[Shortly afterwards, I bumped into the daughter], pregnant with another child, the same young woman who had just received that awful diagnosis. She spoke as though I already knew about her condition. She was bubbly and cheerful and positive, saying, "Everybody in my church is praying for me, but what I really want is for them to look at my trial and to find their faith."
Her doctors were not treating her cancer as aggressively as they wanted to because of her concern for her unborn child--an example of her selfless faith. I couldn't believe the strength, and the strength of character, of this young woman, facing a miserable prognosis with her cancer, thinking not of herself but of others. I said, "Jesus would marvel at your faith." She reminded me of Job, actually.
Certainly, some of these strong women found their models in the stories of the Old and New Testaments, but it's clear to me that all of them were answering to a higher power.
What strength! What conviction! What courage!
We kept coming back to the ghastly reality that this young woman in Colorado was promptly shot for her conviction. We sat in awe of this young woman.
Yes, true courage only surfaces when you're put to a test, and we were only considering that test in theory. It wasn't real; it was metaphor. To that poor girl at that Colorado high school, though, the heat from the fiery furnace was all too real. And the difference was everything.
And let's not forget that justice doesn't always happen here on earth. When we think in our own minds that somebody is getting away with something he shouldn't or that a certain punishment wasn't severe enough to fit the crime, we get frustrated. Sometimes we see justice on this side of the grave, but I have the faith to believe that the ultimate judge, the highest judge, will bring justice in the long run.
But that's justice--sometimes now but many times later.
I worship in an Anglican church because I want to get Communion every Sunday. Other than that, I'd be comfortable almost anywhere. For a lot of people, church is also about community and fellowship. That's not me. When I worship in church, it's a very private matter--I guess because I'm such a public person in every other aspect of my life. I don't even feel that I need to pray with my family, at least not all the time.
My daughters go to a Christian school, and I'm very proud of the fact that they have both come to know the Lord. They have an age-appropriate understanding of what God is about, and that's reinforced for them every day at school, so I don't make them come to church with me on Sunday mornings. They can join me if they want, but I don't force it on them, and it doesn't seem to me that they're missing out.
But then, if you go deeper, you have to go back to the basics. You know, how was the earth created? Did the earth just come about on its own? I don't think so, but then I look at all the evidence and study the scientists and everybody else, and I say, "No."
[Another man] might look at the same evidence and say, "Well, what about my life?" He's got his own set of experiences. So, sometimes I think we have to go back to basics, and I think there are times at which our faith is weak, and other times when it's strong, but it requires an assent.
From time to time, our numbers would swell, such as when there was a scandal brewing in town and elected officials were scrambling for whatever good-luck charms they could stuff into their pockets. During the 1992 banking scandal, for example, when it was revealed that the House of Representatives had allowed members to overdraw their House checking accounts without penalty, we had 30 or 40 members trying to join our group, and I had to laugh, because, of course, you can't just go through the motions of reconnecting with God and expect it to make a whole lot of difference in your life right away. You need to work at it, with a trusting spirit. You need to carve out some time for reflection and prayer.
One of my Bible study members wondered if that type of thinking was behind our apparent attempt to separate matters of church and state. For the longest time, this has been one of my pet peeves, because I've always thought it was one of the goofiest misinterpretations of our founding fathers' intentions. Our founders didn't say that government should be somehow separate from religion, or that religion was in any way unconstitutional or un-American. In fact, up until the late 19th century, there were state-sponsored churches in this country. The men who drafted the Constitution were in no way frightened or put off by religion. They were just careful to ensure that our government should not force people to believe a certain way or put any kind of stamp on their faith, so it's funny to me how the impulse behind it has been co-opted over the years.
Where do you go when the water rises?
It's a central question, don't you think? How we answer it says a great deal about our faith in ourselves. In one another. In God. And where we look for that answer says a lot, too. I've been thinking about this kind of stuff for many years. I think about it, and I talk it through. In fact, some of the people around me recognize that my faith and my search for meaning are such huge aspects of my life that they've been on me to write about them.
I'd belonged to a pretty serious Bible study group for the past 20 or so years. Here was a chance to shine light on one value in particular--faith. I could take on these big, grand, imposing topics such as God and the scriptures and make them a little more accessible, a little more real.
Faith, that's what it comes down to. The lessons of the Bible. The insights we draw from one another. In our group, we look to the stories of the Bible as a kind of road map for how to live.
I'm afraid I don't find God in ritual and worship. He's with me wherever I happen to be. I go to church because that's what you do. I find God in the stories of the Bible, in the random acts of kindness I see every day, in the choices I make and the ways I interact.
I find God every other Monday, over lunch with my Bible study guys. We meet every two weeks, to go through these motions in a semistructured way, but I try to do a little bit of it every day. Fifteen minutes--that's the timer I set aside for prayer and reflection, day in and day out.
His faith made a big impression, because it was the first time I'd seen such conviction on full display. I'd heard about this type of thing. I'd read about it. And here it was, in all its splendor & glory. Here was this man, with a great mind, finding peace and comfort and surety in knowing that his pain was merely a trial he was meant to endure. And knowing full well that he would endure it. It opened my eyes, and the scales fell from them. It was shocking. Amazing. And ultimately transformative.
Still, that kind of faith was elusive to me then. I drifted away from religion as a young adult. Then I looked up one day, and there was a huge hole in my life where God & religion had been
I wanted to know if this "God thing" was real. For several years, some of my Washington friends had been trying to get me to attend their weekly Bible study reform group, and I'd always resisted. The last thing I wanted was to sit in a chapel with a group of politicians talking about God, because I worried we'd say one thing in there and then go back out and do the exact opposite. But when I returned to Washington after my parents' death and tried to cobble my life back together, I started to look on this group as a possible lifeline. I was devastated, shattered, and desperate for any tether.
Lately, what we've come up with is this: when you live a life of faith, it can be a liberating thing. Faith is a freeing principle. We tend to think of these memorable, transformative characters in the Bible as having special powers, but we don't really know that. We just know that they were men and women of great faith. And we also know this: faith enables you to hold on loosely without letting go.
Faith reminds us that the first innings of this ball game will be played out here on earth, but we'll finish the game in the next life. We can go at it with some perspective, knowing that the whole game doesn't play out here.
With Ted, when he tells you he's getting back to basics, he mean all the way back to basics. He even wrote them down for me on a sheet of paper I ne keep tacked above my desk at home for ready reference.
Here's what he wrote:
"There is firm evidence that the universe had a beginning, therefore it had a cause.
We do have sufficient evidence regarding God as the foundation for faith. We don't have proof, we have evidence.
If God does not exist, life is futile. If God does exist. Then life is meaningful.
Faith is a choice.
Objective moral values have existed since Creation."
Here--no surprise--Ted told me to go back to my very basic beliefs, so that's what I did.
A couple of the guys pointed out that I used to complain about my role at Fox News, where I hosted a Saturday night program called "Heartland with John Kasich."
One member said, "That was always such a big thing with you, John. Did you win the rating? Were you #1?"
"You're right," I said, knowing I was beat. "It just killed me to lose to someone else. But that's not really envy. That's more like whining. I never once woke up in the morning and found myself wishing I was one of those other guys on the air. That's never been the case."
"That's just semantics, John," another member weighed in. "Whining is just a symptom of envy."
"That could be," I agreed. "But I'm not in any way, shape, or form trying to put myself up there as perfect."
Nobody knew how prepared he was. In fact, David didn't know it himself, but he had faith. When he showed up, everybody laughed. They underestimated him. And the Saul insisted that David wear his armor, but he couldn't move swiftly or freely beneath the weight of it. David stood his ground and said, "Let me do my thing." And he did. He slew Goliath. He showed no fear. He was ready, because he'd put in the hours. It's like what Malcolm Gladwell writes in his great book "Outsiders". He says everybody who is an expert has to put in ten thousand hours building up his or her expertise. Well, David did just that. He put in his time, and God blessed his work, and it brought about a great change. He was not without flaws, of course, but he was a man after God's heart, if you will.
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The above quotations are from Every Other Monday Twenty Years of Life, Lunch, Faith, and Friendship, by John Kasich. Click here for other excerpts from Every Other Monday Twenty Years of Life, Lunch, Faith, and Friendship, by John Kasich. Click here for other excerpts by John Kasich. Click here for other excerpts by other Governors.
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