Living-Deliberately.com

And so I find I can pray again.

It’s been strange, this near-year of being unable to form words to my maker. What started as a refusal to treat the ability to do so as lightly as I had and then later became a befuddled inability to speak gave me a lot of time to do what I had not done well: listen.

I’m not done listening. I’m glad I can again speak.

It’s awkward….maybe a little like embarrassed first love. Not knowing quite what to say or how to say it but feeling driven not to leave the presence.

It’s reassuring…I don’t feel alone anymore. I feel a continuity between myself and believers past and present, between those who struggled for their faith and between Jesus and I, who both know humble humanity.

It’s different, I’m different, He’s the same deep well refreshing my soul, whose bottom and depths I can not find.

Father Stephen’s blog post today.

Who am I? What am I? (Yes, I know that I said yesterday I wasn’t going to ask these questions right now but go with me here a moment).

I am not really anyone of signifigance in anyone’s eyes but a few family and friends. I’m curious. I’m hungry. I’m interested. I’m prone to want to share my journey in hopes of being understood, maybe cheered on from the sidelines, maybe even joined.

But I’m not an authority on much.

The last few weeks I’ve been learning about something that excites me because it soothes my parched heart with hope. I like to talk about things that make me bubble over but that doesn’t necessarily make me a fair representive of it. I certainly am in no position to defend it and don’t want to either. Defending something you don’t yet own not only gets really confusing, it also sabatagues the journey.

I’m going to keep sharing what I’ve learned. What I find that’s thrilling me, or confounding me, or causing me to wonder. But if in listening you find you have questions that pertain more to the ideas and less to my own experience, please go get a book on the subject, written by a first hand source. I’d be happy to send anyone to great websites I’ve found or toss out a few titles to look at the library for.

I talk too much and this is one way to quiet some of the clamor. I need to listen.

I read this today and would like to share it. It is the blog of an Orthodox priest and it ministered to me today, a day that has brought me a weariness with naval gazing a desire to look more to Christ, more to the ancient, to the without. It’s a day where I’ve decided to lay aside asking how I’m doing and where I’m at, to begin asking who is He and where is He. I’ll ask and I’ll wait for “the echo, the Yes.”

Glory to God for All Things

”

But as the years have gone by, I have come to see something I never saw before - the Presence within the absence. I don’t mean to sound too mystical here - only that I see in the hiddenness of God a revelation of His love. The Creator of us all draws us towards Himself and knowledge of Him, with hints and intimations, with seen and yet unseen signs.

The strange deniability that He leaves us is the space in which love is born. Love cannot be forced, cannot be demanded. It must come as gift, born of a willingness to give. To give God trust that what I see is indeed evidence of the wisdom in which He made all things is also a space - one which God fills with Himself and the echo, the Yes, that the universe shouts back to us.

It is where I grow weary of the arguments - not because they need not be made - but because it becomes hard to hear the silence in the noise of our own voices - a silence that invites us to hear the sound of the voice of God that rumbles all around us.”

Like I’ve said before, this week dh and I are reading “Facing East” by Frederica Matthewes-Green, not to be confused with last week’s read, “At the Corner of East and Now”.

Last night’s chapter delved a bit into the use of icons, which I found helpful because it is THE biggest difference I’m grappling with. It occurred to me that I may not be the only one fairly clueless about the role icons play in Orthodox worship and why, and maybe a few excerpts from the book would be helpful.

The author tells a story about a book she read her children when they were small called “The Little Lost Lamb” that had pictures of Jesus with children in it. Her children spontaneously kissed the picture each night (they were Episcopalian at the time). She says,

“My problem, then, was not with using images of Jesus or depictions of Bible stories or heroes of the faith. I knew our love wasn’t being lavished on a laminated plaque but was being offered through the picture to the Lord himself. The image was like a window, a seen object opening us to things unseen.”

The idea of icons being windows (which is why they are always flat and not 3-D) is much of the Orthodox position. A quote from St. Basil the Great is, “Honor shown to the icon passes to the prototype it represents.”

It was upon reading this that I had two memories strike me that caused this to resonate with me: one, was that as a pre-teen girl I’d hide pictures of the boy I liked at the moment and sometimes kiss them; the other was the memory, fairly recent, of how I’d kiss our daughter Clara’s pictures. I knew I wasn’t kissing her (to my great pain); but that some secret hope within me existed that my kiss would somehow pass onto her where she was, and that somehow, she’d “feel” my kiss. Like a window to my baby.

In the eighth and ninth century there was a great debate over the use of icons and a group called the iconoclasts (icon smashers) destroyed icons believing them to be idols. On pro-icon argument reminded me of my little protest over R. C Sproul’s comparison of them to the golden calf.

“How can they be idols? They’re pictures of Jesus. If it was a picture of Baal, that would be an idol. But Jesus is God!”

She says, “But the Orthodox have no illusion that an icon is itself a god. They distinguish between worship, given only to God, and veneration, the honor that may be accorded an icon, a saint, or the Theotokos (Mary, God-bearer).”

And of course, what is often pointed to is the incarnation itself. Where God in the OT wanted no visible image, he then “took flesh and became a baby. He became visible, concrete, with shocking specificity: a man of certain height, build, and eye color, eating a roast fish on a Sunday afternoon. Because God chose to become visible, we can represent him; we can represent any person or event in his story because these are manifestations of God’s will to invade earthly life, to make himself concrete and visible.”

Which brings out the point that icons must be images of actual happenings and people; not conjectures and ideas of what we want to portray. For instance, an icon can show Jesus and the Holy Spirit as a Dove, but not the God the Father.

David fell asleep at that point and so we only got halfway through the chapter. This week Netflix is sending me the series by Sister Wendy and I’m hoping at least one of the discs delves into religious art and icons, both eastern and western. I’m still uncertain what to think; only that they’ve done it this way for a long, long, long time, while an image-less worship is much more fairly recent and I think, for that reason, some suspicion of that would be appropriate.

I suppose it’s normal along the way through life to find voices that resonate with us and to trust in those voices at some point. We allow their efforts to filter information, helps us sift through ideologies and worldviews that we don’t always have the time for ourselves. We align with them, knowing their imperfections, but being busy people, relying on “trust and go” anyway.

And then some day, sometimes, something happens that causes us to question that voice. Children do it as they mature and realize the humanity of their parents. Patients do it as they differ from their doctors. Students do it as they pass their teachers at times in knowledge and insight.

Being “over” someone is quite the powerful position. Knowing one’s own influence over another may cause corruption or deep respect. When the underlings start to wander, the one in power may resort to “less than” tactics to corrale them back into the fold. It’s an old story.

The thinking person comes to a crossroads though. Who to beleive? Which path to take? At what point does loyalty factor in over pursuing truth?

I’ve lately been wrestling with God. At points over the past few months I dalied very close to intentional agnosticism, a sigh of surrender that “we can’t know”. I’m hungry, nay starving, for a real pursuit of holiness, for genuineness on the part of God-followers. I want to see human examples of those who’ve gone before who really achieved what we talk about: becoming more like Christ. I want to see a respect paid to worship, a recognition of the sacred, and what surrounds in our modern culture pales in near-disgusting comparison to any description of worship found in the bible. As denominations split and micro-split and divide evermore over who’s got “the truth”, I detect an odor that no one does. I’m weary of divisive arugments and feeling like we are very, VERY far from “the church” that Christ is going to have as bride. From the status of things now, in my opinion, she’s quite a schizophrenic, multiple-personality bride.

And onto the scene burst Orthodoxy. Something I knew nothing, nothing, nothing about. A faith, a church with 6 million American members, and yet seemingly invisible to the average citizen in any circle I’ve traveled. A faith I once heard only represented in baptist churches sending missionaries to formerly communist countries, describing “dead” churches.

But this week I learned a few things:

• There is no American Orthodox Church yet; all the churches here come from “mother churches”, they are mission plants, from ethnic countries (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc). Over the past century, which short sighted Americans will think is a lifetime but to other cultures is a drop in the pan, over 2 million Russian Orthodox were killed or imprisoned. They couldn’t develop their mission churches in this “new” country because they were fighting for mere survival, and all the while a large part of the west turned a blind eye on their persecution. Now, when they are more free, instead of helping them restore and heal, we call them “dead” and seek to inject our own fragmented denominations.
• The Orthodox church pre-dates denominations. It is what the church would look like if Rome had not decided the Pope was infallible (how it went down from the O point of view) and the Protestant reformation (against the Roman Catholics) had never happened. It is a historic church, the historic church.
• All the ethnic division (Greek, Russian, and others; there are six jurisdictions) is by country but the church itself is the same.
• Orthodox, like Catholocism, has saints. Saints are those “who’ve gone before”. Examples of other HUMANS who have attained, as closely as we can find, the mark we all strive for. They don’t “worship” saints in that they think they are deity.

I find my background has left me wholly unprepared to understand much of what I’m learning about. It almost hurts my brain to think about some of this stuff, so foreign in concept is most of it. I dance close to what point they are making and then just as quickly dance away as I ask questions about dogma or get hung up on icons.

And icons. What a hang up. Perhaps the biggest difference between my protestant traditions and either view of the historic church, beit Orthodoxy or Catholcism, is the use of images. I don’t particularly feel that I’ve missed this aspect of worship and I’ve actually wrestled quite hard with my own particpation in it as I’ve painted the representation of Christ for over 10 years for worship banners, something that meshes poorly with the Westminster Confession’s interpretation of the commandment against graven images.

I’m no where near “landed” on an understanding of icons. But I’m struggling with a contrast: who to believe?

On one hand, I have books by a member of the Orthodox church, a “mother” (pastor’s wife) and her first hand representation of what role icons and images play in their worship and church.

On the other hand I have the words of someone I once highly trusted, a “filter” for ideologies and worldviews: R. C Sproul. In his issue of Tabletalk, years ago, that dealt with the rise of the Orthodox church in America, he addressed the issue of icons:

He compares them first with the golden calf erected in the wilderness. He brings up Calvin’s argument against them: “He argued, for example, against the use of icons because seeking to make visible the invisible God did violence to the divine majesty.”

I knew I was in “trouble” of doubting my old trusted source when in my mind, I retorted with:

but what does a cow have to do with the divine image of God? Icons aren’t images of bovine.

and…

God himself went from invisible to visible with the incarnation….

He goes on to say:

“the cheif abuses of icons are the veneration of them, praying before them and offering sacrifices to them. Again, it was Augustine who argued that people who pray or worship while looking at an image are inclined to think or hope that they are being heard by the image.”

is this kind of like yelling at the television? Seems the kind of argument intended to make others “scoff” at the ridiculousness of others. Reeked of misrepresentation to me.

Intellectual arugments aside, I was left with an uneasy feeling, realizing that something didn’t match up. What the orthodox say they do with icons isn’t what this reformed, protestant, prebeyterian intellectual says they do.

A similar thing is happening over Calvanism with an old pastor of mine. I haven’t followed it that closely, only bits and pieces and a few blog links from Yarbucks, an old friend’s site.

And basically, the same thing is happening as through a series of sermons Dr. Vines is finally, loudly, articulating his thoughts on Calvanism and other denominational higher-ups join into the conversation:

What calvanists say they do and beleive doesn’t match up with what these baptist, non-calvanist, convention and seminary leaders say they do.

At some point the air between conversants gets a distortion, a cloudiness. The sentiments and beliefs in question have to stand for themselves, sans slanted representation. It’s a difficult teasing of it apart, a weariness with divisive humanity, and I suppose necessary. The fight for power over another mucks up the process, the desire to have the strongest “side” seeping in.

I find there is very little trust on both sides because of it. I wonder if anyone believes so strongly in the rightness of their beliefs to allow the Holy Spirit to do the defending and guiding. To trust in the sacred rather than the interpreter of the day.

The wrestling continues.

We read this book in the evenings, curled up on the futon under blankets with mugs of hot tea. Frederica’s movie reviews have been something I’ve read for a few years now and David wonders why I’ve never passed them on, like I was holding out on a great secret. She also is a writer for NPR’s All Things Considered and her writing is both excellent and humerous. This book is giving us a peek into an aspect of christianity we’ve never before seen or been around, it’s history, it’s practices, it’s hunger for the “why” in worship. Orthodox liturgy isn’t satified with just talking about wanting to worship….they emphasize what about God we DO worship.

Here are a few excerpts from last night’s chapters:

“People newly coming to church should have an unfamiliar experience. It should be apparent to them that they are encountering something very different from the mundane. It should be discontinuous with their everyday experience, because God is discontinuous. God is holy, other, incomprehensible, strange, and if we go expecting an affable market-tested nice guy, we won’t be getting the whole picture. We’ll be getting the short God in a straw hat, not the big one beyond all thought.”

“A liturgical church has an advantage over one where worship is relatively spontaneous, in that people powered by religious emotion simply do run out of steam. Where there is a Liturgy, you show up each week and merge into that stream, and allow the prayers to shape you. But where the test of successful worship is how much you feel moved, there’s always performance anxiety; even the audience has to perform.

I’d been a chrisitan about ten years when I noticed to my dismay that my spiritual feelings were changing; the experience was growing quieter, less exciting. I feared that I was losing my faith, or that I might hear the Lord’s words to the church as Ephesus, ‘I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first’ (Rev. 2:4). Then I came to sense that my faith had undergone a shift of location. It had moved deep inside and was glowing there like a little oil lamp; if I was swept away with emotionally noisy worship, it might tip and sputter. Silence and attentiveness were now key.

I think this happens naturally in a believer’s relationship with God, just as it does between two people who are in love. At first, being in love is so strange, and the beloved is so other and exciting, that every moment is a thrill. But gradually over long years the couple grows together and grows alike. They no longer find each other a thrilling unknown but drink deeply of a treasured known that will always extend to mystery. At the beginning, the heart pounds just to see the beloved’s handwriting on an envelope; at the end, two sit side by side before a fire and don’t need to speak at all. When these rock bands [spoken of in the chapter] urge their audience not to let the joy fade, they may be calling them to fight a fruitless battle against moving to the next stage of spiritual communion, the one where God moves deep inside. When years shape us to be like him, his presense is less electric and strange; yet as we draw nearer, deeper faith yeilds deeper awe.”

I’d spelled it wrong below.

I found this description of what it is on this site:

The art, practiced at one time by all Christians, is the technique known as lectio divina - a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures which enables the Bible, the Word of God, to become a means of union with God. This ancient practice has been kept alive in the Christian monastic tradition, and is one of the precious treasures of Benedictine monastics and oblates. Together with the Liturgy and daily manual labor, time set aside in a special way for lectio divina enables us to discover in our daily life an underlying spiritual rhythm. Within this rhythm we discover an increasing ability to offer more of ourselves and our relationships to the Father, and to accept the embrace that God is continuously extending to us in the person of his Son Jesus Christ.”

It begins with cultivating the ability to listen deeply, to hear “with the ear of our hearts”.

In Contemplation, we cease from interior spiritual doing and learn simply to be, that is to rest in the presence of our loving Father. Just as we constantly move back and forth in our exterior lives between speaking and listening, between questioning and reflecting, so in our spiritual lives we must learn to enjoy the refreshment of simply being in God’s presence, an experience that naturally alternates (if we let it!) with our spiritual practice.

“Practice” is earlier defined in a different way than we in the modern times tend to think of it; not the outward manifestations but rather the inward depths of the soul, where we are actively being transformed.

I loved this: “Do not expect lightening or ecstasies. In lectio divina God is teaching us to listen to Him, to seek Him in silence. He does not reach out and grab us; rather, He softly, gently invites us ever more deeply into His presence.”

It seems one would attempt to incorporate this in thier lives specifically TO achieve some kind of lightening effect. We collectively are not, unless maybe those in the slow-food/simplicity movements, or the monastaries/convents, used to quietly waiting for a whisper of an invitation.

I’m mostly paying attention to the reoccurrance of certain words lately: some of them were in this little bit of research I just did. Words like “rhythm”, “Benedictine”, “holistic”, and “ordinary time”.

Each time we use language to express, understand, affirm, deny or define God, God slips away and wiggles out of the word-shaped boxes we use to confine God. God confounds our efforts to put God into words.

Read the whole article here.

No big blogs because my brain is on hiatus. Can’t seem to string together an entire sentence that makes sense and mostly spending time doing crafts with the kids, cleaning the house, and chewing thoughts. Here are some of them:

• Reading the convo from last week to Dh over the weekend, he had this to say, “I wonder if seeker-churches are just like some kind of Triage. They can’t focus on *both* structuring everything to the neophyte and growing others to maturity. At some point, the older ones move on, hungry for some meat.” This flies in the face of our holistic view of the parish-church mentality, where a local body can minister to a variety of needs, similar to a family with multiple members, and how they grow and adjust to healthfully meet the needs of one another. The family was an institution of God before the congregation; seems there is wisdom in that.
• ebay is a good little money maker. Now to get a digital cam so I can make the most of it and empty the “box room”. I’ve got painting to do and art bags to sew for next week. Oh, and ask Rick what he does for film developing; that stack is getting high!
• 10 year olds are huge. And his smell is changing. And he got his first pimple. Makes me want to lock the nursery door or something.
• Fall is happening right on schedule. Maples and Walnuts, red and yellow, are dropping little leaves in the rainy, wet breeze. We talk about firewood everyday and hot tea has become a daily occurrance.
• our days need a jolt of the liberal arts. Time to update the links on the Rhthm of Our Days.
• country music videos are addictive late into the night. And to think…if I’d not had Rowan, who made me suddenly crave that which I previously couldn’t stand, I’d never even know what a fun guilty pleasure these could be!
• my daughter looks gorgeous in her peacock blue sweater
• getting in touch with an old midwife friend may help me deal with an old hurt. May give it a try.
• Yesterday RK colored all over himself in ink (but methinks the streak on his back had to come from some other guilty party), walked out of the yard and down the road with me running behind him, learned how to say, “Teeeeeaaaaa”, flushed the toilet 10k times, and had another rousing game of Egg Ball.
• It’s Florida Week for UT. Go Vols! What a perfect autumn sport. Gotta root them on just for the picturesque beauty of it all!

Per my hubby’s suggestion, (and how well he knows me), I’ve decided to follow this train of thought. I’m looking for the following titles. Can’t buy them all, having a hard time with my library situation. If anyone has these and would loan them out, please let me know.
The Rule of Benedict for Beginners

The Family Cloister

The Divine Hours

Lord, Open My Lips; the Liturgy of the Hours

Redeeming the Routines: Bringing Theology To Life

Seeking God: the Way of St. Benedict

Yesterday, I read this on Chris’s blog, which links to a wonderfully encouraging and challenging article by the internet monk, and agreed whole-heartedly, having been there/done that. Like Chris said, it would have been great to see that 15 years ago. But I was also left wondering….what about the opposite problem? What if someone is hungry for the sacred, and feels an almost overwhelming joy and relief while in a worship service on sabbath mornings, but is burned and drifting during the week? Where anything less than true worship that is focused and intentional and deliberate would make her feel like she was about to completely fall away?

A break from church is the worst thing possible in that case, it would seem. At least from this vantage point.

I went to bed last night much-desiring our church’s service. Our liturgy is very focused, from beginning to end. I tear up almost weekly when our pastor says, “Now lift up your heads and hear the good news!” with true enthusiasm. We raise our hands to sing the Gloria Patri, we sing Mollet’s Lord’s Prayer, we have delicious bread and wine at the table. But I knew that today was our day to visit another church near here, in search of local fellowship, and so I went to bed feeling vulnerable, like the balm I needed for another week may be in jeoprody.

I didn’t sleep well. I woke up crabby and wanting things quiet. My kids woke up ready to rumble. And we were late.

I’d never been to a Lutheran service before. The liturgy was similar but even more formal. I loved the trinitarian archecture, the choir being in the back, the wood beams and rafters, the chanted response. The prelude was calm and someone lit candles, bowing slightly before the crucifix on the table.

And then….

Now, let me just give a disclaimer first. What happened next probably happens in 95% percent of American churches so I don’t want to make it sound like this was the only place I’ve ever seen it. Far from it; I grew up with it.

Then the white haired minister in robes broke away from the sacred, our hearts prepared to worship, to GIVE THE ANNOUNCEMENTS. Yes, there we sat, all ready for the confession, the invocation, the gloria….and we hear about someone’s bumps and scrapes, what’s coming up in the next week, and a congregant stood to volunteer more information.

No distraction my toddler could make would be more distracting from the point at hand. I want to WORSHIP. I feel like my entire christianity hangs on it right now. Don’t give me announcements!!! Sigh.

We went on, thankfully with a beautiful and purposeful service. I spent a portion of the sermon outside with Giant Baby, as we were uncertain how welcoming they were with the sounds of little congregants. Several greeted and visited with us after the service; the goal of meeting other christians in town for fellowship accomplished. The church and grounds brought up images of Mitford (books by Jan Karon); it’s very pretty and tree lined and historic.

After years of wanting a church that seemed to “get it right”, this year we have been members of one. There is not a thing about our Lord’s Day services that I would change or want different; they are God-focused, not people focused. They don’t divert from the goal at hand. There are no performances. Our children can be part of worship with us. They don’t guilt us into spending hours upon hours apart as a family, diverted into different activities. I didn’t move out here intending to break away from our church in any way; I’m kicking and digging in my heels in refusal at having to do it.

It’s not a reflection of where we went today or what else is out there. Maybe it’s like feeling thirsty and knowing where the water fountain is.

My friend Misty asked this question this week, on her blog.

I’m currently reading The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A Kempis. Thoughts today, while I mix fritata, change diapers, and vacuum run from: what Luther hoped the Reformation would do for the Church, singular; what have we thrown out that has left our christianity anemic, similar to the refining (stripping) process we do to our grain; the difference of Lord’s Day worship has to our everyday, more casual approach and how the two have mingled and diluted one another.

Going to church today was not unlike a birth passage. An hours’ drive with 3 hyper and super silly children who vascilated between loud joking and bickering is not exactly what one needs to prepare for an hour of worship. But as we drove through that “transition”, walked up the grassy hill to the door, and then walked through, we were greeted with smiling faces we’ve missed seeing and the opening music to our wonderful liturgy. I let it wash over me and be balm to a reddened soul. How’s that for dramatic? But that’s exactly what it felt like.

Bits and pieces that spoke to me today:

• from Psalm 24: Who shalll ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false….
• fragments from Hebrews 7: Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitcal priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise….? for the law made nothing perfect; but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.

I sat listening today and a little glimpse of clarity came to me. What I miss, what I hunger for, is more importance placed on a life of sacrificial devotion. I think maybe the protestants have missed something while downplaying the kind of separation seen by monk’s, nuns, and other clergy. There is a seriousness, a value, a worth that shows when one dedicates their lives in such a visible way to the pursuit of a holier, closer to Christ, life. If we are not going to all become cloistered away, isn’t there still some level of set apart, obvious importance we should make evident in our lives and lifestyles? I’m sick of casual christianity that focuses on dumping our burdens off and handing God the grocery list we’d like filled. I’m sick of the message that says, “come as you are and stay as you are“. Sure, I like bare feet and t-shirts. But even grocery stores say, “no shirt, no shoes, no service”. Yet, we want a christianity that never gets dressed up, never scrubs behind it’s ears, never sweeps out under the bed and empties the closet? Why bother with that?
No. If this is real (and I’m not really doubting it is, just the way in which I approach it), it has to be bigger. Different. I’ve been saying that I want other people to take me seriously and if they don’t, I pretty much don’t hang around for what they offer. I think it might be the same way with my faith. I need to take it seriously. It can’t just be some kind of lifestyle I”ve adopted because it’s all I’ve known, how I was raised, what keeps those around me happy, or seems to have the fewest bumps and bruises along the way.

As we waited to go up to the table for the Lord’s Supper, we sang Psalm 119 (x)

Before Thee let my cry come near,

O Lord; true to Thy word, teach me.

Before Thee let my pleading come;

True to Thy promise, rescue me.

Since Thou Thy statutes teachest me,

O Let my lips Thy praise confess.

Yea, of Thy word my tongue would sing,

For Thy commands are righteousness.

Be ready with Thy hand to help,

Because Thy precepts are my choice.

I’ve longed for Thy salvation, Lord,

And in Thy holy law rejoice.

O let Thine ordinances help;

My soul shall live and praise Thee yet.

A straying sheep Thy servant, seek,

For Thy commands I ne’er forget.

Life is fluid and wave-like and sometimes people fade in and out of our lives. Sometimes two people can have a common experience, have a varying degree of connection over it, but still not really know one another. Sometimes that common experience can lead one to have an openness to what the other has to say, or maybe breed a sort of loyalty where otherwise there’d be none.

Friends of mine had a baby. These were old friends, friends I grew up with and who fade in and out of my life. Another friend had a baby and the first friend directed me to the blog documenting the growth progress of the second friend’s premie. In visiting the little guys’ blog I linked into his ordinary blog. And from there I found another to link, a familiar name, back when we all were friends in the same youth group.

And so a decade plus later I’ve had names on my mind that normally don’t cross my consciousness. I’ve had an interest in what they’ve had to say, how we’ve all developed and grown, and where we are now.

I’ve also had a growing, nagging, spiritual discontent. Maybe surprising as I’m in a thriving, wonderful church community that feeds my soul every week. But I’m finally putting into words a self-loathing and dissatisfaction that I’ve found hard to articulate.

Specifically, I find a disgusting contrast between modern christianity/religion and the Christ of the bible. The disgust starts when I look in the mirror. I”m a pathetic imitation of Christ. I struggle and never seem to grow in sanctification, holiness, or purity. I feel ashamed to approach a “relationship” with Christ in which I’ve done so little to be more like Him. And yet…

very little, nay precious little of what I see around me, is any better.

I know very kind people. Moral people. Compassionate people. Outreaching, friendly, unprejudice people. There are denominations and persuasions galore and every single one thinks they have the corner on truth. Not a single one is without fractiousness and dissention on a schizmatic level.

I’m hungry. And I’m floating. And I’d so love to see an example of someone who vocally is persuing holiness that in some way actually looks something like the savior of the bible and the path He led. So when I found my old aquaintance’s blog entitled “YouCanKnowGod.com” I jumped at the chance to read what he has to say.The title is a bit….bold, but I was hoping to find a pursuit of holiness, a contemplative look at the christian life.

I’ll say right here that I approach this humbly. Mike’s blog does not seem to have comments on it; he may not want a dialog at all. For that reason I’m saying this here rather than in response to his post right on his site. I don’t typically raz other people’s blogs; thier turf is theirs to say what they want. This one though, really struck a nerve.

Mike is a pastor of a church in Georgia. His church is “partnered” with other churches and it’s vision is to “reach out to those disconnected to God”. Feeling my own sense of disconnect, I, justly or not, lumped myself in and read a few posts. You can do the same with this link.

I liked (a lot) what he had to say about culture and the way the church has traditionally viewed it. His is a church plant and as such I expected to hear that “pioneer in the wilderness” gritiness in his voice that would indicate he can retain enough idealism to fuel him through the lean times. It’s there. I thought I picked up on more than a little “church growth movement” hyperbole but I was really interested and didn’t want to pass a quick judgement so I swallowed it down.

Today’s post, though, brought it tumbling back up, like a bit of reflux. He’s apparently been attending some services at a church that is sponsoring them, helping them with lighting, and grand opening day stuff. Mike respects these guys and you can tell it’s not just polite gratitude for their help. He’s admitted they impress him and he called them “the real deal”. Here’s a quote from what he had to say about the meeting:

After the 2 Saturday night services, they had a quick evaluation meeting where they talked through the effectiveness of the whole service. They talked about flow, took a song out of the program, and gave feedback on the message.

Oh my. Brings up images of market analysis. You know, where the soda company (or the theme park) finds out what it’s customers want and then cater the product to please. “Effectiveness” measured by what standard and with whose viewpoint? Are we counting heads? Memberships?
Emotional responses?

I wonder what was wrong with the song. I have the feeling most of what we sing in my church wouldn’t pass these guys’ muster. I have a problem with boring old hymns that do little communicate the message or resonate with a changing culture too. What we sing isn’t very modern or often catchy and we like it that way. (we sing Psalms for the most part and I can’t /imagine/ any pastor having the balls moxy to say a psalm [scripture] didn’t fit the “flow” of his service but I know it happens).

I wonder what the pastor will do with his message feed back. Mike said he wanted that kind of feedback “as a communicator”. I can see that fleshly desire being quite natural. Problem for me is…where is the Holy Spirit in all of this? If the message didn’t “flow” right or didn’t fit the cultural vision, would it have been adapted?

Ultimately I wonder what such a manipulated and manufactured service/church can have to do with the Christ of the bible. How in the world is this anything like how Jesus lived his ministry? I can’t see the Twelve sitting around saying, “Hey Jesus, next time we need to speed things up a bit.” I want my grocer to stock what I’d like to buy and I want my doctor to listen to my desires on how to care for me. I want food manufacturers to listen to the people and stop putting in crap ingredients. But I’d never want a church to cater what it does to I think I want at the moment.

Christianity (I thought) was suposed to be about growing in grace. It is suposed to be a “step up”, a challenge for us to rise. We’re given a model that we were made in the image of; not the other way around.

Sigh. I read Mike’s Story and found much of my own reflected therein. We were indeed discontent, as a group more often than not, with such manufacturing. We were weary with “programs” that distracted more than anything else. Listening to his words I hear the same driven hunger to “know God”, the REAL God, that we knew we often were not being presented with.

I just don’t see where a “vision” like this makes any real difference. I want more.

My apologies to Mike if this seems harsh.