Recently, I attended a religious retreat. I gave a talk on the retreat about my faith journey. 

There are three words that are critical to my journey that all start with the letter “H” and no, one of them isn’t Hell.

Can a 60-year-old cynical agnostic move closer to God? Yes he can.

My journey started on my first retreat with Humility. In fact, I can’t imagine any self discovery journey can start without accepting that your current standing needs improvement.

My rejection of organized religion was based on an argumentative rationale. Throughout history, mankind has been killing each other in the name of their religion. In my community, supposedly devout people still acted unkindly or carried ugly prejudices.  I never wanted to confront that my argument was really an excuse to play golf or sleep in on Sunday.

Throughout my first retreat, I kept thinking about the group of men – most of them strangers – who were selflessly accepting me, listening to me and serving me. It occurred to me that this was how God was present, through other good people. It Humbled me to think how patient God had been to find a way to reach my Heart.

With Humility came recognition of my Hypocrisy.  

I had claimed to believe in Jesus but lived life often in contradiction to some of Jesus’ teachings. It had been easy to say the demands of life are reality and sometimes keep you from practicing what your faith teaches.

Bad things happen in everyone’s life. You can lose Hope and be filled with despair. With my changed perspective, I began to realize God had always been with me through people who loved, helped and supported me. With such help, I had been able to resurrect myself from every fall.  And it excited me to think that God worked through me the same as through those who helped me.  

Hope is what drives us to keep trying to get through something tough.

During my most recent retreat, it occurred to me that there are many parallels between my faith journey and life journeys.  Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it seems our country has been stuck in a deep canyon of hopelessness, pessimism and despair.  We have become polarized and can’t even talk to each other.  I believe the same “H” words offer a path forward.

Can we talk with each other and listen with a genuine effort to understand an opposing point of view?  Yes we can.

It requires Humility to take that first step toward reconciliation. We have to be willing to accept that we might be missing some information or not understand the whole picture. 

We have to allow some self doubt that we might be wrong. 

With Humility, you can open your ears to broader listening and comprehension as opposed to listening only for points you want to rebut.

With Humility comes recognition of our Hypocrisy. 

 I have a friend who has extremely conservative political views. We can talk but we have to tread carefully, trying to be respectful and not judgmental. My friend also has strong religious beliefs. He loves to hear about my retreat experiences and my faith journey. He serves every Saturday with his church’s food kitchen for the homeless. He likes talking to the people he serves and seeing them as people, not a social issue. It is his most satisfactory service experience.  He told me he is finding it increasingly hard to reconcile his faith and his political views.

As he seeks better reconciliation can his views change? Yes they can.

There have been many times in our past that our country has done noble things. We have recovered from terrible times and entered periods of optimism about the future and idealism about making the world a better place for all.

We are not living in such a time. We fear foreigners and distrust our government. We listen to the fear mongering of politicians and media, who propagandize despair cynically to only serve their self interests.

Can we Hope for a future that excites us? Yes we can.

All it takes is a change in perspective. Look for the good in all the people around you. Let the Holy Spirit flowing through them touch your Heart. I saw neighbors helping each other when straightline winds devastated Columbia last summer. I see our dysfunctional government sometimes coming together to agree on important legislation.  We all saw Arab countries participating in the defense of Israel during the Iranian missile attack.

America is still great.  All we have to do is look Humbly to see it. 

Can we come together to make it even better?  Yes we can.