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Making Room

Right Wrong book

How could the will of an infinite God ever be made so small as to fit into one finite system? Ironically, when it comes to our spiritual lives, we should be making the most room for one another, but it seems that instead we make the least.

— Rabbi Brad Hirschfield in his book You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right

Making Room

Mark Hurty creates websites for a living. He understands the internal workings of his laptop which, like all modern computers, is based on a binary numeric system.

Mark may make his living with clear-cut either-or binary computer coding. But he makes his life in a decidedly un-binary fashion grounded in faith. “The world is not a binary place,” he reflects. “It’s not black or white. Evil or good. Loving or hating.” Or to quote from the title of Brad Hirschfield’s book: Right or wrong. Says Mark, “These are not opposites but extremes on a continuum.”

Chatting on a rainy October afternoon at one of the coffee spots ideal for internet and people connections, Mark considers the extremes of love and hate. He paraphrases Martin Luther King Jr., who defined nonviolence as “not only external physical violence but also internal violence of the spirit.” Says Mark, “It’s also about removing the hatred from our hearts. I have worked really hard to internalize (King’s words).”

Echoing Hirschfield’s plea to make room for one another — bridging a diversity of religious beliefs — Mark says, “We can be so preoccupied with creating fear, identifying evil, planting seeds of hatred, focusing on all that is in a person that we don’t know or understand. If you want to have love in your heart and experience peace, you can’t make room for hate to have such a stronghold.”

Mark carries peace and love in his Hurty DNA. “It was the message my parents proposed, their way of living, worshiping, expressing their faith. They are peace-loving people.”

Mark recalls a particular moment of grace at his wedding to Anna. His maternal grandfather, a Lu-theran bishop, had separated himself from the young couple over a moral judgment. But on this day, preaching with emotion for their wedding, grandfather said: “There are no sweeter words than ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong, I forgive you, and I love you.’” Says Mark, “This is what I grew up with. These are core values for my family.”

That DNA influences how Mark approaches public discourse that often deteriorates into binary black-and-white categories and love-hate, good-evil arguments.

Few experiences capture Mark’s imagination and energize his faith more than a shared meal. He loves the notion of companionship, a word kneaded with the Latin root panis, meaning “with bread.” For a meeting recently, he offered a crusty loaf of homemade sourdough bread, wrapped in a dishtowel and still steaming. And in the breaking of that loaf, a gathering of diverse people became companions on a journey.

“To break bread is the way you find peace with another person,” says Mark. “You can’t share bread and harbor hate. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve lost the connection with the hunger-breaking, earthy-necessary connectedness we feel when we share a simple meal.” For Christians, the experience of Holy Communion forms companionship — with God, with one another, with the global community.

Mark reflects. When he heard that an Orthodox rabbi would be coming to our church this fall, he reconnected by email with a Jewish friend who keeps kosher in her home. He wondered about how to break bread with one who observes strict dietary laws. The friend told Mark: “It’s about making an open place. It’s not so much that we believe in the same way, but that we reach across the chasm of differences and touch another’s hand.”

Love and bread become one in Mark’s memory of these friends who practice a faith tradition different than his own. “Our sons have sat on their laps while they sang the Sabbath prayer. (These friends) have been in our home for Christmas.” He wipes a tear when he recalls such moments of companionship — and a world that is too often intolerant. “It causes me anguish when people aren’t willing to have a conversation. It’s hurtful when faith is used as a way to divide and not connect people.”

And so it is that Mark Hurty shapes a life that, in Brad Hirschfield’s words “makes the most room for one another.” He believes in the “expansiveness of God that allows for different expressions of faith.” And he’s committed to “finding common understanding more than being right.”

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"May God, who lightens our paths, accompany you on your journey this day and always." ~Worship blessing