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Each week, someone from the meeting offers a "First Word." The speaker takes 3-5 minutes to reflect on his or her spiritual journey. Please email us your comments and questions!
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The Face of God |
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My name is Bennett Huffman. My family and I have been attending West Hills Friends since March. I have struggled with my faith for most of my life, most of it in a passive manner. On and off I’ve looked for a physical sign to affirm a faith I wasn’t really sure I had. When I close my eyes I see shapes move slowly beneath my eyelids like a dull aurora borealis, and I think maybe that is the face of God subtly trying to break through to me. I once saw the real aurora borealis in the night sky above the gulf of Alaska wafting green and gold at the speed of light with the artful purposefulness for which only a conscious entity could be responsible. I said to myself that it was the single closest phenomenon to being in itself the proof of God. Practicing zen meditation as a youth, I had thought that I might find the face of God in the quiet recesses of my own mind. But I gave it up after some years of failure. I thought that those sensory deprivation chambers where you float in a dark coffin of saline solution with earplugs on to blot out all sensation in order to open yourself to the spiritual messages coming in from the ether might be where you can find the face of God, but I never tried it. When I was dating my first-born son's (Jesse’s) mother, we used to go to church with her family. I would sit there praying for God to rub my head — that’s really the sign I prayed for: for the invisible hand of god to tossle the wealth of hair I had at the time, and I’d know for certain, and devote my life to Him. He never did rub my head. I had come to believe that final, definitive proof of the existence of God cannot be part of an equation of faith. Since coming here I’ve begun to see beyond the words people share. I can see to the philosophical teachings of Jesus Christ that clearly inform some of the people around me’s way of seeing the world, and I think this is probably really one of the ways God works, that not through isolated prayer can you see beyond the veil of the material world, but through good works and fellowship. This community has provided the verdant bed in which faith can germinate and grow. Before going on I want to warn you that I do not want to start a temperance movement by my testamonial. We all have individual journies to make. So the other night I’m laying there in bed in drunkenness. I’ve been a drinker for a long time. Haven’t skipped a day without alcohol for the past twenty years. Christ likes a party, well so do I — everyday. But I’ve found it’s not a celebration if you do it every day, it’s an anchor, a weight dragging me down. Every morning waking up with a hangover is a bummer. So the other night I’m laying there in drunkenness and the breath of God comes in my open window, a cool, clear, cleansing, healing breath. I’ve never known these things before, but I am coming to know them now — this is the breath of God telling me that I don’t need to be devoted to drink if I am devoted to Him. I knew this quite clearly. So, without telling anybody, after two decades, I stopped drinking. It was hard that first night, but not as hard as I thought it would be. I’ve felt that breeze coming in my window most every night since then. I haven’t had a drink in 17 days. I will drink again, but not in slavery to it, not in weakness, rather in celebration, as a sacrament, in communion with others. My drink of choice has always been red wine. | |
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