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<div>Super. Thank you, Terry! Thank you, Sully!</div>
<div> John Cock</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Terry Bergdall via OE <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Reply-To: </span>Terry Bergdall <<a href="mailto:bergdall2@gmail.com">bergdall2@gmail.com</a>>, Order Ecumenical Community <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 2:50 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>Order Ecumenical Community <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer<br>
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<div dir="ltr">The movie "Sully" opened in movie theaters around the US last week. I was interested to see it because of an "earthrise" witness that I wrote on prayer seven years ago. I was trying to illustrate the RS-1 practice of grounding religious language
in life experience. Given this dialogue initiated by Susan in response to Bishop Spong, I thought I'd re-post it again here. See below:
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">PRAYER AND CAPTAIN SULLY</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">, 9 April 2009</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">I just returned home from a trip to New York. As is typical when flying from LaGuardia, we had a spectacular
view of the city’s skyscrapers. This time my fascination was greater than usual as I found myself looking for the spot where, in January, a plane like mine crash-landed into the Hudson River. You probably heard about Captain Sully and his plane’s encounter
with a flock of geese, how its engines stopped shortly after take-off, his quick review of options, and his management of a crash from which every one of the 150+ passengers survived. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial"></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">As I looked down on the same river, I was reminded of an interview I heard shortly after this occurred. Someone asked Captain Sully “Did you
pray while this was happening?” “No,” he said, “but I imagine there were some in the back taking care of it for me while I did the flying.” </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">I may be overly presumptuous but both the question and answer seem to be predicated on a popular image of prayer whereby one’s self is put
in the fore seeking favors from a supernatural entity and, in this case, pleading for an escape from a life-threatening danger. I have no doubt that everyone on that plane was experiencing a prayerful moment, but genuine prayer is something far different from
this counterfeit perception.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">Prayer means acknowledging and bowing my head to the sheer awesomeness of a prevailing mystery that is totally beyond myself. It is the mystery
that I first recognized in the questions of my childhood -- why I am here? why must I die? what should I do? what is the purpose of life? I encounter unmitigated mystery precisely because these questions are ultimately unanswered. Genuine prayer allows us
to grapple with the silence rather than fill the void. Prayer is standing before that reality (the name that we cannot know according to the ancient Israelites, i.e., “God”) and framing everyday actions, as well as responses to extreme circumstances, in a
life-affirming comprehensive context. It is never an escape. “I don’t pray to change God,” C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “I pray to change myself.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">Captain Sully’s actions make me think that he was in a very profound state of prayer as he landed that plane. He was intensely focused on
acknowledging the real situation while bringing all of his experience and knowledge to bear, including extraordinary resources to remain calm in a moment of extreme crisis. Given popular perceptions, I can also appreciate his unwillingness to call it prayer.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">Which raises questions for me. Most of the time, topics of an overt religious nature, like prayer, never even come up in my daily encounters.
When they do, it seems that about half of the people I meet are more-or-less content with the shallowness of popular religion while the other considers it to be totally irrelevant. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification and there is a lot of grey in
between but it highlights a quandary. How do I authentically engage everyone, religious and secular alike, to celebrate and act upon both the possibilities of life and its overwhelming limits? It is even more complex when different religious traditions are
thrown into the mix. No matter how much I work on resolving this, there is no simple answer. </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-indent:0.25in"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">It is in wrestling with life’s questions that we make our prayers. Though he’d probably be surprised to hear it, </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial">I’m
grateful today for Captain Sully calling me to mine. Amen.</span></p>
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