A Finger Pointing at the Moon

A friend recently told of an extended journey to India where he met a Hindu holy man along the way. In conversation the holy man spoke of a finger pointing at the moon to reference all the things of religion that are supposed to indicate or direct us to an experience of God. I've subsequently discovered the saying in Buddhist thought, but it doesn't matter where the saying comes from. More importantly I'd suggest the finger pointing to the moon is:

• the dogmas and doctrines of religion
• the organization of the religions
• the clerical castes of religion and
• the things of hierarchy
• all the permissions/dispensations/rubrics and canons of religion
• the things we call traditions - especially those we claim can never to be changed
• calendars, liturgies: My religion is true - hence yours is not
• all the ways I claim my religion is the most ancient and  observant and from God
• all the ways I make the claim - my way is the sure way to salvation. I might suggest that more than a few people who claim to know  the way to salvation don't even know what salvation means.

This is the pointing finger - it's not the moon. The moon is the often subtle, personal, contemplative experience of God. The trouble starts when we lock-down on the pointed finger and miss the moon. 

A graffiti-ed wall announces: I'm pointing at the moon and you're looking at my finger. Truth be told, many people are content with the pointing-finger-religious-life. Perhaps lacking an experience of God's nearness themselves, priests often (I'll boldly say usually) don't even mention the experience of God as a possibility - it's easier to view religion as pointing finger. An experience of God will require of us that we bend over to remove our inner shoes. God can be messy, unruly, un-settling and troublesome. "Christ, you have come to disturb us," Dostoevsky wrote. 

I lived in Assisi (Italy) for three months on a short sabbatical some years ago. On an autumn day  I walked up Mount Subasio (1300 metres above sea level) where Saint Francis and some of his fellows would go to retire from Assisi's agitation and  noise. There are caves there - really slivers in the boulders - where the saint and his friends would pray.

I set out before sunrise, just as the shops were opening. In a green-grocer I bought a bottle of water, some strawberries, a little loaf of bread and an red apple streaked with pink and soft yellow. I ate everything except the apple along the ascending, hair-pinned road. Upon my summit arrival I arranged to offer Mass, checked out the view of the valley below, sat quietly in the chapels (some of which were underground) and walked the wooded paths that connected the caves. 

Happy for the day I began the descent, intending to be back in Assisi before dark. Along the way I took out the apple which with the first bite created a kind fragrant cloud or atmosphere around my head. And then there was the realization that I was tasting something that was not only new or simply different, but a not-to-be-repeated taste that was from somewhere else. I savored every bit, even eating the core. The next day I went back to the grocer and bought two more of these apples which now tasted like all the other apples I'd eaten in my life. 

"You'd really opened yourself up" some monastic sisters told me when I related the story. "That's contemplative living" my priest-spiritual director said.

I'll offer a few thoughts about this kind of experience:

• We don't summon-up God. An experience of God isn't about finding the right prayer-technique or posture. God isn't tied to a string of beads.
• Our culture is in a deep coma - find ways of waking up and getting free of the cultural addictions to food and entertainment.
• Instead of cursing them - go with distractions and requests that take us away from what we're doing. God might be waiting there.
• God has become one of us in the face of Christ: a personal experience of God may well occur in our human encounters, especially those where we are making some gift of ourselves - or receiving others into our lives. 
• Silence matters more than our culture can presently imagine or tolerate. Most of us waste precious time each day listening to someone else trying to sell us something. 
• Observe yourself and tell it like it is about yourself: I'm pointing to the moon and you're looking at my finger.