“For me, the path to faith has been rocky and my steps uneven. I have faced my share of doubts and fears and anxieties. My trajectory is rarely straight and not always upward…Yet what sustains me is a sense of divine presence…
What sustains me is the knowledge that I am not alone on this pilgrimage, but am in the company of friends who will pick me up, dust me off, and point me in the right direction.
What sustains me is a suspicion that there is still enchantment in the world –in the air on top of a mountain, in the crunch of leaves beneath a harvest moon, in the dazzling colors on the flanks of a rainbow trout, in the sound of wind brushing past pine needles.
What sustains me is the laughter of my sons, the delight of love and companionship, the conviction that the journey brings its own rewards, that holiness somehow is imbedded in the process itself.
I believe because of the epiphanies, small and large, that have intersected my path, small, discrete moments of grace when I have sensed a kind of superintending presence outside of myself.
I believe because these moments –a kind word, an insight, an anthem on Easter morning, a chill in the spine– are too precious to discard…
I believe because, for me, the alternative to belief is far too daunting.”
With these words Randall Balmer closes his brief memoir, “Notes from a Road Less Traveled” (Perspectives in Religious Studies, 2023). Balmer currently holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College, the oldest endowed professorship at the Ivy League institution. He has had quite the “spiritual journey,” as he describes over the course of his essay, but through it all he has maintained vibrant faith.
I can resonate deeply with Balmer’s sentiments, especially his “sense of divine presence.” In conversations with those who don’t identify as Christians or identify specifically as agnostics or atheists, I’m sometimes asked the very question Balmer implies in his series of “I believe” statements:
How or why do you still believe?
In my own “rocky” and “uneven” journey, I’ve stepped awfully close to the edge at times. I’ve stumbled upon loose stones, stopped to recover my balance, and wondered when the next stumble would be my last.
With Balmer I can say with confidence that what has sustained my faith is that subtle, unfading sense of presence which has haunted me every step of my way.
If I pin the stability of my faith to any other, more empirical, foundation, the stones beneath my feet slide away. It’s the constant yet subtle sense of presence, divine presence, which for me has made all the difference.
Balmer goes on to write about the “epiphanies, small and large, that have intersected my path, the small, discrete moments of grace when I’ve sensed a presence outside of myself.”
He believes, he still believes, because “such moments are too precious to discard –a kind word, an insight, an anthem on Easter morning, a chill in the spine.” He believes because “the alternative,” he says, “is far too daunting.”
God –as I step back to reflect– seems to grace our winding paths with small, at times fleeting, glints of light. He provides sheen to our dullness, glow to our dimness, light to the caverns of life.
Such glints of grace rarely remain. Yet they remind us of a presence, an awe-inspiring yet heart-warming presence, which in the end makes all the difference.
As we complete our series in the book of Exodus as a church, I am struck by the predominance of journey or pilgrimage language in the story. The people of Israel begin their redeemed life with an anything-but-straight 40-year journey. They fear, they doubt, they grumble along the way, yet their God remains present all throughout.
While we often think their life only began once they’d settled in the land of Canaan (the destination), it’s the journey, its the wandering, its the 40-years of arduous and trial-filled travel, which constitutes the true life of God’s people.
It’s no wonder that Jesus of Nazareth refers to himself as “the Way” (John 14:6; and this would become a popular label for Christianity before it was known as such). The Christian life, like that of Israel, is a journey, it’s a life of following someone (Jesus), which implies movement, progress, travel.
It’s a life in which we like the Israelites make our way through long stretches of uncertainty, fear, trial, and loss. It’s a life that is rocky; that’s uneven, full of doubts, fears, and anxieties. But it’s a life also full of presence, the inarticulable yet palpable presence of God.
Our God, in sum, is a God of presence. From the very beginning He’s been present to his people. He has entered our meandering journey, felt our fears and frustrations; he’s even limped along with the stragglers in the back.
In the end I can’t promise you’ll feel the presence as Moses, Elijah, or the Twelve Disciples did. But I can and will hope for this:
“That in the darkness there be a blessing.
That in the shadows there be a welcome.
That in the night you be encompassed
by the Love that knows your name”
(Jan Richardson).
Jonah Bissell
Pastor