manna | CURIOUS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

He “loves like a hurricane,” says John Mark MacMillan in a contemporary Christian song, referring to God. These days, with images of Harvey and Irma fresh in our minds, such a simile is indeed frightening. Such love does not immediately give the hearer peace of mind. It bends him, twists her; it is violent, uncontrolled; it is superabundant, dangerous.

A recent article described women valuing wealth more than men primarily for a surprising reason. While men would prefer to have money to splurge on material things, luxuries, sports cars, etc., women would prefer to have it for “security.” Most women would forego shopping, plastic surgery, and even a fancy vacation (though of course those who love travel would consider the last of these) to obtain this savings. The gist of the article is this: women are more sensible than men and would like simply to streamline their life, making it less hectic, more livable. “On average,” Julia Carpenter, the article’s author, writes, “the women surveyed said they’d consider around $2.4 million the number required to be considered ’wealthy.’ That’s nearly 30 times the net worth of U.S. households.”

The last bit of this jumped off the page at me, that figure of thirty times the net worth (net worth is not just liquid assets but everything combined, after debts are subtracted). The use of a calculator quickly reveals that such a figure means the net worth of the average household is $80,000. That is not one individual—that’s a family’s net worth. I verified this by a quick Google search.[1] While I could not find a definitive number for global net worth, it is apparent that that figure would be significantly lower than the average American household’s eighty grand. Quite significantly.

Not that I am against peace of mind—nearly everyone recognizes that having some savings is a good idea, as one should, if it is possible, be sensible. But amassing most of the money in the world—the top 1% has between 33 and 42% of it; the exact numbers are disputed[2]—how is that a good idea? Does everyone have to be Bill Gates? And anyway, how can one feel the hurricane’s force when bunkered in an entirely safe wine cellar on a private island?[3]

Which brings us back to John Mark MacMillan’s song. I suppose women are more sensible than men in wanting enough wealth not to have to worry constantly about how to make the bills. But the number that the article says they advanced—2.4 million—such a figure goes well beyond worrying about paying the electric bill.

Thus I close with this thought. When the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, their God offered them manna every day, gratis, poured down on the gentle winds of heaven, a provision, a blessing given to the people of God in time of need. But there was a condition: one could not gather more than one needed, except that he or she might not have to work on the Sabbath day. What a strange thing, when one thinks about it. God giving provision mercifully, every day; to turn the formula around, we, if we believe in him, receiving all that we need from his hand, every day. Does that preclude our working hard? No, of course not, for the notion of the manna is not a literal lesson—one eats heavenly provided food only—but rather a symbolic one, just as the hurricane is a symbol for the powerful love of God, a frightening one, these days.

I end this blog with this thought—the wind can come and blow away wealth, not just houses. That means that real peace of mind isn’t available to us, whether we are men or women or an entire household, by over-amassing wealth but instead, perhaps, only by feeling the wind, being aware both of its power and the provision that the winds of heaven can confer upon us, like manna. And if we have extra manna, maybe we should share it with those in need, like those now in the path of Irma or the wake of Harvey.

May those who have suffered from those hurricanes find that peace now, may they sense God’s grace in the midst of trouble and be provided earthly provision by those who care. May they, and all of us, find the peace of mind that doesn’t come with wealth, but comes from knowing that He who made the wind and the stars is with us in the darkest hours.

[1] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/07/03/how-does-your-net-worth-compare-to-that-of-the-ave.aspx

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/brookings-1-percent/473478/

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/richard-branson-survived-hurricane-irma-on-necker-island.html

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Raphael’s “The Mass at Bolsena” (1512–1514)

I was recently in Orvieto, in whose Duomo is the corporal[1] upon which the miracle of Bolsena is said to have taken place. That miracle is the blood that dripped, it is said, from the host when a priest, who personally doubted the notion of transubstantiation, experienced a miraculous event when he broke the host. Orvieto thus became the seat of the festival of Corpus Christi, a feast day that it shares and always shall with the scenic lakeside town of Bolsena.

“I am Catholic and even I don’t believe that,” a friend of mine said over dinner. I thought little of his remark at the time, but a few days later I wondered why he does not believe it, for my personal reasons for not believing it have nothing to do with the fact that it is a purported miracle. My basis for unbelief in the event has to do with my Protestant understanding of Christian doctrine based on the final words of Christ on the cross, not because a miracle can’t or didn’t happen in Bolsena.

In fact, were I God, I could hardly imagine a more scenic place for a miracle than Bolsena. But that has nothing to do with the notion of a miracle. Rather, miracles, whether orally (or artistically) transmitted, like that of the host of Bolsena, or recorded in Holy Writ, like that of the miracle of manna come down from heaven to feed the hungry Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, simply require a bit of faith, but with that bit of faith added, do tend to make sense in a world that is otherwise too often senseless without them.

Now one could say that I am probably overthinking this, and I probably am, especially inasmuch as one certainly could call, pace Raphael, the miracle of Bolsena merely a minor one. It is, after all, only a miracle that is said to verify a point of Catholic doctrine, not one that healed the sick or raised the dead. But however that may be, it got me to (over-)thinking, and I found myself pondering miracles in general. Thus I wondered whether, were there to be someone who did believe in a minor miracle of any kind, what might that same person do with the major miracles? I have in mind those such as the miracle of the manna recorded in the book of Exodus. That miracle itself prefigures, if not the miracle of Bolsena per se, at least the central feature of it, the Bread of Heaven, which all Christians, whether trans-, con-, or a- substantiators, agree is in some sense the body of Christ. (Those who believe in the real presence, in down and under the bread, I personally think, are closer to the truth; those who do not are not. But that is, to my mind, adiaphoristic in the greater scope of things and certainly will be resolved on the other side of the Jordan, where “real presence” will be played out at a new level).

And thus to return to the manna specifically. The symbolism of manna itself, bread from heaven, struck me, as I pondered it, working backward from Bolsena to the exilic wilderness of the Israelites. It seemed to me to be particularly central to Christian thought, for at the center of the Lord’s Prayer lies a petition specifically for a more mundane kind of manna: “Give us this day our daily bread.” That centrality, that powerful, real sustaining presence of God through bread and wine in our life, to give our bodies true blood and corporal form are not unrelated. The miracle can be fancy, like manna from heaven, or humble, like daily bread, but it is a miracle nonetheless, sustained evidence of a God who is capable of miraculous events, even as that of Bolsena, which I paradoxically don’t believe in, as I said at the outset. But the reason for my skepticism is not because the event itself is said to be miraculous but rather because of Christ’s final words, “It is finished.” And with that, I will parrot those words, for this blog is, likewise now finished, with a hope for you and me and a world that needs them but deserves them not, the continuance of miracles among us.