I should apologize: this post rambles a little, before it finds its way. It comes of working this stuff out as I think it through, on paper, but I'm trying to do more editing between paper and keyboard. Meanwhile I am distracted, because it seems like the entire Pacific Northwest with the exception of this valley is covered in snow. Corvallis got snow; Seattle got snow; Spokane got snow - let me repeat, Seattle got snow, and here in Kittitas Valley I'm just watching the clouds roll in for freezing rain. Bah. Anyway, on to the blog:
...rereading this first paragraph, it's even more rambling than I remembered. I think even while writing it I knew it wasn't going anywhere - basically, it boiled down to a revisiting of the fact that a Christianity centered on love is not less than one centered on guilt or shame or sin - in fact, it's more full, and also tends to be more work on the soul. Which is a good thing.
It's easier to write than say. I've noticed a disturbing issue lately: it's hard to sincerely express certain spiritual realities, or understandings, aloud without a trace of irony. I find myself thinking, "I want to be a better person, to be more loving," but somehow it seems to come with that mental smirk, self-consciously, and I just - no! Argh! Stop it!
Which is... funny, because it's not something I smirk at, on any level, in church. When our rector says, "The point is not, or not only, to leave the world a better place, but to let the world leave us better people," irony is the furthest thing from my mind. (I'll try and write on that more - it's actually pretty simple. Christians need to stop thinking we have all the answers and that our job is to change the world, and start understanding that we're all in the same boat and letting the world change us. Love is a two-way street.) I don't feel like smirking when I talk about love to other people - only to myself. So how do I take that openness, that light, and that silence of a sacred space, and carry it with me?
Ah-ha-ha-- that's it, isn't it. This got talked about a bit at Convention: all spaces are sacred, stop thinking about an Inside and an Outside... how could it be that the rough stone floor, dark wood, and stained glass are sacred, but this glorious blue sky with stark snow-capped peak jutting forth across the valley, is not? (Well, that's what the window looked like when I wrote this yesterday; today, substitute "marbled gray sky, with cloud-wreathed hills flowing across the horizon," or somesuch.) I know the answer: it is the people, not the place, that make prayer.
And so, as I probably already knew somewhere in the back of this cluttered mind, the solution is to stop taking peace and understanding for granted, and realize that I have to consciously work on bringing my mind closer to that sacred place to be closer to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment