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O'Malley's Best Loaves and Fishes Until my early 30's, I was hyper-cautious about questioning answers to the God difficulties. Three-in-one? If that's what they say, so be it. I was even more wary about Church questions (which at the time seemed to outweigh God). Of course the pastor was right, even when what he said was clearly dumb. Of course there was a time snakes talked to nudists. Of course Jesus walked on water. Of course he could make a picnic for a whole town from near nothing. I didn't attain the use of religious reason till I was 32, in a mind-blowing scripture course. I encountered a whole new, richer way of understanding than the icy, bean-counter, accountant insights I'd gotten from what passed for theology till then. But it came at a price. "The Old Way"-which so many from my time yearn to recapture-gave the one prize we all craved: certitude. Being blessed/cursed with an intelligence that craves answers BUT in a universe submissive to a God who dribbles out answers very sparingly, we'd like to realign the rules, the way God would have set things up, had he known better. If our faith could claim certainty, then we could avoid that most insupportable burden: thinking--and then choosing an alternative without absolute assurance. Some, I think, believe it would have been easier to have been a direct disciple, standing right next to Jesus when he turned water into wine. I know the skeptic released in me in the early 60's would have said, "How the hell did you do that? You just confounded the laws of chemistry!" And if he turned and said, "I can because I wrote those laws, you see," it'd have been, "So long, Jesus." In all the countless times I've read this gospel, I had my doubts. Experts said it was a symbol the early Church inserted as a resonance of the Eucharist. Consoling for heady theologians, not for me. But one explanation roundly rejected by the Big Boys nonetheless appeals to me-and still preserves the "acceptably miraculous." This time-for the very first time-the trigger for my balking was those baskets. Way out there in nowhere, how did they suddenly materialize so handily? Nothing to gather out there except rock and the hardiest of inedible weeds. Unless...unless they were picnic baskets-food baskets. Can you imagine a Jewish Mama letting her family trek out into the outback without any food? According to the unorthodox explanation I'm offering (very conditionally) when the kids' bellies started grumbling and they whined for something to eat, the Mama eyed the equally restive brats all around and fought her deepest lioness instincts, holding back till they were on their way home, otherwise there might not be enough to satisfy her precious young. But Jesus spoke so persuasively that their defenses melted away and gave caring and loving a chance! I suspect that explanation is too facile. But it does yield insights. It's a miracle to make a good mother put her children on any scale of value, as if there were any comparable value-like admitting their precious child could be doing evil like selling drugs. As I said, it's also an insight into the Eucharist-breaking down the defenses at the greeting of peace before Communion. And when we're asked to give to a charity, don't we have to ask, "But what about my family?" That helps me when my faith is weak-which happens often the longer I cling to it. If it be enough to cashier me from the crusade, I'd probably surrender it. But now, I need only one miracle: the resurrection. Beyond that, all others are overkill. I don't deny for a minute God could pull them off, but they're unneeded. And I yield to the truth of the resurrection because so many disciples testified to their belief in it with their deaths. I tend to believe deathbed confessions. What's more they claimed experience of the resurrection motivated their stupefying conversion from the cringing cowards of Good Friday to the fearless witnesses of Pentecost. Now that's a miracle. In fact, it's a miracle waiting to happen in you. Bill
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