Sitting in the shade, listening to the water fountain next to me. It is a warm fall day, with long shadows and trees with bare limbs, a clear blue sky. I am facing a valley far below.
Linnea and I just had another grand meal. Cups of coffee, glasses of wine. Today is our anniversary. We talk about the past, talk about our lives, talk about our dreams. The conversation takes takes crazy tangents, we enjoy each other’s company.
After two years of marriage, and almost 4 years of life together, there is still no one else I would rather spend time with. I am amazed as I look across the table at my wife, and often wonder what she sees in me. She is my constant reminder that there is a God, and that I am not he.
I totally believe some people really actually hear God’s voice. I don’t think I am one of them, at least not in the way that some people say they do. I hear all the time that God said this or that to them, and sometimes I wonder how many voices they are hearing up in that skull of theirs. At the same time, I have no doubts that God brought Linnea and I together. I have no doubts that Linnea and I are right where we are supposed to be, and that we have followed God’s voice on this adventure.
Linnea and I think about the future, wonder what God has planned. When do we start a family? Where are we supposed to go? With a love of stability and security, we want answers now. Sometimes I feel like God wants us to be secure in Him as the answer. Seems a little crazy, seems like common sense in a religious way. I think that almost any one who has any belief in God would agree, in theory, that we are not supposed to worry, we are supposed to trust God for everything. But then I wonder if that is just the company line, like the joke is on me to walk in step with some institution. I look for the lives of those that are actually living by faith. I think we were led out on this adventure to grow, not in faith, but in relationship with the One Who is Faithful.
I grew up very conservative, in a very liberal state. Conservative in every way possible, I believe. We sat at lunch today, enjoying the buffet, and the ambient music was instumental hymns, which took me to places deep in my memory. Songs like “Great is Thy Faithfulness” stuck so deep in who I am. In fact, I never really got into contemporary christian music in my life, because I think half of it sucks, and I just don’t trust many businesses that build themselves on people’s beliefs. How much money has been sucked out of the pockets of those that are made to feel guilty by listening to ‘secular’ music? How often do christians get together and talk about christian music and songs, as though that is what following Jesus entails. (modern day, purpose driven churches come to mind also. I have trouble with non-profit organizations that worry more about their tax exempt status than the starving. Worry more about reputation than about following Jesus.) To me, Keith Green is about as good as it gets.
This conservative baptist ideology was driven into me as I went through every one of Freud’s stages (and spiritually I wonder which stage I have gotten stuck in). Everything I do is shaped by the spiritual or religious in my life. I believe this is how God intended us to raise our children, with God in every part of life, but I am in this spot of wondering when do we start a family, and what do we believe? I want to teach my children how to walk with Jesus, not just try to walk by faith. I want to teach my children not to judge, how to love, but if children learn what they see, I fear that my children will be as full of religion as I am.
So much of me is more protestant than christian, and more christian than disciple of Jesus. I guess I am starting to see how protestant I am. What does a protestant do? Protest. I feel like I protest everything. I see the problems and protest them, but don’t really have any solutions, and none of this seems to be close to the heart of Jesus. (on a side note, I just read “Jerusalem Countdown” by John Hagee, and in this book he addresses the anti-semitism in the church. I cannot believe how deeply the “christian” church has hurt God’s chosen people. We tend to think Jesus was a pasty blonde guy, kind of gender neutral. We forget that Jesus was a blue collar guy, probably pretty ugly, and very Jewish. The christian church, even currently, would never accept Jesus as anything more than a trouble maker, we probably would not let Jesus have any influence on the youth in our churches. But, I bring this tangent up, because it seems that the great protestant, Martin Luther, was an incredible bigot, and his writings seem to have had a huge influence on Adolph Hitler. Hagee also says the nazis had the full support of the church in Germany. Hagee lists many other church fathers as instrumental in the persecution of, I say it again, GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE.)
Protestant. That is me, and I protest that in me. We have this image in our minds of what a christian is. We spend more time trying to shape ourselves into this image than we do developing a relationship with Jesus, which any christian would have on the list of what a christian does. I believe each one of us is building our own personal Tower of Babel. We are trying to reach the heavens, on our own, in the name of Jesus. We learn how to speak like a christian, how to put a mask on for a few hours in the church. We agree with ourselves and disagree with the church across the street.
We are consumers, in the church, in marriage, keeping score. Am I getting my money’s worth out of this church? Doing constant comparisons between churches, cost analysis on faith. When do I leave for greener pastures? Should I spend the summer in the church with the nicer air conditioning? What is a better use of the budget, my comfort, or helping others? Life can’t be all about my own sacrifice. It seems sometimes that the only people who care about the youth in the church are the parents of said youth, and once those youth have decided not to attend anymore (tired of hypocrisy, programs, and baby sitters), we no longer care about the youth. I honestly don’t understand the church as an institution. Just as I don’t understand christianity as it lives in my body.
As we are with what I would call a bunch of pentecostals, I often wonder about what I truly believe, wonder what is actually biblical. Is this a game? Speaking in tongues, I have gotten used to hearing it, though I have given up on trying to do it myself. I just don’t get it. Prophetic worship, emotions, I just get so cynical about all this. Half the time I feel like this pentecostal stuff is a little whacked. Hearing God’s voice all the time, fancy prayers, this fixation on things like fasting, the protestant nature I have seems to rebel against this.
That prayers for unity are guilt trips on the non-conformists. As each of us builds our private Towers of Babel, I feel like I am driving down a subdivision where each house looks like the other. Fancy facades, people looking to each other for affirmation.
So I send prayers out into the atmosphere, like the computers looking for signals from intelligent life. I pray that God would put his desires inside me, that my heart would beat with his. That my mind conforms to his, and thinks his thoughts. I pray the prayer of Thomas Merton, that God will lead me, simply because I ask.
I try to think about the spiritual world, I try to think about what happens when I die. I continually search this out, but like hunger, every day I need to pursue it, one meal doesn’t satisfy. What I believe today does not naturally last tomorrow. I guess it seems like the manna that lasted one day, and if the Israelites tried to save it, was full of maggots the next.
Sometimes, it seems to me, this whole thing is a crap shoot. Roll the dice and walk on. Walk in faith, take risks. That is how I believe we were designed, and even as I realize I suck at religion. I suck at community and submission to authority, I start to panic when I am feeling forced to conform.
I believe we are like ships, safe in harbor, but that is not what we are made for. God made us to sail, so I will continue to pursue this, this insane lifestyle choice. This lifestyle choice that I believe is bringing me closer to Jesus, and farther away from the western church.
