Journeys of Faith by Robert L. Plummer

Author:Robert L. Plummer [Plummer, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

SEARCHING FOR HOPE

Everyone is searching for hope, even when we don’t realize it. From early years, we give expression to this desire by asking questions, often with a single word: “Why?” If you have talked with a child between the ages of two and five, you know precisely what it’s like. Their adorable and sometimes irritating refrain of interrogatives bears witness to the natural curiosity that is common to humanity. Deep down we all wonder — and a primary reason for our wondering is our inexorable need for hope. We want to understand why the world operates as it does, and ultimately we want to know the one who created it. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 states, God has set eternity in our hearts.

While my experience of growing up in the Catholic Church was positive, I never found the hope for which I was searching, at least the kind that endures. I enjoyed life in our parish; I was happy to have completed religious training and the sacrament of confirmation, but the idea of redemptive grace escaped me. At the end of the day, I found Catholic faith to be frustrating because it never provided confidence that I was fully and finally accepted by God. Even when I successfully observed the Church’s precepts — regulations such as attending Mass weekly, observing holy days of obligation, or abstaining from eating meat on Lenten Fridays — I knew it was only a matter of time before I violated another religious stipulation and thus removed myself from God’s favor. Therefore, at age nineteen, I embarked upon a quest to find hope in other religious traditions.

I started my search by pursuing transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. After a few months of uttering strange noises in a lotus position, I understood why the Beatles became disenchanted with Mr. Yogi’s method. From there I went on to attend seminars through the Learning Annex, studying under world-class gurus like M. Scott Peck and Deepak Chopra.

While working with New York Telephone in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, I was surrounded by a broad range of religions and philosophies. The Village became my classroom. For instance, when I wanted to learn from someone in the nearby Buddhist Center, I arranged for a personal meeting. My method for doing this was dubious, even though at the time it made sense. After locating the center’s phone terminal, I disconnected their cross-connection wires, reported the trouble, took the repair, and rang the Center’s doorbell, to be received by a grateful host. Once inside, I found the person to interview, sat beside a wall jack in her office, pretended I was on hold with the central switchboard, and asked questions. As I recall, I think the Buddhist lady even made me a cup of coffee.

The apex of my spiritual journey was a “fire walk.” It was at New York’s Jacob Javits Center, where over a thousand people waited to hear motivational speaker Tony Robbins. After three hours of his encouraging affirmations, neurolinguistic programming, and some

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