a tired Sunday

No matter what, in the faith and experience of the community of which I am a part, today is the celebration of the ressurection from death to life of Jesus Christ. However, I am tired. I don't feel the energy to celebrate. Yet, the reality and truth of today is greater than my physical and emotional tiredness. I don't have to feel it or think it for it to be true. That changes not just my whole life, but the world. There is a power greater than ourselves!

isolated

Sometimes I feel so isolated on this journey. Alone. Afraid. Overly anxious.

I'm about finished with Walter Wanergin's book Paul - A Novel. Wow! There was great isolation and loneliness among those early folks. Maybe that's why they were so good at creating community when they were together. Well, and because they had a mission from God they shared in common. Well...and because they were so persecuted by those who disagreed with them.

So many of us see the "struggle" as solely our own. Somehow those early folks saw how they shared a common struggle. Possibly it was the Spirit of Christ that really enabled them to be community. And guess what? That same spirit is here today. In fact just yesterday a group of us were talking about it. Around the communion table. We were saying that we saw Jesus Christ among us as we were sharing that meal. I can't fully explain it, but I have read where other's have had the same experience. Wow!

Both by necessity and by the power of vision coming to us from God from the future, we are not our own. We are not alone. We are not afraid. We are a community, by God!

change

We're wrapped up in removing pews and putting chairs in the sanctuary at our church. I include myself in the observation of being wrapped up in the pew/chair discernment. No wonder we have trouble with the change that takes place in our lives in the transformation by Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection! The pew/chair situation is peanuts compared to that. That may be our biggest stumbling block about "believing" in Jesus and that he is our Lord, our Savior, the firstborn of the dead, our redemption. Not that we can't get our minds around any of this to make sense of it, but because all of that means the most unbelievable out-of-control change in and out of the world. So, we get wrapped up in more minor change controversies of life to pre-occupy ourselves with them. Then we don't have to face the BIG CHANGE which is what this ancient Christian season of Lent is all about in the journey to Good Friday and Easter. I plead with you to go to this article about why we avoid Lent.

Easter has become "just another holiday" now. There is no changing involved because we are afraid of it. We are more afraid of change than we are of death. But then...death is a major change isn't it?

traditional

I have had so many folks tell me that they want things to go back to or remain "traditional." I think traditional means for them "the way it was for most of our life or the way we shaped it to be." I am a traditionalist. I love history. I like to study and learn how our ancestors did things. I want to learn from the ancient traditions of the church and interpret them into the world in which we live. That runs up against tradition for the folks who want things to be the way they were familiar with them. Ironically, that is the description of a "me" generation. "It feels good to us and that's why we want to do it that way." ...even if it divorces from the great ancient traditions of the church. I am less a radical transformer than recoverer of the past. The real past.

a gap

Last posting was Christmas. Oops!

I am finding a lot of hope in some young "elders" of the faith. They are not necessarily within the organized church and yet they are focused on the spirit of God. They are allowing their lives to be changed and to be led by the One they are meeting for the first time and coming to know more deeply all at the same time. Makes no sense does it. But as I read Paul's epistles, it makes "perfect" sense.

We have treated church or religion as something that prepares us for a certain time in the future, then we have it all set right and "arrived" at the time and spot, we just keep doing it the way we learned it. But God particularly in Jesus Christ continually seeks repentance and change. God wants life change, not right thinking. And life change means letting go of judging others and allowing us to be judged by God.

(One of the confusing things in the modern church, though, is understanding what is "judging" and what is "accountablity within the body." Paul sets a high bar for those who are in the Body. There is accountability among the brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet, we are not given the prerogative to judge either in or outside of the body. That is to say whether someone's life is worthy or not to be within God's empire/realm/kingdom or what we call "heaven." )