Confessions of a post-Christian

Newsweek recently ran a cover story about the decline of a Christian nation. I was horrified to think that we were a theocracy in the first place. (Although i didn't look up my 5th grade social studies textbook to confirm what we all should know... we are a republic not a theocracy.)

I found Judith Warner's response to the Newsweek article particularly insightful. The quote that I'm considering says, " “The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds irresistibly upon the young, but to stir up their own … Not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs,” William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian theologian, once said."

"What identity will my children have to rebel against, in the course of growing up? Is there a way to make their experience be a moving-toward, instead of away?"

For years in and with my own family, I have sought that "moving-toward" attitude. When each child came home interested in spiritual things of any kind, my response was continually, "go try it, practice it. Faith is practiced." And over time, that is what has happened to our family... we have become a group of individuals that practice faith in a meaningful way as individuals. And consequentially, our practices have blessed the others' practices.

I hope for our country, and for that matter, all living things, to touch our inward springs. I hope that instead of creating a society without religion, we are creating a society filled with people comfortable sharing their spirit, conversant about faith, and ever-inquisitive about that which we cannot understand.

The Red Balloon

Have you seen the foreign film, The Red Balloon? It's about a little boy and an "obedient" red balloon. The little boy spends this fantastic day being friends with the balloon. It goes everywhere with him, he runs and laughs and plays with it. And at the end of the day, his mother tried to kick it out of the house... but the balloon waited outside the boy's window.

Perhaps as a Lenten reminder we could walk around with a balloon. Or better yet, isn't red the color for Pentecost? Perhaps we could imagine the Holy Spirit as that playful, ever-present, faithful companion just like the red balloon was to the boy.

Maybe I've just touched on a great Pentecost illustration... balloons for everyone!

Feels Like Rain

Pete and I saw Buddy Guy with BB King on Fat Tuesday. Feels Like Rain was my first exposure to Buddy Guy and it courted me once again in a relationship with the blues. I love the imagery of rain being used here to speak of something wonderful like love. Rain so often is used for... well, for the blues. But I love the tension. Enjoy it here with John Mayer and Buddy Guy.

Read

Feels Like Rain Lyrics

here.

answering my own questions

I'm writing my sermon... again. The reflection is about the psalm that Jesus quotes while on the cross. It begins with the words, "my God, why have you forsaken me?" I've written a sermon about this already. But it was explicitly about the cross. This time, we're not quite at the cross yet. We're just beginning the journey of Lent.

And so I'm wondering about how we question God's Way. And I'm wondering about how much of this world we don't understand. I'm wondering about how much of this life doesn't go the way that we wish. And I'm wishing that I could get to a place where my knee jerk reaction wasn't blaming God.

The psalmist both blames God and trusts God. The psalmist seems to understand that 1. there is a God and 2. I am not God. The first gives us someone to blame. The second resolves us to trust.

When I hold those two things in tension, I am always reminded of a David Wilcox song, "Show the Way."

Emptiness and the Preacher

Yesterday I preached about the Constitution. It was titled "We the People." I gave words to "standing by someone else." It's a great gift to have a pulpit.

But today, I have the haunting feeling again. I wish for the freedom from the ties of the word preached. It draws me in, even holds me within its grasp - in knots.

It's not my word though, right? If it be prophecy, it belongs to the spirit of God. It has its own life and responsibilities. I speak it, let it go, from my belly to the ears of others. I become empty and the Spirit must continue to work on the ears of others. The Spirit must cultivate hearing from heads to hearts to hands. My job was to yield to that word and be a conduit for the Spirit to speak.

And so on Monday, I feel empty. And I feel loss... as if I held that word, that opportunity to speak, that calling, and I let go.

The word is out there, out of my head, my heart, and my hands. It is out of my grasp but it keeps me in its grasp in that I feel cavernous, I feel its absence. The absence haunts me the morning after.