My uncle has
a Word-a-Day calendar discipline, begun when his daughter gifted him (and
educated the rest of us) with a calendar from which he would muse quarterly,
eloquently and of course, from time to time, punnishly. I believe each
installment was called “Words of Interest,” mailed to his daughter as a return
of sorts. I’m not sure it’s ethical to receive interest from a gift, come to
think of it, but that didn’t matter to us. In his rather large-shoes, I’ve
developed my own fascination with words, often taken one at a time. Today’s
word is hooey.
It’s
actually in the dictionary, believe it or not. Supposed “first use” listed in
early 1900’s, whether 1912 or 1921. The dictionary appears dyslexic, which is
fun. More interesting entries would promised in such fashion. Hooey is both an
interjection and a noun, the former being a statement of disbelief or
surprise, the latter referring to “nonsense” or “nothing.” Surprising to me, at
least in this stage of my life, I’m drawn to both definitions almost immediately.
I’m in the
business of meaning, one might say. Significance. Relevance. Nothing livens my
wire quite so much as the drive of direction, the pursuits of purpose. That’s
how I wound up in seminary, after all. I had been a chemistry major, planning
on medical school—it’s what my dad did, so why not? I fell into a Kierkegaard
philosophy class in college, despite my best efforts to land in an upper level
English class I would have hated. Instead, I landed in the library stacks,
fascinated with poetic philosophy with a religious hue, finally charting a
respectable path through shelves of other peoples’ meanings, discovering
secondary literature for the first time in my life. How cool to learn from
others’ quests for significance, I thought. How much easier that is. It was a
short fall into seminary from there, though I took the scenic route through
L.A. and the Rodney King riots. Seminary is chock full of other peoples’
meanings, littering the hallways for those who have come there—whether their
own or others, one can’t really tell. So now I’m a seminary graduate, with a
doctorate of other people’s meanings.
What if the
whole blooming thing is hooey? I mean, what if the quest for meaning is not
best engaged by delving into centuries of human history and theology but by
learning to live compassionately amidst the radical evil alongside the delights
of the world? Most of the world which, I might add, will never steep in the
centuries of literate prose I have? What if choosing that path was the original
error, yea, the original sin?
Maybe it’s
time to schedule the midlife crisis. Past time.
Thankfully, I’m not alone. My husband's survey results came in today, alerting
him to a quandary he’d not confronted fully before. He’s pursuing a DMin degree
at a prestigious institution some distance from home, so it has online-learning
components. Part of the degree requirement has been inviting his congregation
to fill out a survey about church life, leadership, direction, and mission
(among other things). He called this morning with his ambivalent news. “Over 69% of the
congregation identified “the minister” as the reason they joined the church.
When the survey asked what was the most significant factor in keeping folks at
the church, do you know what the percentage was?” he asked. “No, do tell,” I
responded. “Over 90% identified “the minister” as the one factor that kept them
at the church. Over 90%. That’s f—ked,” he exclaimed, then explained: “At first, my reaction
was emotional, like ‘They like me.’
But then I thought about it. The minister—most definitely I—should not be the reason that people choose a church or choose to
stay in a church. This thing is broken!”
he exclaimed.
For him,
“this thing” meant the congregation, the church, the social structure that
seminary graduates are “trained” to lead and teach in pulpit and bedside
manner. For me, “this thing” means that, as well as the theological educational
system which has “prepared” alumni to enter into service in such bodies. What
if the whole thing were busted? Would
anyone in the comforts of the Matrix ever know it? If so, what would they do
about it?
Existential
questions never have immediate answers, of course, so let’s rachet it down a
bit. Even if the whole thing is
hooey—a statement of disbelief there, or an assessment of “nothing” or “nonsense”—I’m
programmed to see the value even in hooey.
I think sometimes my own journey requires me to acknowledge the
human-construction and utter inanity of finding meaning in a world like we live
in today. Talk about Herculean effort. That’s good: Herculean Hooey. There’s
little quite as freeing as living into the void of hooey-ness in the human
condition. If it all is nothingness, one can at least play a little.
Because it
IS all nothingness, in one sense. Think about all that which deflates hope: children dying in the bombs of corporate greed become
international politics; domestic sex-trafficking, right here in the good ol’
USA; overwhelming loneliness of a cyberspace, unlanded populace hungry for
human touch; the list is endless. Noting the utter hooey-ness of religious
significance in face of such things can be an emancipation proclamation for all
of us. Confessions of faith are hooey
in such venues. The value of hooey becomes a something when the nothingness is
recognized, honored for what it is.
But then the
rub: only human beings willing to awaken to what
really is can testify to it, can give value to the nothingness in this
fashion. The act of seeing what actually
is creates meaning, whether one desires it or not. Truth-telling, whether
desired or only compelled, lands each of us into an experience of meaning, of
significance, which draws us forward despite ourselves.
What a pain
in the ass. Even to say it’s all hooey is an act of meaning-making. Might as
well strive for the meanings that matter—good friends, skills of
learned-compassion amidst inane ego-desires, regulated ways to tradition what
one has learned on the offchance that those who come after us might benefit,
might make the world more beautiful than we could. The value of hooey seems
to be returning us to where we never left—the embrace of the Holy One who
smiles when we rant and rave. "It will all
be woven into the World to Come, little one", I hear. "Not to worry."
Not to
worry indeed. L’chaim—to life—no matter what. J
