Say it Again, Sam

Let me tell you a story. When I first came to Santa Fe three years ago, I had lunch one Sunday with a couple from Texas, members of the Episcopal Church I attended in a relatively small East Texas town, but one with a university of close to 15,000 students. They were out here visiting her brother, who although he had grown up in this town when it was much smaller, had gone on to become a landscape architect, lived in New Mexico for close to 30 years and was recently retired from the State. Of this couple, the husband is an ordained Presbyterian minister and a retired college English teacher. The wife, an accomplished writer on religion and life, and who is now legally blind but continues to write using special technology, has published a number of books, a few of which I have read, enjoyed and learned from.

I had known these folks for only a short time, while I attended the church were they were established members. In addition to being smart and learned, they both have a great sense of humor. Virtually the last thing she said to me before they let me out of the car that Sunday, after we had feasted on cheddar and green chile burgers and fries at the Lotta Burger, was something like, “don’t get caught up in any of this New Thought stuff here (maybe she even used the term “woo-woo”),” (which thrives in Santa Fe, as anyone who knows anything about Santa Fe might know, along with every stripe of Christianity, Buddhism, Universal Unitarianism and lots of stuff that I know absolutely nothing about). Over the last three years I have continued to read writings about Christianity, including Gnosticism, and I have read several books on Buddhism. After all, it’s all about God.

I stopped going to the Episcopal Church here in the spring of 2009. In June of 2008 I had moved my membership from the Cathedral in Houston, where proof of my life in the Episcopal Church had resided since the 80s. It wasn’t long after that I realized I would change my walk. My friend Steve had invited me to the Center for Spiritual Living (Church of Religious Science) on the eve of Thanksgiving, 2008. The evening was an open mike experience, where everyone was invited to step up to the mike and talk briefly about what he or she wanted to give thanks for. Most of the 50-60 people gathered stepped up, including a couple of kids. Neither Steve nor I did, however (When visiting churches, I don’t even like to answer the invitation to stand and introduce myself—even to receive the gift that always accompanies the invitation!). That Thanksgiving eve experience stuck with me, though. I had never had such an experience before.

I’m just now getting around to reading the writings of Ernest Holmes (Science of Mind), although I have been present at lots of Center for Spiritual Living gatherings since the summer of ‘09. Holmes is not an easy read. But hearing the principles of Holmes’s philosophy, which he did not intend becoming an organized religion, spoken on a regular basis, does catch my attention. One of my favorite times during the week is gathering with a group at noon Wednesday (for some time I have been the only guy), that is led by a practitioner, who has just this week completed her ordination as a minister. It is a time of great affirming. One of the daily writings from Science of Mind magazine included this quote recently: “There is one life. That life is God. That life is my life now.” Pardon me, for I repeat myself. Well, I like that. Let it mean what you want it to mean.

I will volunteer this morning at the Audubon center here in Santa Fe. I get to spend three hours in the visitor center each Tuesday, where I look out the window into the mountains, where a wealth of native flora thrives in the gardens and beyond, and where as you would expect, we have lots of birds. And rarely do you meet a jerk (only a know-it-all here and there) in such a splendid environment. A visitor from Austin, Texas recently—and until recently I hadn’t met many Texans on my shift—commented quietly and smiling to me, “I don’t know anything about birds”. I replied, just as quietly, “Neither do I”. And then I added, “That’s why we’re here”.

Say it Again, Sam—Santa Fe, New Mexico (August 3, 2010)
R. Harold Hollis