Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

“Look into my eyes Nanny,” he said, cupping her face an inch or two from his. Three-year-old Fulton had just returned to our house after realizing that he had left without saying a proper goodbye by looking deeply into his Nanny’s eyes….and having her look deeply into his. This image from the past found me this morning as I reflected on the things of the present. The many things.

To look deeply into the eyes of another is an extreme act of intention and focus. It is intimate and intense – inquisitive and revelatory. If we surrender ourselves fully to such a moment, we see much and perhaps reveal even more. Such focus is incredibly powerful.

Yesterday morning, I found myself in the midst of the beautiful chaos of six of our grandchildren gathered in our family room. At one point, I found myself pinballed between a barrage of competing questions, requests, and declarations. Unable to respond quickly enough to any single request, I laughed to myself at the pandemonium and its scrambling effect on my brain. There was nothing to be done but to ride it out.

Chaos, even beautiful chaos, has a scattering effect. In diluting our attention, it lessens our ability to bring our powers of focus to bear upon any single thing. Our world feels chaotic right now. There are many things. From the chaos in world affairs to the chaos of end-of-year school schedules to the chaos in markets to the chaos on our roads – we are under assault by the many things seeking to blunt our ability to focus.

Such chaos is exhausting. Ours is an age of scattering: scattered attention spans, scattered resources, scattered desires, scattered time. Such scattering is squandering our effort, our attention, and our effectiveness. It will never serve it’s constituents well.

Considering the chaos of my grandchildren, order could only be returned by focusing on each child and addressing requests systematically. To order something is to bring it under control. The word meek stems from the Greek word praus which originally referred to the taming of a horse – the process of bringing its strength under control. It is a focusing of attributes, strengths, in unity and in a specific direction.

Meekness. Innocence. Focus. Hmm.

Returning to Fulton and the deep intimacy brought as Sally looked into his eyes, I wonder about power. The many things divide, scatter, distract. But focus, attention, intention, love, are all unifying forces. Such unity is powerful.

Considering all the chaos around us. Maybe the meek will inherit the Earth.

Upon the field I stand,
This is the time of tension
The many things command
The limits of a most mortal self.
In that time, when all took the field
We marched with heads high
Banners waving, high heraldry parading.
But this was no fair, nor
Castle in the air, the enemy is real.
Honor no longer a child’s imagining,
Reality cuts harshly upon virtue.
More than table stakes, blood and soul
Cast upon the battlements of eternity.
This is no invitation, but a challenge —
The calling to lines where things are lost,
And the questions of youth
Fade before experience —
Answered at the edge of a finality
That once seemed distant.
This is the season of many things.
The far fields now seen close,
And the scattered wishes of yesterday
Focused into the necessity of today.
The time of preparations complete —
Though never fully prepared —
On we press, driven by obedience.
There can be no shrug or shirk,
No hiding from Providence.
To all, all must be given.
The lion and the lamb must appear,
Fiercely humble; leaping and laying
Down, before the one thing,
To which all finally conduces.

In August 2023, I wrote Called to Dominion in a World of Domination as a reflection on how we mask our tendency to dominate behind playfulness or necessity. A great list of happenings over recent weeks brings it to mind as still very relevant. Maybe even more relevant right now than ever. Ongoing hostilities between sovereign nations highlights tensions over trade, territory, and worldview, as countries of all sizes posture to assert their place in the world pecking order. We can’t seem to outrun the timeless themes of power and ambition within the political dynamics of humans trying to assert themselves over each other. The international gyrations mirror their domestic kin as we see the same dynamics played out in markets, courthouses, legislatures, boardrooms, and even our homes.

This week’s election of Pope Leo XIV brought an interesting inflection point in the headlines as the world first watched to see who the next Pope would be and then quickly shifted to speculation as to what kind of leader he would be. Cardinal Robert Prevost’s selection of “Leo” as his papal name is loaded with meaning and implications on his sense of calling as he walks into his role as shepherd of the Catholic Church. For purposes of this post, I want to briefly focus on the connection of the name “Leo” to lion and the concept of dominion.

Pope Leo XIII, elected in 1878, was the first leader of the Catholic Church since the 8th Century to begin his Pontificate in a Papal State no longer a worldly kingdom. With the unification of Italian city states into the Kingdom of Italy and ensuing fall of the Papal States as a sovereign nation in 1871, the domain of the Church no longer included the temporal rule of territory and people. The Catholic Church was no longer a “worldly” power in a geo-political sense, its reduction re-centering it as a purely “spiritual” power.

As the “King of the Jungle,” the lion has long held a place in our imaginations as the majestic leader of the animal world. In the context of a Papal State bereft of armies and territory, the notion of “king” had shifted from one with the ability to project power in a worldly sense, to one of exerting influence through a purely moral and spiritual authority. Without worldly power, the ruler of the Papal State no longer had the ability, or the temptation, to assert geo-political interests, leaving the Papacy and subsequent Pontiffs, with the sole priority of spiritual leadership of a growing Church. The “king” was left with the mission of dominion – stewardship of the Catholic Church.

In the biblical sense, dominion is about care and stewardship, not domination or control. With power, we tend toward domination, the assertion of our will over the will of the other. I was reminded of this as I watched a group of young boys calling each other names the other day. Though guised in the form of playful joking, the name calling primarily centered on one of the boys and was ultimately bullying, dominating, behavior.

Power is a necessary force in our world. Leaders have a responsibility to protect those within their domain and advocate for the interests of those they represent. At it’s best, this power is wielded in a spirit of dominion – one of stewardship for the great responsibility given. At it’s worst, it becomes focused on domination, sometimes by one nation over another, sometimes by one group over another, and sometimes by one individual over another. The temptation to lord such power over others will never go away and most will fail at one level or another to moderate it. The greatest hedge against such temptation is to be properly centered, to rightly order one’s priorities to a good beyond him or herself.

The 1871 loss of land and worldly power by the Papal States was a Providential gift to the Catholic Church and to the world. The removal of the distraction of temporal power liberated a spiritual power that has been a force for great good over the last 150 years. In the transition, the Church’s center became more clear and its power became rightly ordered solely to the spiritual stewardship of the souls within it for the good of all nations.

We all hold a kingly responsibility for our domain, those within it, and those it serves. Rightly-centered, we can act as steward of that great responsibility, using our powers for good in the service of others rather than simply for self. The lion is a powerful image for this sense of dominion and noble purpose beyond our own desires. The world hasn’t changed much since man was given dominion over it and first became tempted to dominate. Neither has the call to virtue in that dominion.

“I must CONSTANTLY remind myself to think and feel more deeply. There is a sadness and shallowness that comes with living in today’s world—particularly in the United States. Fewer and fewer families remain for generations — let alone a single generation — long enough to create empathetic bonds. We lose a depth of understanding and, therefore, empathy/sympathy of the “plight” of individuals or the knowledge of ways to be of help.”

Gay Burkhart

About nine years ago, we participated in an Artist Open House event at the The Stutz building in Indianapolis. At the time, we had a suite at the building and we opened our doors to visitors exploring the various studios throughout the nearly 300,000 square foot former auto manufacturing facility that’s been around since 1912. The event, and our suite, were filled with people and I found myself near the door talking with Sally and our friend, Gay. A man nearby appeared to be looking for something. I greeted him, asking, “Welcome! May I help you find something?” He smiled and said, “I’m looking for my wife.” Without missing a beat, Gay replied, “What did you have in mind? I may be available.” He chuckled a bit awkwardly and replied, “Uh…I’m already married.”

Sally and I still laugh about that story. In her late seventies at the time, Gay was always unapologetically herself, feisty quips included.

Two years ago, Gay visited me at our offices. Our time together inspired a blog post. Here is part of it:

Gay’s response to that post: “I’m so embarrassed.”

I first met Gay when we both served on the Board of Gennesaret Free Clinics here in Indianapolis. Gennesaret provided free medical, dental, and recovery, care for the homeless and others suffering in inner city Indianapolis. Gay had a heart for service and was a long-time supporter of the clinics and those they served. Gay wasn’t afraid to ask the tough questions of “why?” and “how much?” even as her heart for the mission always showed on her sleeve.

My friend passed away a few weeks ago and I smile as I remember her. This summary from her obituary captures well her spirit:

Gay often responded to my blog posts and we maintained an intermittent correspondence through such interactions. She loved following and commenting on our adventures. Her mind was clear and bright and inquisitive, ready to challenge if she disagreed, question if something was not clear, and encourage where she saw the opportunity to come to an understanding. She always had a sparkle in her eye – a fire for living that made living interesting.

The quotation I shared at the beginning of this post was a response Gay gave to a piece I wrote during a trip to Italy in 2023. Here is the closing paragraph:

I pray that at 85 years old, I am still reminding myself to think and feel more deeply, that I care enough to be concerned about the world and my place within it, and that I’m still working to care for others, whatever their “plight” might be. Gay Burkhart was one of those amazing souls who lived a rich, interesting, and meaningful life. One that meant something because of who she was and what she gave, to those who knew her and to those who didn’t.

There are some people who are just worth knowing.

A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law sent photos of flooding in northern Kentucky. Heavy rains caused the Ohio River to run over its banks, causing massive flooding in low and not-so-low lying areas. Recent storms moving through our area reminded me of the unpredictable power of nature as 70 mph winds roared horizontally across a tree line in our backyard and thunder rumbled so deeply as to shake the back porch of our house. Sitting on that back porch, fear and trembling gripped me as the storm struck swiftly and violently. I was frozen in the face of such awesome power. How often do we get such reminders of our own insignificance?

Thinking of that flooding in Kentucky, I’m reminded of the tension between order and chaos. The banks of the river provide order, guiding the flow and its life-giving power onward. However, there are times when nature’s chaos overwhelms that order, spilling the destructive and life-taking potential of that flowing water into unsuspecting areas. Order eventually returns but, for awhile, chaos rules the day.

Walking along the streets of New York City this week, I was reminded of the tension between order and chaos. The flow of humanity moving along its streets, through its buildings and parks, into and out of every nook and cranny across that island, delicately balanced between the physical barriers of its geography and the invisible barriers of law, social norms, and the individual wills of millions of human beings. The city is electric with such energy and somehow thrives amid the danger of a human flow that perpetually threatens to overflow its banks.

In many ways, the chaos represents the dynamic energy of creation. The unformed potential of the kinetic, waiting to be directed. But it doesn’t wait, it spills over into all directions if left to its own device. Such creative energy becomes destructive when left to its own devices. Order is necessary to form and direct that chaotic energy to useful, creative purposes. Waters left to their own designs flow in all directions, for better and often, for worse. The chaos of human energy behaves in much the same way. Left to our own self-serving devices, our energies can become destructive.

We often rail against authority. Don’t tread on me, right? But the rules maintain the necessary tension, pressing against a chaos that can overwhelm. And like a storm, it can happen quickly. We need the invisible barriers of law and norm to help keep order. Even more, we need the invisible fabric of Natural Moral Law to help guide and temper the selfish will that can also consume. The tension must be maintained.

But the guardrails that keep chaos at bay aren’t necessarily guiding its creative power in constructive directions. The banks of the river give the water form and direction, but human potential needs another structure to help it thrive. We need leadership to harness the creative potential from the chaos of human energies.

My wife often speaks of the “beauty that flows through us” in the context of humanity’s potential to reflect the Divine. As creatures, we are each endowed with the dignity of this image and the capacity to reflect it into the world. At the individual level, we can see ourselves as banks allowing this river of creative power to flow through with beautiful purpose.

At its best, leadership is serving this purpose at scale. Bringing order to chaos is part of that purpose. Being steady and present. Calm and measured to help still the raging waters. However, the power to help that flow of human potential reach its apogee, it’s highest point of flourishing is leadership’s true purpose. Allowing the beauty of other to flow with order and meaning and safety, through here and toward beyond is what the best leaders do.

Unfortunately, leadership and authority are frequently confused and many of our leaders are more about the power and control aspects than about the flourishing aspects of their positions. Sometimes maintaining order is about using power to keep things under control. But the temptation is always to “lord it over them” as we find it difficult to not wield power in this way.

However, moving beyond the structures and hierarchies we use to control society, opportunities for leadership as a the banks of the human river of creative potential abound. We lead in our homes, in our churches, in our communities, in our extended families, in our classrooms, and in our workplaces. Many of these opportunities for leadership move far beyond control or managing others, giving us the chance to let the beauty of those around us flow through and beyond us.

This kind of leadership is nourishing. It helps channel and direct the chaos toward cosmos, the right ordering of these creative energies that ultimately helps others flourish. The tension of order and chaos must still be maintained, but rightly ordered, it’s creative potential can be unleashed. This is the place where we, as individuals, can become fully alive.

I realize that most of us will not do this well and our own wants, needs, and fears, will continue to interfere with our call to these leadership opportunities. However, this too is part of the tension necessary in a system that never sustains perfect equilibrium. Cosmos may be right order, however, there will alway be times when too much order or too much chaos will win the moment. There is no cruise control or autopilot, leadership is a contact sport that demands the hard and messy work of engaging in the demands of those human beings around you. We are all called to it. We will all fail at it. We all must keep trying to be better in it.

This week, look at the chaos in your world and think about where you might be the river bank to direct the flow. Letting go of where you want it to flow and allowing it to flow through and beyond you might be a good place to start.

Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession.

Deuteronomy 1:8

For the umpteenth time, we watched The Way last night. As I type this, I am both surprised that “umpteenth” is actually a word and that I’m referencing watching this movie for the umpteenth time. But I digress.

The movie tells the story of a father who decides to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela after learning his son died in a storm near the beginning of his own journey on the Camino. The movie inspired Sally and I to walk the Camino in 2019 and watching it brings back many memories. However, today, I want to focus on the arrival.

Arrivals are special. After years of dreaming, months of preparation, and days of walking, an arrival is a magic moment. The journey is done and we feel the relief, the joy, and the satisfaction, of preparing, crossing the distance, and finally getting there. Ahhh.

Of course, most arrivals don’t happen after months or years, many are are simply stitched into the routines of our normal day-to-day lives. We leave and arrive all the time. Reflecting on arrivals this morning, I see the distance and time between leaving and arriving as a season. We live in seasons, the natural rhythms of beginnings and endings, which mark transitions – movements from here to there. Sometimes the movements are small and sometimes they are big.

These seasons we enter, the journeys that comprise our lives, are finite collections of moments. We live in time and float along its ever moving currents toward our own finish, that final arrival when time as we know it runs out. Everything in our life follows this pattern of beginning and ending making the journey metaphor infinitely useful for reflection. We intuit this ongoing movement from this moment to the next, understanding that life happens in between.

Today, Christians around the world celebrate Easter and the ending of the forty days of Lent, the season of preparation for the Resurrection. The past forty days commemorate the forty years of the Jewish Exodus, the people’s wandering in the desert, before entering the Promised Land. From here, the Catholic Church gives us the Season of Easter, fifty days to mark the time from Jesus Christ’s Resurrection to his Ascension. Then, we’ll move into Ordinary Time.

Sometimes the seasons in which we find ourselves are for preparation, sometimes they’re for celebration, and sometimes they are just ordinary. A curious aspect of these seasons, these journeys, is that we can’t stay in any of them all the time. Why is that?

Considering preparation, one might imagine training for a marathon. In the course of that preparation, the runner must elevate his or her workout regimen. Training may include shorter to longer runs, working on proper hydration, increasing calorie intake, and focusing on sleep and rest cycles to ensure proper recovery. This kind of preparation demands more. We train at a higher intensity in preparation for the event, completing the event, we dial-it-back to sustainability. We cannot operate at the higher pitch indefinitely.

We see this cycle throughout our lives and understand why we cannot live perpetually in any one season. Moving from preparation, we arrive, experience the release of the building tension in the celebration of arrival, and then we return to the normal.

Think about a woman’s pregnancy. The natural cycle of life follows a beautiful rhythm. Nine months of preparation and then arrival. Baby develops along the way, as does the mother, both moving each day a bit closer to the completion of the journey. Both more prepared for the arrival and what comes after.

We see this natural process occur across every aspect of our lives: building businesses, raising children, going to school, projects, etc. We live in these cycles of preparation, peak efforts, peak moments, and then back into steady state…for awhile. All move us. All change us. All leave us asking “what now?”

What about the times when the journey doesn’t leave us changed. Times when we consume it like a meal – one more experience. Check. One more destination. Done. Then we return: doing, being, living the same. Maybe that’s ok. We certainly can’t live in our peak exertions, on vacation, or as a permanent student. We also can’t approach every journey as a mountaintop, life-changing, growth opportunity. Or can we?

The interesting thing about “mountaintop” experiences is that it is the climb that makes them possible. Climbs are incremental, comprised of many small steps. The small steps in between the peaks are the places that change us the most. Like water cutting a canyon into the earth over millions of years, smoothing stones, carrying dirt, molding, forming, directing, changing.

It turns out that the journey continues and, peak or not, we’re always becoming.

We come to find that great works are created in layers. Initially roughed out in a sketch or framework or scaffolding – then filled-in over time. Paintings, buildings, cities, canyons, worlds, and human beings, are all created in small movements over time. Evolving, growing, maturing, becoming. The end result is a composite of the peak efforts and all the mundane details that fill the blank spaces. Great works are made one layer at a time.

Today is another arrival. Ahh. But the journey is not over. We simply enter a new season. Celebration. Rest. Recovery. Now what? Perhaps we start with a little self-reflection, a little pause before the next season. Taking stock of our most recent journey, what do we notice? What changed? What didn’t change? Did it take us anywhere new, leave us where we began, or return us to something old?

Pope Benedict XVI introduced a new word to me today: jubilus. It is Latin for “cry of joy.” It is certainly appropriate for an Easter celebration. For Christians today, it marks the celebration of the moment but also reflects the realization that something has changed. Everything has changed in a miraculous way.

Our journeys, the seasons through which we move, should change us. And though some journeys reflect seasons of struggle, there is still an opportunity for joy in the glorious possibility of another arrival and seeing where the season has taken us. The best do that. They take us somewhere and change us along the way. Particularly the difficult ones. In the best cases, they move us into a new way of being – a higher form of existence – if we let them.

Happy Easter! I pray that whatever journey you’re on – whatever season you find yourself within – it is taking you toward abundant life.

At the bottom of Dante’s Inferno, we find the traitors, those treacherous betrayers who wrought destruction on others and ultimately, themselves, by turning upon those who trusted them. Traitor is a strong, damning, word. We typically think of traitors as those who betray their country but Dante includes Judas in this lowest circle of Hell because of his betrayal of his friend, teacher, and Lord, Jesus Christ. In Dante’s Hell, there are degrees of betrayal. Before reaching this 9th Circle, Dante encountered “evil counselors” in the 8th Circle – those who dealt treachery in their lies and misdirection – another form of betrayal.

We recently watched Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur, the 2017 version of the classic story. In this version, Jude Law plays Vortigern, the scheming brother of Arthur’s father, who steals the kingdom by striking a deal with a demon. Vortigern literally sacrifices his wife and daughter in his quest for power, treacherously betraying everyone in his life to be king. This story is played over and over throughout history and in the stories we tell. Brutus and Julius Caesar. Claudius in Hamlet. It’s easy to see in the big power plays.

As we enter Holy Week, the week heading into the pinnacle of Christian hope and celebration, I find myself thinking about betrayal. It is a strong word and just hearing it can make one wince. After all, we know it as a bad thing and people who do it as bad people. What is it to betray?

Merriam-Webster offers four definitions for the word “betray”:

1. To lead astray

A general search of the term reveals many, many nuances, but central to it is a sense of a broken promise or letting another down in degrees ranging from treachery to abandonment to unmet expectations, resulting in some level of injury to the other. Part of the complexity of the word lies in that it can be active or passive in its application – we can betray in what we do and what we do not do.

We come to discover that betrayal runs much deeper than blatant treachery. We actually develop the skills of betrayal early. As children, we learn to choose one friend over another based on our moods or preferences or the groups with which we associate. How is this betrayal? Anyone who has ever been left out or excluded knows the feeling of being betrayed. Affections shift with the wind and the nature of relationships is based on such choices. We learn about the hurt of rejection and broken hearts almost from the beginning.

At one level, it is necessary. Choices must be made and we cannot give our hearts equally to everyone. Often, someone must lose in the face of choice. However, betrayal permeates by degrees. Every lie is a betrayal – even the “white” ones – those seemingly insignificant fibs. We betray secrets, we break promises, we compromise our integrity in dishonesty – all are betrayals. And all are in the name of our desires, preferences, convenience, and choice.

Does betrayal occur when no promise was made? Our social fabric is built upon expectations of behavior. We give and receive trust based on an understanding of those expectations. However, everyone also plays in the gray zone of those expectations and navigates the gray based on preference. We let people down in degrees and rationalize based on necessity and our own conscience. Betrayal often sits in the eye of the beholder – it is a matter of expectation. What was my understanding and what was yours?

Certainly choices must be made and not everyone can be chosen equally. In business, it’s done all the time. When there are winners and losers in a deal or transaction, a choice is made and, depending on the relationship and circumstances, it might feel like betrayal. Of course, how it’s done makes all the difference. Sometimes, it is betrayal. And we know it.

Every human relationship is beset by it and anything enduring must face it on some level. No matter what, we will let each other down. We will make a choice that the other feels is a betrayal and we will rationalize it based on the circumstances and our own desires. No, not all betrayals are equal. Thank God. But they all come from the same place.

The theme fits as we enter Holy Week and relive the betrayals associated with the Passion of Jesus Christ. At its most basic level, sin is betrayal. It’s a broken promise, an unmet expectation, or an omission of right effort. Sometime’s betrayal is treacherous and directly hurts the other: Judas directly betrayed Jesus resulting in his torture and crucifixion. Sometimes it’s just a denial: Peter denied knowing Christ on three separate occasions – a betrayal of his faith and friendship. In both cases, they chose themselves at the expense of the other.

We often draw boxes around our betrayals, our sins, by telling ourselves that we never promised to do or not to do something. We hide behind nuance or the parsing of words to soften the sting of our own conscious, but we know betrayal when we see it. Intention can be a difficult thing to pin down and we normally don’t intend to betray. But sin can be gradual, and the slippery slope sneaks up on us, compromising us in the name of convenience, comfort, and concupiscence.

There is so much more that can be written about this. Perhaps betrayal is too strong a word. Maybe I press too far in laying it upon us, after all, we’re not really betraying anyone, right? Today, Catholics around the world will recreate the Passion in Mass by assuming the role of the crowd and shouting “Crucify him” before Pontius Pilate. We do that to remind ourselves that the same brokenness lies within us and though we were not there, that same capacity to betray still haunts us.

Betrayal is a strong word. And though most of us are not acting with malice or evil intent, I wonder if looking at some of the decisions we make through the lens of the other we might catch a glimpse of betrayal in what they are feeling. Perhaps that glimpse might give us pause to consider a more loving way, a more empathetic disposition, in those choices we make.

In Canto 26 of Dante’s epic poem, Inferno, the poet meets the Greek hero, Ulysses. In Greek and Roman mythology, Ulysses was the clever mastermind behind the Trojan Horse which led to the fall of Troy. His journey home was told in Homer’s Odyssey. We find him in the 8th Circle of Dante’s Hell, condemned for abandoning his family and leading his men on a doomed quest for ultimate knowledge at the edge of the world. Dante writes:

Ulysses’ sin? Abandoning his family and cleverly talking his men into a doomed quest for knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The 8th Circle of Dante’s Inferno is reserved for “evil counselors,” but it was Ulysses’ curitas, his disordered curiosity that led him and his men to shipwreck within site of Mount Purgatory at the edge of the world.

In the opening of the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas writes of the twofold office of the wise man: 1) “to meditate and speak forth of the divine truth” and 2) “to refute opposing error.” Aquinas goes on to argue that “Among all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more noble, more useful, and more full of joy.” In other words, it is good, necessary, and joyful, to pursue the truth, and, we are called to do so.

We live in an age with vast knowledge available with a mouse click. Some might argue all knowledge. Not only can we find virtually any imaginable fact, we now have programs we call Artificial Intelligence that will do our “thinking” for us by responding to questions by querying pools of data that comprise the sum of all digitized knowledge, and then return data sets which answer, redirect, or provide options for whatever it was we wanted to know.

But truth remains a tricky thing. Modern rationalism has driven us to a fixation on knowledge through observation and experiment. In our world, truth is the observable, the provable conclusion. And yet, we still argue about “my truth and your truth” suggesting that the truth of the matter is still quite subjective. We intuit the fallacy in this thinking as we recognize that there are many absolute facts – true things that are real, verifiable, and measurable.

Why do we still argue over truths? Or facts? Or proven points of knowledge? Well, the truth of the matter is that much of what we consider knowledge or fact or data or truth, is subject to interpretation. We may have a set of facts, a piece of information, or a data set, but what it means often lies in the eyes of the beholder.

What I’m describing above are ways of knowing, and I’ve confused the issue by mixing and matching words: truth, knowledge, data, fact, information, meaning. Epistemology is the study of how we know things – the ways of knowing and discerning belief, truth, evidence, and reason. How we come to know, to believe that something is true, varies and our ability to reason based on evidence amid our own biases forms much of the “my truth – your truth” disconnect.

But there are objective truths and there are observable facts. Natural law underpins our common understanding of morality and though some will argue around the edges, most will agree on the basics of right and wrong – taking life, stealing, lying, cheating, etc. – we generally agree that these are not good behaviors. And we can normally agree on observable facts: 1+1=2 or what constitutes a human being or a dog or a color.

Returning to Ulysses and Thomas Aquinas, I wonder about our ongoing quest for knowledge. Our continuing desire to know more, to understand more deeply, to have the answers, or to get the scoop. Why do we want to know? Are we searching for the truth or the answers that support our position? Are we asking out of sincere intent or our desire for an advantage? Do we dig more deeply to justly solve important problems or to merely to enrich ourselves? When we finally find truth, are we willing to change our minds or our behaviors to align with it or will we bury or rationalize it away so we don’t have to change?

There is an acute danger in pursuing knowledge and with it comes great responsibility. A serious problem of our modern age is the belief that all knowledge is good knowledge and observable knowledge is the only form that counts. There is an even greater danger in pursuing the truth because it might demand something of you. Will you recognize it when you find it? Are you willing to respond accordingly?

Ulysses final words to Dante are cautionary:

New York. That icon of American history, personality, and moxie. The city is a melting pot of all the best and worst of what we are as America in the most elemental and profound form. Stepping from the jetway to the Uber, one feels the kinetic energy of millions of people pressed-in upon each other, spilling forth in human collision and commerce. New York is overflowing…in everything, and no matter how mundane your purposes, simply being driven into the city makes one feel like they’ve just stepped onto the stage of some incomprehensible drama. It is a city of the senses and for the senses; its ceaseless buzz administered through invisible wires directly to the brain.

Stepping onto the elevator during my first morning in the Big Apple, I was surprised by a woman on the elevator who asked, “21st floor, right?” as she pressed the 21 on the panel. Looking at her quizzically, I responded, “Yes, that’s my floor.” “Mr. Berry, right?” she said, continuing in explanation, “You checked-in last night.” Now realizing that she was the front desk person from the night before, I said, “Wow! You have an impressive memory.” She smiled as she said, “No, you’re memorable.” Then she waved as she stepped off at the next floor.

Riding the elevator up to my room, I wondered: Am I memorable? What did I do to be memorable? What is it to be memorable? This encounter made think about how we connect with others. The imprints we make, the little ways we draw closer or push one another away. For the person receiving such a statement, what effect does it have? A smile? A warmth? A touch on the heart? The sense of being seen. Of mattering, even in the smallest of ways.

Whether or not I did anything worth remembering, to bother making the comment means something. Even if someone has the unique gift of remembering such details as a name or room number, the fact that she was able and willing to bring it to bear in that moment represents great generosity. To greet someone that way is to say: “I see the Divine within you, I see your innate dignity as a human being and it is worth smiling and being generous.”

A few hours later, I was speaking to a room of professionals about mission and purpose. I spoke directly of human flourishing and the dignity of the individual, describing the duty of our organizations to see it and the opportunity for us to honor it through the services we provide. As I spoke, I remembered the young woman on the elevator and thought of the powerful stories of patients touched by our own team members who cared enough to be memorable. It is not something that can be packaged or trademarked. It can only happen one person, one encounter, one caring effort at a time.

A couple of days later, I was sitting at a restaurant in my neighborhood, enjoying breakfast with Sally. Away from the buzz of the big, big city, and safely cocooned in the peace and familiarity of home, I smiled at a familiar server as I asked for a cup of coffee. “Good morning!” she said. “Have you dined with us before?” Having dined with her on numerous occasions, my bubble of memorability instantly burst. I wondered, what makes us unmemorable?

What is passing before my eyes unseen and unremembered, every single day? Am I putting enough effort in really seeing people? What would my world look like if I saw and remembered the unseen and unremembered? I see you. I remember you. You matter. What would the world look like if we all did that?

In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis describes the “Chest” as the arbiter between our higher intellect and our lower animal instincts. A well-developed Chest helps us to recognize the things that merit proper appreciation – to be moved by what is objectively good, beautiful, and true. To know that each person has God-given dignity, to see that dignity as objectively beautiful, and to share that observation reflects a well-developed “Chest.”

Are we seeing and properly valuing the people in front of us? Can we see the transcendent dignity in each human being we encounter and remember them for the beauty of that spark within? Are we able to recognize the things that merit such responses from us?

Perhaps memorability comes in both giving and receiving. Maybe the other is worth remembering and we become memorable in our effort to see them that way.

God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He answered, “Here I am.”
God said, “Come no nearer!
Remove the sandals from your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground.

Exodus 3:4-5

A daily ritual of our home is the morning care of our dog, Edie, which includes feeding her and letting her out to do her business in our back yard. I often step outside with her to enjoy the last moments of dark before the dawn: looking at the stars, breathing the cold morning air, and listening to the nearby rooster who seems to think the dawn should be announced a few hours earlier than the sun is ready to appear.

Standing on our back patio yesterday morning, I was greeted with a child’s “Helloooo!” coming from the dark beyond a few of our neighbor’s yards. I could not see anyone, but said “hello” and waved to the night. I went back inside the house and a few minutes later saw our nearly 8-year-old grandson walking out of the dark into our backyard. Hood up and hands in his pocket, he moved slowly to our back door.

Sliding our door open, I said, “Good morning Coop.” “Hey Pop, I just came to say “hi” and “bye.” I can’t stay.” He stepped into the house, hood still up and hands still in his pockets. A pair of binoculars hung around his neck and his eyes sparkled as he smiled. I knelt down on the floor, looked directly into his eyes, and hugged him close. I asked, “What are you looking for with your binoculars?” “Coyotes,” he responded. “Did you see any?” “Nope. But I did hear some rustling in the woods.” “Were you scared?” “A little.”

With that, he said he needed to get home. I watched as he walked to the edge of our yard, lifted his binoculars to his eyes, and peered toward the tree line running along the back of the neighborhood. Satisfied that all was clear, he walked slowly toward the fence of his backyard, disappearing into the dark.

I stood at our back door for a few minutes, staring into the shadows where he stepped beyond my sight, and resting in the fullness of the moment. I felt….alive. Really alive. Whole. Complete. The moment was full, as was my heart, and I wanted to hold it as long as I possibly could.

Later in the day, we went to our youngest grandson’s first birthday party. Watching all seven of our grandchildren and a couple of cousins, all under 8 years old, run around joyfully, I thought to myself, these kids are showing what it means to be fully alive. The party was complete chaos and we were all lost in the joyful abandon of their innocent surrender to the moment. Looking around, I noticed the adults brought to fullness of being in it all, smiling and laughing at the pure wonder of the personalities at play.

Waking this morning, I reflected on the story of Moses and the burning bush. The bush was on fire but it was not consumed; it was made holy in what caused it to become more. God’s Divine Presence elevated it, brought it to something more – a fullness of life.

The Hindu greeting, “namaste,” translates to “I greet the divine in you.” I thought of this greeting as I looked into Cooper’s eyes the day before. The spark, the sparkle, that ignites, inflames, that little human being is a reflection of the Divine – an image of it. Precious. Pure. Holy.

Spend a moment with any child, looking deeply into his or her eyes, and you’ll see it. The spark. The sparkle. The flame that burns but does not consume. We often fail to see it in the adults around us. Even more often, we fail to see it in ourselves; we allow it to dim or we dial it back or we just forget about the flame that once burned without consuming.

I held each of my grandchildren for a moment, or two, yesterday. I looked deeply into each of their eyes and I saw it. I saw the spark, the flame burning within. Today, I realize that I was standing on holy ground.

That I am standing on holy ground.