much we cannot believe it.  But as we stay with the journey, He reappears, and we sense Him amongst us and around us in often surprising ways, in essence, the same, but also different.

One could even describe the feelings of love and awe experienced at times like this as prestigious – even magical. 

Some say it’s all a load of “hocus pocus”, and maybe they are right??

Bless ya,

Bryce