Questions
Harvey Gillman offers a dialogue as the year ends
They asked him: ‘What do you believe?’
He replied: ‘We are alive together on this fragile earth. What we do has meaning and consequences. We can fail and fall. We can love and nurture.’
They asked him: ‘What is the light you talk about?’
He replied: ‘It shines sometimes. It casts a shadow. It reveals. It warms. It burns. It may be found in the heart of each but is owned by none.’
They asked him: ‘What is your faith?’
He replied: ‘The light will shine even when our eyes are closed through sleep or blinded by fear.’
They asked him: ‘What is your prayer?’
He replied: ‘To keep my arms open. And my heart. And my eyes. That my lips may sometimes move.’
They asked him: ‘What would you die for?’
He replied: ‘My question is rather: “For what, for whom do I live this day, this hour?”’
They asked him: ‘What is your God?’
He replied: ‘The creative silence that welcomes beyond the edge of words. The light that burns in the darkness. The wind that is my breath, our breath, blowing where it wills. God is not the name of God and the wind has no name and blows through the doors and the windows of many temples.’
They asked him: ‘What is your authority?’
He replied: ‘The restless communion of the winding path. Visited sometimes by grace.’
They asked him: ‘What happens when we are dead?’
He replied: ‘Death has taught me a concern for life, for open doors, and arching bridges. For the challenge of this moment, for the challenge of this transient life. Moments of unknowing. Glimmers of more. A discovery.’
They asked him: ‘What have you learned in your seventy years?’
He replied: ‘We are not just our names, our past, our spoken and written words. We are all anointed. Our country, our deepest faith, has no flag, no borders. We may be each other’s purgatory or hell, or even paradise.’
They asked him: ‘What is your hope?’
He replied: ‘That we may continue to cherish our questions, cherish each other. That we be not afraid to be silent with each other. That, in spite of the pain we and the day inflict upon each other, we still can believe, have faith, pray and even dare to love. My hope is that we go on hoping, though our hearts and our history and the shadows of the moon may teach us to give up hope. That despair may not be the last word.’
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