Spogulīt, spogulīt, saki man tā. - 22. Septembris 2010

[es neesmu ļoti dievbijīgs cilvēks, bet man patika šie sprediķi no filmas "Doubt"]

'What do you do when you're not sure?
That's the topic of my sermon today. Last year when President Kennedy was assassinated, who among us did not experience the most profound disorientation? Despair? Which way? What now? What do I say to my kids? What do I tell myself?
It was a time of people sitting together, bound together by a common feeling of hopelessness. But think of that. Your bond with your fellow being
was your despair. It was a public experience. It was awful, but we were in it together. How much worse is it then for the lone man, the lone woman, stricken by a private calamity? "No one knows I'm sick." "No one knows I've lost my last real friend." "No one knows I've done something wrong."
Imagine the isolation. Now you see the world as through a window. On one side of the glass, happy untroubled people, and on the other side, you.
I wanna tell you a story. A cargo ship sank one night. It caught fire and went down, and only this one sailor survived. He found a lifeboat, rigged a sail, and being of a nautical discipline turned his eyes to the heavens and read the stars. He set a course for his home, and, exhausted, fell asleep. Just keeps going on. Clouds rolled in, and for the next 20 nights, he could no longer see the stars. He thought he was on course, but there was no way to be certain. And as the days rolled on, and the sailor wasted away, he began to have doubts. He just keeps on going. Had he set his course right? Was he still going on towards his home? Or was he horribly lost and doomed to a terrible death? No way to know.
The message of the constellations, had he imagined it because of his desperate circumstance? Or had he seen truth once and now had to hold on to it without further reassurance?
There are those of you in church today who know exactly the crisis of faith I describe, and I wanna say to you, doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.'

'A woman was gossiping with a friend about a man she hardly knew. I know none of you have ever done this. That night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O'Rourke. She told him the whole thing.
- Is gossiping a sin? - she asked the old man. - Was that the hand of God Almighty pointing a finger at me? Should I be asking your absolution, Father? Tell me, have I done something wrong?
- Yes. - Father O'Rourke answered her. - Yes, you ignorant, badly brought up female. You have borne false witness against your neighbor. You have played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed!
So the woman said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness.
- Not so fast, - says O'Rourke. - I want you to go home. Take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.
So the woman went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed.
- Did you gut the pillow with a knife? - he says.
- Yes, Father.
- And what was the result?
- Feathers,- she said.
- Feathers,- he repeated.
- Feathers everywhere, Father.
- Now, I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind.
- Well,- she said, - it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.
- And that,- said Father O'Rourke, - is gossip!

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.'