Dinner

Tad and Nort meet for dinner after having coffee together earlier in the day. There is much to catch up with. Only casual friends at seminary thirty years ago, they have not seen each other since. An opportunity to teach together in a program in China the past summer reconnected them, although Nort contracted the flu and never made it. Today they have finally met and continue their conversation from the morning. Norton is an Episcopal priest. Tad was never ordained and instead became a professor of anthropology at a small college. Both are experiencing changes in their lives and wondering where exactly it might lead.

This is a charming place, Nort.

It's quiet and the food is always good. I am glad you could make it. How many more days are you in town?

Only two more days, then upstate to visit relatives.

The whirlwind tour?

Actually, I am looking forward to spending a few quiet days in the country with a brother and sister-in-law. We get along well and they make it pretty relaxing. He is a Buddhist who studies astrology and invests in gold. He always does my horoscope when I visit, which gives me something to reflect on. Looking at his life and mine, it seems we are both unfinished products, inconsistent and contradictory. As an anthropologist I am always the observer looking in from the outside and trying to make sense of other people's cultural behavior, yet fearful to cross the line and realize my own cultural embeddedness and limitations. It is a false posture and I am growing tired of it; That we can ever have the answer!

The Apostle Paul said, "The truth will set you free." Whatever that truth is, it is not something that can be dispassionately observed, or ever rationalized. Rather it is something that has to be embodied and believed in. It is a conviction. It forms us before setting us free. One has to be willing to be formed. The truth and ultimate answer is God.

Yes, I must confess I half suspect that. It is one reason I have returned to church. It offers a respite from having to know all the answers. I feel a little guilty about it. As an anthropologist I feel that I am "going native," which is heavily proscribed against in the discipline as it is considered a betrayal against science and modernity. I am becoming a believer!

God forbid! As far as I am concered, to be a believer is a natural state of being and the only honest way to be in the world, otherwise we remain disconnected from it and the consequences of our actions, if we can act at all! We need to believe in order to fill the gaps and there are always gaps to fill. God is in the gaps. That is one reason why I was excited to go to China last summer in the anticipation of feeling God in the gulf that lies between our cultures. Perhaps we should order. The day's special looks good to me.

Let me look. I only just glanced at the menu.

I thought a glass of wine would be nice, too.

That suits me.