I apologize in advance, but I need to talk (maybe whine a little) about the Camino again. Two years ago, my Dad and I were about one week in to our 34 day walk through Spain. By the end of that walk, I remember that I was completely and thoroughly ready to be done with the whole Camino experience. But, one of the many pseudo-spiritual cliches that you hear along the way actually turns out to be true: the Camino gets in you. Two years later, I am sure that I am not done with the way. I'm trying to work out why, even as I dream of a time in the future when I will once again set my foot on the trail and follow those yellow arrows and scallop shells.
The first thing about it is the raw simplicity of the journey. Don't get me wrong, the Camino is by no means an austere exercise in minimalism. You do not live without too many creature comforts along the way. Sure there are sketchy beds and crowded albergues along the way. Sure you might get rained on, blown about by the wind, burnt by the sun and have your feet subjected to rather more punishment than they are accustomed, but you will have a good meal and a cold beer or a nice bottle of Rioja, and of course Orujo, whenever you want. What you will be without is the constant pull of things or the keeping of any schedules. You will have one thing to do: walk.
The second thing is the sense of purpose in your movement. I don't know about you, but in modern life I feel like I do a lot of scurrying. Back and forth to work, to the grocery store, to take the kids somewhere or get the kids from somewhere. Having a constant direction, and never going backwards is a sort of refreshing experience. The loss of that constant purpose I think hit me first when we were on our lengthy, indirect train journey from Santiago back to Madrid. We were passing through Astorga on the way to Leon and we saw some pilgrims on a foot bridge over the train tracks, we remembered walking over that, and both Dad and I felt a sort of ache, an ache that has become all too familiar. That was only a few days after we had finished our pilgrimage. It gets worse.
The third thing is not exactly unique to the Camino, but it is a powerful experience, and that is the sense of community. On the way you are with people rather more than you expect in advance. Introvert that I am, I found myself truly appreciating the people we met along the way. Some became friends, others were just sort of there, but the sense that we shared of doing something unusual was a bond that is hard to replicate in such a short term. It is the way that does this to you.
I have tried to explain these things to people (notably Michele), but I usually end up rambling on and getting lost, even when I do get some part of it out, I'm not sure it sounds like I am in possession of my complete mental faculty. I think the incoherence that surrounds some of this is a result of the fact that such a journey can never be put fully into words. There is no shortage of books and reflections written about the Camino de Santiago, and I read some of them before I ever started my relationship with the way. I can't say I liked them much. I like them even less now. The bad ones seem insipid and the good ones just make the ache worse.
There is no substitute for being in the Camino and having it be in you. So until the time is right and the seasons of life allow me to go back, I guess I will just have to ache.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
A Time to Gather Stones Together
It's Holy Week, we might be on the verge of war, we certainly are in the grip of darkness. But, there is good news, Doctor Who is coming back! Oh yeah, and so is Jesus. I informed my budding Whovian daughter that BBC America is playing Doctor Who reruns all day long, as they ramp up for the season premiere on Saturday night. The episode that was on this morning when we made this triumphant discovery is called The Beast Below. In the distant future, the human race has fled to the stars in a celestial city, which as it turns out, is carried on the back of the last of the Star Whales. The humans think that they must inflict torment on the whale to get it to continue to carry them. They construct a sort of religious system that is meant to protect that secret, because they know that if the secret gets out they would be faced with the impossible choice of their own doom or continuing to torture a magnificent and unique creature. They eventually discover the awful truth and find out that, in fact, they have discovered this before, and have set up a sort of liturgical ritual for forgetting the horrible truth, so that the journey can continue. They come to a place where a recorded message from the high Priestess of the human race tells them that they have a choice to simply push a button so that they can forget that their survival depends on the torture and enslavement of the Star Whale. They are about to repeat the process, because they think they have no choice.
The Doctor, of course, knows better, he suspects that there may, in fact, be a third way, and on faith he acts to force the humans out of their deadly dilemma. As it turns out the Star Whale has been tolerating the torture of the humans out of sheer beneficence, and once they stop tormenting it, it is more than happy to carry them through space, much, much more efficiently than when they thought they were forcing it to move. The moral of the story is that love and kindness is more powerful than force and violence.
The Christ metaphor present in Doctor Who (here and elsewhere) is not exactly subtle.
I've been thinking all morning about the dilemmas that we supposedly face. Must we really inflict such violence on one another? Is it inevitable? Is it unavoidable? I mean especially during this week, shouldn't we be remembering that Jesus chose to go the way that no one thought of in order to bring us out of darkness?
Isn't the essential narrative of the Gospel all about the way that Christ challenged our assumptions about God? Sin is living in a place where scarcity dominates. Grace is living in a world of expansive, even eternal possibilities. Sin is striving for control and dominance. Grace is surrender to the breath of God. Sin is living in fear of what you might lose. Grace is living to give all that you are. Sin is death. Grace is life.
Christ ended the power of sin with grace. The minds of those he taught about the Kingdom of Heaven were kept from seeing what he was really about, because they could only imagine a Kingdom of Heaven in terms of what they knew about the world. The Kingdom of Heaven must actually demolish and replace the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus said it was like salt, leaven, treasure hidden and a bunch of other stuff, none of which was at all like what people thought.
In our suffering we have failed to see what is possible with the Kingdom of Heaven, and we have proceeded to try our best to simply create a more "christian" world. Every once in a while, someone remembers, but then we are collectively convinced to press the "forget" button and go back to trying to do it the way the world tells us we must.
It's really crazy when you consider that we have the truth of things written down in a book we call Holy Scripture. You don't have to search or proof text or anything, just sort of open up one of Paul's letters, written to some of the earliest churches and you will find that folk have known the gig was up for a long time. Paul wrote to the church at Rome, using the example of God's saving work with the people of Israel: "It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy." (Romans 9: 16)
Our attempts to keep the love of God under control are tortuous and fatal. The Gospel, especially this week, reminds us that there is another way, the way of the Cross, the way of Christ, the stony path of obedience and surrender, of love and grace. We are called to be one in Christ, to have the same mind as Christ, to cloth ourselves in Christ, to be the body of Christ. How long will we ignore that calling?
The Doctor, of course, knows better, he suspects that there may, in fact, be a third way, and on faith he acts to force the humans out of their deadly dilemma. As it turns out the Star Whale has been tolerating the torture of the humans out of sheer beneficence, and once they stop tormenting it, it is more than happy to carry them through space, much, much more efficiently than when they thought they were forcing it to move. The moral of the story is that love and kindness is more powerful than force and violence.
The Christ metaphor present in Doctor Who (here and elsewhere) is not exactly subtle.
I've been thinking all morning about the dilemmas that we supposedly face. Must we really inflict such violence on one another? Is it inevitable? Is it unavoidable? I mean especially during this week, shouldn't we be remembering that Jesus chose to go the way that no one thought of in order to bring us out of darkness?
Isn't the essential narrative of the Gospel all about the way that Christ challenged our assumptions about God? Sin is living in a place where scarcity dominates. Grace is living in a world of expansive, even eternal possibilities. Sin is striving for control and dominance. Grace is surrender to the breath of God. Sin is living in fear of what you might lose. Grace is living to give all that you are. Sin is death. Grace is life.
Christ ended the power of sin with grace. The minds of those he taught about the Kingdom of Heaven were kept from seeing what he was really about, because they could only imagine a Kingdom of Heaven in terms of what they knew about the world. The Kingdom of Heaven must actually demolish and replace the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus said it was like salt, leaven, treasure hidden and a bunch of other stuff, none of which was at all like what people thought.
In our suffering we have failed to see what is possible with the Kingdom of Heaven, and we have proceeded to try our best to simply create a more "christian" world. Every once in a while, someone remembers, but then we are collectively convinced to press the "forget" button and go back to trying to do it the way the world tells us we must.
It's really crazy when you consider that we have the truth of things written down in a book we call Holy Scripture. You don't have to search or proof text or anything, just sort of open up one of Paul's letters, written to some of the earliest churches and you will find that folk have known the gig was up for a long time. Paul wrote to the church at Rome, using the example of God's saving work with the people of Israel: "It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy." (Romans 9: 16)
Our attempts to keep the love of God under control are tortuous and fatal. The Gospel, especially this week, reminds us that there is another way, the way of the Cross, the way of Christ, the stony path of obedience and surrender, of love and grace. We are called to be one in Christ, to have the same mind as Christ, to cloth ourselves in Christ, to be the body of Christ. How long will we ignore that calling?
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Two Things
The two things that have been big in the news for the last few days: the missiles that flew at Syria, and the United passenger who didn't fly anywhere. Seemingly unrelated, but they share in one very important way, regular people are being brutalized by a system that does not care about them. In the case of Syria, it is those people who were victims of some sort of chemical warfare: civilians, many of them children. It was horrific enough to make even Donald Trump have a human moment. Conspiracy theories abound, about why and wherefore chemicals were unleashed, but the excuses and explanations do not matter to those who are dead and suffering. The cold fact of the matter is that we live in a world where chemical attacks on civilians happen, and we as citizens of that world allow the world to be that way. We say we can't do anything about it, evil happens, mad dictators happen, international politics are complicated, war is unavoidable and wars have collateral damage.
We are all guilty of the blood of innocents whether we want to admit it or not. Our lives of convenience have a cost, and we rarely see that cost. If you were to see what goes on at a slaughterhouse, you would probably be a vegetarian. We are insulated from the consequences of our consumption and our lifestyles in a way that has never been true in the history of the world, for any but the clueless aristocracy of the gilded age. Marie Antionette syndrome runs wild through our society, we see these people crushed by the gears of the war machine and we think whatever our particular version of "let them eat cake," happens to be. For some it is, "Sorry, but you have allowed Muslim extremists in your backyard, too bad for you." For others (mea culpa on this one), it is the notion that we somehow ought to ride to the rescue and save the day. I generally think that more bombs are really not the answer, but the task of even getting humanitarian aid to the Syrians right now boggles the mind.
We have let systemic violence run the world, and dead children are the consequence of that choice. We have allowed corporations, which are a part of what Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex become a sort of unknown and unseen driver of our world. Do you know who benefited the most from Trump Tomahawking Assad? Raytheon, the company that makes the Tomahawk missiles that cost just shy of two million dollars a piece. You know who is salivating over another middle eastern country to occupy? Haliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and any number of other corporations who are going to make a killing (figuratively and literally) on a war.
The fact that United Airlines can get away with forcibly removing a paying customer who had done nothing wrong, using the power and authority of a civil police force is a small time symptom of an enormous problem. However shocking it may be for us to watch the video of that man being dragged up the airplane aisle, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what enormous corporations like United, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobile and the rest of the murderous profit mongers get away with on a daily basis.
They are degrading our ecosystem, exploiting our labor, robbing our life savings and giving us cancer and the only justification they seem to need is profits for the stockholders and a steadily climbing DOW. I am pretty sure that it's not the Russians, or even Al Quaida that is the greatest threat to our world at this moment, it's corporate greed and the power (legal protection even) we give it run free.
It would behoove us all to wake up to this reality, before it's us who are getting dragged off the plane and before it's our children dead in the streets with their lungs full of Sarin gas.
We are all guilty of the blood of innocents whether we want to admit it or not. Our lives of convenience have a cost, and we rarely see that cost. If you were to see what goes on at a slaughterhouse, you would probably be a vegetarian. We are insulated from the consequences of our consumption and our lifestyles in a way that has never been true in the history of the world, for any but the clueless aristocracy of the gilded age. Marie Antionette syndrome runs wild through our society, we see these people crushed by the gears of the war machine and we think whatever our particular version of "let them eat cake," happens to be. For some it is, "Sorry, but you have allowed Muslim extremists in your backyard, too bad for you." For others (mea culpa on this one), it is the notion that we somehow ought to ride to the rescue and save the day. I generally think that more bombs are really not the answer, but the task of even getting humanitarian aid to the Syrians right now boggles the mind.
We have let systemic violence run the world, and dead children are the consequence of that choice. We have allowed corporations, which are a part of what Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex become a sort of unknown and unseen driver of our world. Do you know who benefited the most from Trump Tomahawking Assad? Raytheon, the company that makes the Tomahawk missiles that cost just shy of two million dollars a piece. You know who is salivating over another middle eastern country to occupy? Haliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and any number of other corporations who are going to make a killing (figuratively and literally) on a war.
The fact that United Airlines can get away with forcibly removing a paying customer who had done nothing wrong, using the power and authority of a civil police force is a small time symptom of an enormous problem. However shocking it may be for us to watch the video of that man being dragged up the airplane aisle, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what enormous corporations like United, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobile and the rest of the murderous profit mongers get away with on a daily basis.
They are degrading our ecosystem, exploiting our labor, robbing our life savings and giving us cancer and the only justification they seem to need is profits for the stockholders and a steadily climbing DOW. I am pretty sure that it's not the Russians, or even Al Quaida that is the greatest threat to our world at this moment, it's corporate greed and the power (legal protection even) we give it run free.
It would behoove us all to wake up to this reality, before it's us who are getting dragged off the plane and before it's our children dead in the streets with their lungs full of Sarin gas.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Years
April 10th is a significant date for two reasons. It was my brother Jonathan's birthday and it was the day my Dad and I started walking the Camino de Santiago. I remember, as Dad and I started winding our way up the Via Valcarlos from St. Jean Pied de Port, that we talked about Jon and what it would have been like to have him with us on this adventure. In the long hours of solitude on the Camino, that thought came back time and time again. What would it have been like?
It's sort of hard to say what it would have been like, because, like so many things related to Jon, it's nothing but blank space. He would have turned thirty six today. I have no idea what a thirty six year old Jon would have been like.
I don't know if he would have even been able to go on the Camino with Dad and me. Maybe he would have had a job and a family and stuff that would have kept him from going. We like to think that he would have been free and adventurous like he was when he was twenty, but who knows.
A lot of what I do now is try to remember Jon before the drugs took him away. He is frozen in time. The little girl that Jon is holding up there, is now sixteen and learning to drive. Everyone in that picture has changed a lot, except Jon, he hasn't changed one little bit, and he never will in our minds.
My faith tells me that his journey has been on-going, and the reality is that he has changed, hopefully, as my Aunt Fran heard from the Lord, he has "grown much faster," where he is now. April 10 will always be a day to think about what might have been, and to learn again to take the journey as it comes.
Buen Camino and Happy Birthday Molebutt.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
The Old Republic
I have a lot of unpleasant things to say about the three Star Wars movies that have become known as the "prequels," Episodes I, II and III, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Most of my fanboy angst comes from the fact that I was desperately hoping that George Lucas could recreate the wonder of being an eight-year-old when I was in my twenties, and being profoundly disappointed that he could not. There is a laundry list of things that are wrong with these movies: Jar Jar Binks, little kid Anakin Skywalker (and implied virgin birth of said whiny little twerp), Jar Jar Binks (did I already mention him?), sulky teenage Anakin Skywalker (and the fact that Padme Amidala actually fell in love with said sulky teenager with a rat-tail), the lack of adequate plot development and a plausible explanation for sulky young adult Anakin Skywalker suddenly becoming a raging, mass murderer... I could go on, but you get the idea.
That said, there were some things that the series did accomplish well: Finally getting whiny Anakin turned into Darth Vader, and pretty much every scene with Yoda. Particularly his lightsaber battle against Count Dooku, where sulky teenage Anakin gets his hand lopped off and is mercifully out of the way while Yoda gets his lightsaber awesome on. But the thing that has been making me think lately is arguably something that sort of dragged the movies down, the political maneuvering that was masterfully conducted by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, AKA Senator/Emperor Palpatine.
Palpatine worked things into place without ever taking any direct credit or blame for the way things were, all the while pulling the strings to make sure they not only didn't get fixed, but actually got worse. It was constantly presented as a dilemma where there really was no good answer, and what was right had to take a hit for the sake of security. There's that one scene in the galactic Senate, where Padme ruefully says, "This is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause," that almost makes you want to forgive a whole multitude of sins in those movies (at least until the next appearance of Jar Jar Binks).
I'm wondering if the Sith have infiltrated the US government. Because for a nation that was founded and has maintained some pretty lofty ideals about government of the people, for the people, by the people, we seem to be stuck in a pretty good quagmire. And as much as I would like, I can't throw all the blame on the Republicans. This filibuster/nuclear option thing that is playing out right now, has been a virtual inevitability for months. A lot of people agree that it's a terrible idea, but they are equally convicted that rolling over on their agenda to avoid it is an equally terrible idea. So here's where we are, a longstanding procedural protection for the minority party has just been kicked to the curb.
It was officially kicked by the Republicans in the Senate, but Democrats don't get to claim immunity, they teed it up when they did the exact same thing for the filibuster of other presidential nominees besides the Supreme Court. In other words, they don't have that much room to criticize the authoritarian nature of pure majority rule, because when the shoe was on the other foot, they planted a swift kick to the groin of parliamentary procedure.
That said, we are all worse off for these latest developments. The voice of the minority will now be all that much weaker in the future, and that, friends, neighbors and members of the Old Republic is absolutely the path away from democracy. There are no innocents on Capitol Hill, they are all guilty as sin. It is a dark time for the rebellion, I'm just waiting for the Death Star to float into view.
The cynic in me wants to say that it doesn't really matter, the strings in the books have been pulled and persuaded against the people for a long time. I want to shrug it off and say it doesn't matter if we just let the politicians play their crooked games, but something in me wants there to be hope. Something in me wants to believe that there is still good in Vader, but I wonder if the Ghost of Obi Wan was right, "He's more machine now than man." I wonder if the US Congress is like that, more machine than human.
That said, there were some things that the series did accomplish well: Finally getting whiny Anakin turned into Darth Vader, and pretty much every scene with Yoda. Particularly his lightsaber battle against Count Dooku, where sulky teenage Anakin gets his hand lopped off and is mercifully out of the way while Yoda gets his lightsaber awesome on. But the thing that has been making me think lately is arguably something that sort of dragged the movies down, the political maneuvering that was masterfully conducted by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, AKA Senator/Emperor Palpatine.
Palpatine worked things into place without ever taking any direct credit or blame for the way things were, all the while pulling the strings to make sure they not only didn't get fixed, but actually got worse. It was constantly presented as a dilemma where there really was no good answer, and what was right had to take a hit for the sake of security. There's that one scene in the galactic Senate, where Padme ruefully says, "This is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause," that almost makes you want to forgive a whole multitude of sins in those movies (at least until the next appearance of Jar Jar Binks).
I'm wondering if the Sith have infiltrated the US government. Because for a nation that was founded and has maintained some pretty lofty ideals about government of the people, for the people, by the people, we seem to be stuck in a pretty good quagmire. And as much as I would like, I can't throw all the blame on the Republicans. This filibuster/nuclear option thing that is playing out right now, has been a virtual inevitability for months. A lot of people agree that it's a terrible idea, but they are equally convicted that rolling over on their agenda to avoid it is an equally terrible idea. So here's where we are, a longstanding procedural protection for the minority party has just been kicked to the curb.
It was officially kicked by the Republicans in the Senate, but Democrats don't get to claim immunity, they teed it up when they did the exact same thing for the filibuster of other presidential nominees besides the Supreme Court. In other words, they don't have that much room to criticize the authoritarian nature of pure majority rule, because when the shoe was on the other foot, they planted a swift kick to the groin of parliamentary procedure.
That said, we are all worse off for these latest developments. The voice of the minority will now be all that much weaker in the future, and that, friends, neighbors and members of the Old Republic is absolutely the path away from democracy. There are no innocents on Capitol Hill, they are all guilty as sin. It is a dark time for the rebellion, I'm just waiting for the Death Star to float into view.
The cynic in me wants to say that it doesn't really matter, the strings in the books have been pulled and persuaded against the people for a long time. I want to shrug it off and say it doesn't matter if we just let the politicians play their crooked games, but something in me wants there to be hope. Something in me wants to believe that there is still good in Vader, but I wonder if the Ghost of Obi Wan was right, "He's more machine now than man." I wonder if the US Congress is like that, more machine than human.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Thinking Some Things Through
I have had a very busy weekend.
On Friday evening a group of churches in my area convened for our second cooperative community prayer event. It was an energetic, intense, service of prayer and praise. It had the feeling, and the volume of a rock concert, it pulled people into several movements of prayer, following the tried and true ACTS pattern (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). It was one, very encouraging vision of the Church in the world, diversity on many axes: race, age, denomination, theology, politics, economic class, and probably others as well. Joy and intimacy with God and each other, reaching out across many of the boundaries that so regularly hold us back from true community, it was good.
On Saturday, I had to say goodbye to a member of my congregation who was also one of my closest friends for the last couple years. We had a Presbyterian Church funeral, we sang hymns, we shared memories, and of course there was chicken salad afterwards. Our church was as full as I have seen it in a while, because the man who passed was a big, friendly, honest man, who collected friends wherever he went, this also was good, but in a different way.
On Sunday we had our normal early service with a small crowd and a sermon about Lazarus. Then we had our choir cantata in the later service. The cantata was involved and had taken a lot of work and many hours of preparation. It was sacred music that told the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, it was good as well, but in still yet a different way.
What I'm thinking about this Monday morning is how rare it actually is for anyone to experience three such different expressions of the faith community on three successive days. And what is probably even more rare is for someone to be really able to appreciate all three without privileging or preferring one sort of thing over the other. I suspect it's rare because, even though I was a participant in all three things, I actually found myself starting to "pick a winner." This is sort of my attempt to stop that nonsense.
I call it nonsense because I am beginning to realize that all of our sorting and narrowing, focusing and classifying, is quite frankly killing us. I mean, if you only ever go in for the sort of church that you like the best, or which feels most comfortable to you, you will inevitably self-segregate along any one of the many ways we sort our lives out: race, economics, worship style, theology, whatever the dividing principle happens to be, it is still precisely that division.
Richard Rohr has been coincidentally (and by that I mean at the same time, not by accident or random chance) hitting me with idea of Christ as a unifying force in all of creation. During a season when I am even more focused than usual on the story of Jesus, who was the Christ. I am getting hammered this morning by the idea that too much of what we have gotten on about in the church over the course of our history has just been an unfortunate distraction from the image of Christ that should be our center and our guide. We need to be saved from that distraction.
I'm not saying this as someone who is particularly enlightened about the all-present truth of Christ, but as someone who is regularly guilty of missing it. I have sat in judgment on church services, styles and sermons that I felt were pretty sub-standard. I will admit that I have "preacher's disease" something awful, which means that I am unusually skeptical and judgmental of other people doing what I do. I tend, as much as anyone, to want things the way I want them. I want the sermon to be the kind of sermon I find stimulating, I want the music to be the kind of music I enjoy, at the volume I find comfortable.
The long and short is that I want to be in control of things, including and perhaps especially, how I worship God. That mindset, of which I am guilty, is in many ways what is killing the church in our world today. It may also be stifling our spiritual development as human beings.
On Friday evening a group of churches in my area convened for our second cooperative community prayer event. It was an energetic, intense, service of prayer and praise. It had the feeling, and the volume of a rock concert, it pulled people into several movements of prayer, following the tried and true ACTS pattern (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). It was one, very encouraging vision of the Church in the world, diversity on many axes: race, age, denomination, theology, politics, economic class, and probably others as well. Joy and intimacy with God and each other, reaching out across many of the boundaries that so regularly hold us back from true community, it was good.
On Saturday, I had to say goodbye to a member of my congregation who was also one of my closest friends for the last couple years. We had a Presbyterian Church funeral, we sang hymns, we shared memories, and of course there was chicken salad afterwards. Our church was as full as I have seen it in a while, because the man who passed was a big, friendly, honest man, who collected friends wherever he went, this also was good, but in a different way.
On Sunday we had our normal early service with a small crowd and a sermon about Lazarus. Then we had our choir cantata in the later service. The cantata was involved and had taken a lot of work and many hours of preparation. It was sacred music that told the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, it was good as well, but in still yet a different way.
What I'm thinking about this Monday morning is how rare it actually is for anyone to experience three such different expressions of the faith community on three successive days. And what is probably even more rare is for someone to be really able to appreciate all three without privileging or preferring one sort of thing over the other. I suspect it's rare because, even though I was a participant in all three things, I actually found myself starting to "pick a winner." This is sort of my attempt to stop that nonsense.
I call it nonsense because I am beginning to realize that all of our sorting and narrowing, focusing and classifying, is quite frankly killing us. I mean, if you only ever go in for the sort of church that you like the best, or which feels most comfortable to you, you will inevitably self-segregate along any one of the many ways we sort our lives out: race, economics, worship style, theology, whatever the dividing principle happens to be, it is still precisely that division.
Richard Rohr has been coincidentally (and by that I mean at the same time, not by accident or random chance) hitting me with idea of Christ as a unifying force in all of creation. During a season when I am even more focused than usual on the story of Jesus, who was the Christ. I am getting hammered this morning by the idea that too much of what we have gotten on about in the church over the course of our history has just been an unfortunate distraction from the image of Christ that should be our center and our guide. We need to be saved from that distraction.
I'm not saying this as someone who is particularly enlightened about the all-present truth of Christ, but as someone who is regularly guilty of missing it. I have sat in judgment on church services, styles and sermons that I felt were pretty sub-standard. I will admit that I have "preacher's disease" something awful, which means that I am unusually skeptical and judgmental of other people doing what I do. I tend, as much as anyone, to want things the way I want them. I want the sermon to be the kind of sermon I find stimulating, I want the music to be the kind of music I enjoy, at the volume I find comfortable.
The long and short is that I want to be in control of things, including and perhaps especially, how I worship God. That mindset, of which I am guilty, is in many ways what is killing the church in our world today. It may also be stifling our spiritual development as human beings.
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