Prologue

It all began with Bill, and his rather delightful polemic, The People Formerly Known as the Congregation. Bill was thinking out of the box a little and using a rubric that had been used in another format in order to get our collective attention. He accomplished that. Several others jumped aboard the train (Grace, Jamie A-R, John, Lyn, Greg, Dan, Heidi, Copernicus, Sola Gratia, Brother Maynard, and Paul) and wrote other pointed pieces that continued in that vein and I think we are now up to parts 9, or perhaps 10. I don’t know, my reading turned to skimming somewhere around part 5. I just got sad. I began to see backlash on institutional church blogs; people who are linking to these in anger and bitter humor.  (UPDATE:  several hours after posting this I read the second of Brother Maynard’s three part series in this meme.  Dear Reader, you really need to as well.   My post is but a shadow on the wall.)

More than that, an ever-widening rift is developing between the old and the new. The piece of the Church that was to be “just a conversation” is hardening it’s lines or perhaps the lines are being drawn for it and the piece that is the old, the institutional Church, is calling names and making faces. Oh, it’s being slightly more dignified than that, but it’s the adult version of, “I’m packing up the marbles and keeping them for myself. Nyah.”

So, what follows has been on my mind for quite some time now. I began writing it over a year ago. The imagery comes and goes, but I have not been able to get it out of my head (which probably is some indication of my level of insanity). I began reading the latest round of postings which began with Bill‘s TPFKATC with hope that has degenerated into sadness. We are all continuing to circle the drain with our anger. It’s not that anger or expressing it is bad, but we must begin to harness it into something constructive, redemptive, conciliatory or we will ultimately lose the true battle which we ought to be fighting.

As you read what follows, please understand that I am in NO manner attempting to speak the mind of Jesus. I am taking the metaphor of the Bride and Bridegroom and playing it out in imaginative fashion; so, dear reader, you may make of it whatever you will.

The People Known As The Bride of Christ

Jesus is coming. Jesus the Bridegroom. He is coming for His Bride. He dressed in his tuxedo. He’s been preparing the universe for this time since He called time into being. He’s longing for this Bride dressed in dazzling white. Pure. Clean. If He is to be Lord of Lords, then His Bride will be the Queen in the Kingdom of God.

What sort of Bride do we present Him with? At the moment, she is dressed in the tatters of a whore, no dazzling white here. She is behaving as though she is possessed of multiple personality disorder. In serious distress, this disorder is causing her multiple personalities to be at war with one another as she stands at the back of the church ready to walk down the aisle.

Now Jesus sees past the clothing and the MPD; He sees only His beautiful Bride. Not so the guests at the wedding. They are frightened by the spectacle of the tattered rags, ratty hair, dirty skin and raging arguments from within one person. They are leaving the church in small groups, and ones and twos. Slowly, but they are leaving. The banquet feast that Jesus has set for them is not enough to keep them there.

It soon becomes apparent that the wedding which was a central event in society, written up in all the best papers is now so insignificant that it’s barely worth mentioning by word of mouth. It was to have happened in the big church in the middle of town, but now it’s being held in the tiny little church down the road a ways. There just aren’t enough guests anymore. The Bride has frightened them all away with her squabbling, fractious nature and all of the rules she set for coming to the wedding.

Jesus opened the doors wide. The Bride started to close them. No drinking she said. No smoking. No dancing. Only come on Sunday. Wear beautiful clothes. I must have beautiful clothes. And your hair must be just so. Make sure your children behave. Raise your hands in worship. No, don’t. Yes, do. No.

These things and more are the issues She is now fighting about within Herself.More and more guests just keep slipping away. And The Bride? Well, She appears to be unaware, indifferent; far more concerned with her inner demons than with her guests. She knows she ought to be thinking of them and their needs, but she cannot seem to pull her eyes off of herself.

Epilogue

I have not written this because I feel that we ought all just get along and sweep our differences under the rug. I’ve written it because I feel that we ought to be picking our battles more wisely. There are really only a few battles that need to be fought. “In things essential, unity; in doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity.” Thomas aKempis. Is the church possessed by demons? I don’t know. But we’ve become a fringe element of society and it might be good to think about embracing that rather than continuing to act as if we’re the biggest show in town. Arguing about how to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic is a waste of time and energy. But perhaps we could learn some new patterns and begin to work together in and through our differences. Reminding ourselves of what we have in common more regularly might be a good place to start.

Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen

I began a new endeavor yesterday.  The LightChildren are certain that I’m a. nuts and b. tormenting them.

We’ve been concerned about their spiritual formation for some time now.  Not concerned enough to actually “do” anything about it.  But we’ve been talking about it and sort of wringing our metaphorical hands and wondering what we should do.  We’ve talked and thought and agonized and then talked some more and the LightChildren have been happily oblivious.  They bring up God every now and again and we eagerly talk about Him when they do.  But that’s been about it.

So, yesterday, I grabbed my nose and plunged in feet first with a new plan.  I promptly hit the water with a stinging belly flop.  My plan was to read The Jesus Creed aloud to them each day.  I figured the chapters aren’t that dense, or that long.  They’re smart kids.  They like being read to.  It’s approachable stuff.

No.  Not so much.  LightBoy decided that raw onions were preferable.  They did engage at a couple of key points.  Enough that I’m convinced that this is good stuff for them.  But read-aloud it’s not.  I need to head back to my teacherly drawing board and give it to them in smaller bites.  Maybe pre-cooked a little too.  I also realized that we need some pre-Jesusy stuff.  You see they didn’t get much Sunday school.  LightBoy in particular doesn’t really know the big Old Testament stories (like Exodus), so the Sh’ma doesn’t make much sense to him.  No wonder he was giving me such a funny look.

We’ll try again tomorrow …

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.

The second is this:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these.” 

According to Wikipedia, persecution is defined thusly:

… persecution seems to be the expression of a more general trend in human social behaviour, (perhaps related to tribalism ), which seeks to impose or enforce conformity.

Persecution is not recognised as such by persecutors, only by their victims or outside observers. Persecutors either see no wrong in their actions, or rationalize it as a small or short-term wrong to counter what they see as a larger, more serious wrong, as in The ends justify the means. Most commonly, this is expressed as seeking to protect themselves or their families or society from what they see as the harmful influence of the persecuted group.

Persecuted groups are often labelled using pejorative terms which reinforce their social alienation. For example different races are called inferior or sub-human; different religions are called infidels or heathen; political groups are called subversive; homosexuals and drug users are called immoral. Use of such terms with strongly negative connotations allows individuals to avoid examining the true nature of their relationship with the persecuted group.

Since people are, in general, incapable of recognising their own prejudices, compiling a full list of all forms of persecution is inevitably controversial. For almost anything which could be cited as an example of persecution, there will be those who claim it is legitimate personal or social self-defense.

Hmmmm …. having recently been involved in some personal conflict, this description gave me pause. During the conflict I often felt persecuted. So did some of the others involved. Since we were at odds with one another, the question arises who were the persecuted and who were the persecutors. But, then again, perhaps that is not the important question. The far more important question might be, does the end justify the means?

We are very familiar with this concept. It was first published by Niccolo Machiavelli in his political masterpiece, The Prince in 1515 … In a brutal world, where every man is out for himself, being something other than what one actually is, for fun and profit, as long the ends are worthy, is a valuable tool:

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

The above quote comes from chapter 18 entitled “Concerning the Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith.” I read that chapter at least three times. I could not find a tiny piece of it which glorified God, or spoke of learning to walk with Him. So I wondered who the prince was keeping faith with? Was it God, the people, his betters, himself?

The more startling issue is that I had to read several chapters before finding this. I was amazed at how ingrained in our culture Machiavellian thinking has become. We have all become little princes, looking after our fiefdoms. Far from being the polemic on evil that I thought it was, it merely outlined poltics and living as we have come to know it in the late 20th and early 21st century. Are we running late for an appointment? Then sure, cut someone off and potentially cause an accident (or at least cause their heart rate to go up). Our good and/or necessary ends justify the means. We’ll do penance through helping someone else out later in the week. Or slip a little extra in the collection plate at church.

Pulling back the lens a little we look at our farming practices which are causing havoc in creation and the animal kingdom. But the good and/or necessary ends are that we can feed so many more people so far away now. Do those means really add up? Do those means truly justify the ends? Are we merely gaining something in the short term which will cause greater long term damage?

Then I look at the example set by God. I see that He never, no never, not one time followed this line of thinking. Granted He is God and as I believe Him to be, He has more and greater knowledge of the way things are than I do. But He does not take the route of ends justifying the means. If that were the case, we would not celebrate Easter each year. He would have found an easier route to our salvation than condemning a part of Himself to death. He is endlessly patient, never willing that an event should happen before its proper time. Knowing when each seed needs to grow to fruition and when it needs to lie waiting.

The longer I walk down this road with my Saviour, the more I am coming to think that every time we act in line with “the ends justify the means,” we are working against the will of God and become the persecutor. But if we lay that down and earnestly seek His will for ourselves and our neighbors (whoever they may be) we continue to walk in His will. Will this open us up to becoming the persecuted? Probably. But that is a story for another day, my beloved.

Here are the rest of the Synchrobloggers and their masterpieces … which are actually more worthy than mine:

• David Fisher – Be the Revolution
• Fishing for Trouble – Phil Wyman’s Square No More
• Mike Bursell – Mike’s Musings
• Restoring Our View of Humanity – Eternal Echoes
• Persecuting the Marginalized – JohnSmulo.com
• The Ends Justify the Means – Calacirian
• Billy Calderwood – Billy Calderwood
• Seeking First Righteousness – Tim Abbott
• Jamie Swann – More Than Stone
• Persecution and Martyrdom – Handmaid Leah
• “Don’t squash the counter-revolutionary/the plank in my own eye” – Jeremiah
• The Martyrs of Epinga at Notes from Underground
• Terrorism in Christianity at The Rivera Blog
• Persecution or Poor Elocution? Hello, said Jenelle

The Church is two things. It is at one and the same time a human institution founded by humans, run by humans and failed by humans. It is also an institution ordained by God to be His Body incarnate here on earth, His Bride in waiting, the Kingdom peeking out in the here giving us glimpses of the not yet.

A couple of weeks ago Bill Kinnon wrote an excellent post entitled PFK as the Congregation (if you haven’t yet read it, go do so now. I’ll wait). At almost the same time and with much, much less thought I wrote Leaving Oz, which, we agreed, was on the same wave length. Last week Emerging Grace wrote The Underlying Issues as a follow-up to PFKC where she outlined Bill’s main points. She hit the ball out of the park, once again.

Grace began her post with a bit of a sally against those who seem to think that we who criticize the church are bitter and angry. Some might be. Some might be working through those issues and still retain valid criticisms of the Church.

I’m going to mix up politics and faith here for a little bit. I hope you won’t mind, but I find it necessary to make my point.

When our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote the Constitution, one of the most prominent freedoms for them was freedom of thought or speech. It was very important to them that they be allowed to think and say what they wanted to. As well as being allowed to worship in the manner in which they chose. Hence we have clauses in the Declaration of Independence that read like:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

and the First Amendment to the Constitution which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But how many of us really take those to heart? Really. How often do we speak up and say what’s on our minds, or think outside the box, or differently from the rest of the crowd? It’s extremely rare. We are a culture in which it is the norm to want to do like everyone else. Those who march to their own beat are ostracized and excluded, by the whole pack. It’s not just the leaders who are responsible, but all of us.

I’ve been seeing this my whole life. LightHusband and I have a very good friend from our youth. I’ll call him BestMan (since he was our best man when we got married). When LightHusband and I were dating, we hung out with BestMan a lot and carried on conversations about life, culture and anything else that crossed our minds. Literally … anything! One of the things that used to amaze us was how like cows people are. Since we all grew up in Vermont, this analogy was apt. People get in a herd and follow along without thinking, they just do what the butt in front of them is doing. I realize that sounds awfully harsh … but remember we were youthful and harsh at the time. We are not taught or encouraged to think about what might exist outside the herd. Get in your car, sit in traffic, sit in your cubicle, get ahead, sit in your car, sit in your cube house, go to sleep … do it all again.

Now let’s go back to the Church. How is the Church going to be any different in this atmosphere? I think that Bill and Grace have extremely valid criticisms and concerns about how the Church has been lead in the last several decades or so. But I don’t think that all of the responsibility can be heaped on the leadership. I think that we the PFKC have to take some of the blame too. After all … for the longest time, we’ve liked it this way. We’ve enjoyed our emerald spectacles, and our comfortable happy lives that our wizards, oops, I mean pastors have given us.

Remember, when the wizard left Oz, the people didn’t fling off their spectacles and cry out, “We are free! We are free!” No, they mourned his loss and wondered how on earth they were going to get along without him.

“Good-bye!” shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and farther into the sky.

And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we know. But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another:

“Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the Wise Scarecrow to rule over us.”

Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful Wizard, and would not be comforted.

My theory is that the Church for many people (even in fundamental/evangelical/charismatic churches) is a social contract with social functions. By social contract, I am referring to the contract first discussed by John Locke in Two Treatises of Government. I don’t mean to belittle or demean in any way the faith or relationship that most people have with God or Jesus. I have to assume that they must have a vibrant faith. It’s just different and their view of church is different than mine. They are in small churches, medium churches, and mega-churches. But regardless of size they are in a place where they like wearing colored spectacles, and being told where to go and what to do by a leader who has built a beautiful city for them to live in; a leader who sets himself apart and is above the people. A leader who was dropped in from above and will one day leave just as mysteriously, but will never quite be one of them. The people will adore him, listen to his every word, follow him … but they will never quite know him. Now here’s the thing … both the leader AND the people like it this way. Both entities are getting something out of this.

There is however, a growing group of people who are not satisfied with this status quo. Who have begun looking around and thought that there might be a third way. For lack of a better term, or maybe because I like it a lot, we can call ourselves PFKC now. Or as Jamie Arpin-Ricci is calling us, The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional, this third way, this way of being Jesus; of not just sitting in a pew on Sunday and counting it sanctified all week long. It looks like many things. It’s walking a tightrope amidst a broad road. It’s living with open hands in a tight fisted culture. It’s seeing a mother’s dreams on the face of an old homeless man. It’s seeing people not clerks in the grocery store. Having authentic friendships without any ulterior motives. It’s learning how to be yourself again, the beautiful one who God created to be and love and laugh in the world; to be in relationship with Him and with others.

So how do these two sets of people get along with one another? One set is comfortable within the social contract, loving the leader, wearing the colored spectacles, following the crowd and the rules (whatever they may be). They love the beautiful walled city in which they live, apart from everyone else. The other set has grown discomfitted with the social contract, thrown down their colored spectacles, gone adventuring outside the walls of the city, decided that the rules are not necessary for their existence and that the crowd might be going in a direction they don’t want to go.

One set is, by nature, conservative, holding on tightly to the things they know and love. The other set is, by nature, radical, letting go and finding new ways; new wine in old wineskins. It’s my hope and dream that the two groups can get along, can love each other as children of God, as mutual brothers and sisters in Christ. We do things differently, we see the world differently, but we share one God, one Saviour, one Holy Spirit. If we can manage to walk through this new way lovingly we will not further splinter the Church, but perhaps bring it back together again. That is my dream today.

Here is my question for Easter Monday. Why is it that our primary symbol for Easter is the cross? Actually that is the primary symbol for our faith. I think that is odd.

After all, lots of people died on crosses. It was the primary form of capital punishment during the Roman Empire. The miracle isn’t that Jesus died on a cross.

The miracle is that He was resurrected. It seems to me that our primary symbol ought to be the empty tomb.

That is not a very good marketing tool. It doesn’t lend itself to logos and bumperstickers. It doesn’t make a very good necklace (as I discovered):

That just doesn’t wear well (as I discovered at BlingdomofGod). It’s not very self-explanatory.

I understand that part of the symbolism of the cross is that Jesus became an atoning sacrifice on the cross. That is where He atoned for our sins and took them upon Himself. However, the deeper magic was incomplete with His death. The final act came with the resurrection and that is symbolized with the empty tomb. So it seems to me that the tomb is the symbol of the real miracle, the deep, deep love of Jesus for us. The cross is merely the beginning.

Today we commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He came riding into the city central to the faith of his fathers, headed for the Temple we might assume. He was greeted and paraded as a king. Palms were waved in front of him. Crowds cheered his entry. He rode in on that most majestic of beasts, bearer of royalty throughout the ancient world …

… a donkey.

The prophecy which we who are His followers believe He fulfilled call Him King and God, Son of Man, Son of God. These are titles which we might think entitle him to a litter carried by slaves or eunuchs. Or a horse. Or a camel. Something with silks and lots of regalia.

Instead he rode in a donkey. The records we have suggest that it was a young donkey. This would suggest that perhaps it was untrained. I’ve ridden an untrained donkey before. To say that it is unpleasant is somewhat of an understatement. It is quite a feat to keep one’s seat on an untrained donkey. This one appears to have been particularly docile, or this is one of the unmarked miracles of Jesus.

I’ve often wondered why Jesus chose a donkey. I think it’s because even on a donkey he wouldn’t have been much further off the ground than he was when walking. Riding a donkey doesn’t lift you up very high. It just gives you four legs rather than two. It does have the drawback of making life bumpy. So this had the advantage of keeping him in touch with all the people, while being able to move down streets crowded with the festival of Pesach.

My favorite legend which has grown from Palm Sunday is that as a result of Jesus riding on the donkey, he has been permanently marked with the cross. Donkeys have a long brown stripe the begin between their ears and proceed all the way down their back along their spine to the base of their tail. Then they have another stripe that crosses it at their withers. It is the donkey’s badge of royalty for having once carried the King of Kings as He entered the Holy City on his last journey.

Almost two months ago, Will Samson leaked the information that his wife, Lisa was giving away free (did you see that? FREE) copies of her latest book, Quaker Summer, in exchange for the small price of writing a review of the book once we’d read it. A free book? My eyes perked right up. I’ve come to respect Lisa through her blog and interactions with her on her husband’s blog as well. So I thought that her book would be a breath of fresh air.

My only real complaint about this book is that I finished it the other night and that the people aren’t real. I can’t drive up to Baltimore and find the characters hanging out at the homeless shelter there. I was so sad when I closed the book at 12:15 the other night and had to say good-bye to friends. I fell in love with the main character, Heather Curridge (or is that Courage?). I had been reading it slowly on purpose. To stretch it out and make it last. But there weren’t enough pages. I came to the end and had to say good-bye.

Lisa Samson wrote this book in the first person, as a journal almost. I could even see it as a blog in spots and found myself searching for the “Comment” button. The characters are fairly three dimensional, believable and I wanted to meet them, have coffee, catch up with where they are now.

We walk with Heather through the deepest parts of the valley of her mid-life crisis. In the beginning of the book her life is slowly unraveling but she is the only one who notices. She takes a courageous step and allows the unraveling to continue to see where it leads, and once that is done allows the Holy Spirit to engage her in the re-winding of her threads back together. In that process she becomes whole once again and it feels like an honor to be invited to witness this.

At first I thought the conversations sounded canned and a bit flat, but when I started reading it as a journal they became more authentic, the way one of us might re-hash a conversation on paper. There are nuances and bits that we forget, that we leave out; tone of voice that never makes it onto the page of a diary and thus a conversation that meanders and burbles in real life becomes much more directed and forceful in our memory.

Through the course of this book it becomes very clear that Ms. Samson pretty thoroughly understands theology and many different denominational perspectives within Christendom. She’s a very savvy writer who wraps up some excellent debate about the Kingdom of God and how we can operate within it and for it in engaging fiction that keeps you wanting to know more about the characters without beating you about the head with her theology.

In all, a thoroughly enjoyable book that I’d highly recommend. It will have me thinking through some things for quite some time to come. I may even begin putting dots on my possessions. 😉

Today is the day I’m supposed to have launched a post about Christians and altered states of consciousness to participate in the March SynchroBlog. But. I didn’t get my act together. I might in the days to come because I find that topic piques my interest. Then again, it seems overwhelming. So I might not. In the meantime, I thought I ought to let you all know about the others who are more organized than I and who have written some interesting, engaging thoughts on the issue. So when you have time, go check my fellow Synchies out:

Shamanic Vision and Apocalyptic Scripture at Phil Wyman’s Square No More

Can prayer be an example of Alternate Conciousness? at Eternal Echoes

Better Than I Was [at times], Not Better Than You Are by Mike of Earthsea

emotionalism vs rationalism at Adam Gonnerman’s Igneous Quill

Consciousness of the absurd and the absurdity of consciousness at Steve’s Notes from the Underground

The Unconscious Christian by Matt Stone

Hypnochristians at Jamie’s More Than Stone

The extreme consciousness of the Spirit by Les Chatwin

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me at Mike’s Musings

What is reality? by David Fisher at Be the Revolution

Well … this feels like gossip. But maybe not, because I’m documenting my chain. You can read the links, so I guess that’s not really gossip because you can go and read it for yourself … it just has that feel because I haven’t read the original for myself. Not the book. Not even the original review. Bad me.

Emerging Grace quoted Ben Witherington who quoted from Rob Bell in his book. So … yeah. That feels like gossip, but I’ve put in the links and you can go read for yourself to get the proper context.

Here is Ben’s quote (he is reviewing Rob’s new book Sex God) from the book, chapter 5:

Here is an excellent para.— “Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two—love and controlling power over the other person—are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.”

I first read this in Grace’s excellent post drawing attention to Ben’s very detailed review of the book … which I’d recommend. Once I make my way through the heavy lifting due for the EV Theological Conversation in April, this book will be pretty high on my list. But this quote really struck me. As in right between the eyes.

Perhaps it’s the time of year. Perhaps it’s my mood. But this really reminded me of my/our CLB and the struggle we went through as we left our former church home and family.

Our CLB was all about control and manipulation. Our masks and costumes had to be in place as soon as the car doors opened in the parking lot. We were expected to think in conjunction with the Uni-mind. No questions were allowed … of God, of the pastor or of the elder board. Questions were indications that our loyalty and even perhaps our salvation was suspect. Certainly, we would not be allowed in any position where others might be influenced to ask questions as well. Questions were like cancer and must be contained, stifled and excised from the body, lest any harm come to the pastor … err … umm … body.

I’m painting with a somewhat broadbrush here. It was quite painful after fourteen years with this pastor and his family. And we faced a lot of pressure to conform to certain lines of thinking that are very clearly areas where good Christians might disagree and still be in communion with one another. I was asked to disavow a calling on my life given me by God and confirmed by anyone who has known me for any length of time.

There are powerful forces within the Christian community. The call of Christ to live in community must not be taken lightly and indeed I believe that most of us do not. However, it is then in our nature to become manipulative within our communities in order to maintain our own sense of safety and well-being.

How do we love people without controlling them? The very desire for another to have “something more” implies that one knows that the other currently has something less, and that we know what “more” is. That we somehow have the ability to bestow this upon the other. Or perhaps even this is arrogant.

Perhaps the question is more basic than this. How does one exist in a community without manipulating others? How do I exert my rights as a human being without impinging upon yours? In other words, if I want to drive my car 90 miles an hour down my street … well then, it’s really not loving of you to tell me that I mustn’t. I have control of my car and you asking me to slow down is manipulative. Or perhaps I’m being provocative.

Here’s a better situation. LightGirl, her friend and LightHusband went to a Washington Capitals game the other night. Very near them sat an overly exuberant fan. A very. large. overly exuberant fan. He was fond of shouting and stomping. His stomping in particular was very annoying to LightGirl. She finally stood up and asked him, politely, but very firmly to stop stomping his feet. He did not respond very politely, but LightHusband did observe that he ceased the behavior in question, despite his verbal refusal to do so.

I think that was loving. It was clearly not manipulative. LightGirl had a request. She made that request. OverlyExuberantFan responded. They worked it out. Now, it was just one hockey game. I’m not sure how it would work out in the face of daily interactions. But perhaps OverlyExuberantFan and LightGirl would get to know one another and work out something more amenable to both. They would come to an understanding of each other and where the boundaries are. They might grow to love and respect each other; want good things for each other. LightGirl might come to understand OEF’s desire to stomp and he might come to understand why it annoys her.

All of which begins to remind me of that cloying poster from my college days. It was based on the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It usually pictured a seagull flying high in the sky and had swirly, girly writing. The text always said: If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you they’re yours. If they don’t they never were. GACK!!

As with all cloying cliches, there is a kernel of truth in there. It’s at the beginning. If you love someone, set them free. When I began to think about it, I started thinking about Jesus and God. Because a lot of what happens in churches is ascribed to God/Jesus, but maybe it ought not to be. Often times, they are thought of as manipulative and coercive because their followers tend to be, in love, of course. But was Jesus? What would Jesus do?

As it turns out Jesus loved people (sinners) without manipulating them at all. When faced with capital charges, he didn’t answer them; did not defend himself. At all points in his ministry when his integrity was questioned, or his reputation was on the line, or his safety was threatened, he never got defensive or manipulative, or coercive.

He told the truth. And the truth shall set you free. Hmmmmm …..

… and a dollar short.

I could say that Lent snuck up on me this year. But that would imply that I normally have my act together in terms of Lent. Lent always sneaks up on me. It is a season that has always been mysterious to me. In high school, I had friends who were Catholic. Ash Wednesday they came to school with smears on their foreheads that even they were at a loss to fully explain. We made jokes about giving up ketchup or something silly. But somehow we knew were making the sacred, profane.

Later on, I thought about using the time to give up bad habits that I knew were harmful to me in an attempt to rid my life of them. Cigarettes. Chocolate. Beer. Alcohol. The problem was I didn’t really know what I was doing or why. So I would think really hard about doing it and pretty soon the season would pass and with it the thoughts. I have yet to give up chocolate or beer. I simply reserve them for really special times 😉 and have really good chocolate or beer.

Then I gave up on Lent altogether. I just couldn’t understand it. The church tradition I was a part of had no teaching on it. And, I was quite busy with other things. It was an old tradition for other people. It was no part of my life and I had no need of it.

Then I read a really good book about a year or so ago, called Sacred Rhythms (updated and now called GodSpace), by Christine Sine. In this book, Christine writes about the rhythms of our lives and the heartbeats that we live to. I’ve been pondering where the rhythms are in my life and the life of my family. How does the tide run in and out? What are the larger circadian rhythms and the smaller orbits that we follow? The church seasons impact us and the larger holy days provide markers; those being Christmas and Easter.

Which brings me back to Lent and the preparation for Easter. What will we give up? What will we add? How will we use this forty day period to bring us closer to the orbit of God. In some ways, the Pantry Challenge 2007 was a wonderful preparation. It has changed our view of meals and food in ways that are hard to quantify and verbalize. But I think as I’m moving forward to into 2007 one of my key words for the year will be “simplify” or “enough” … that is, that I and we have enough. Like our pantry, our home is similarly overloaded and groaning with excess.

This Lent I would like to live as we did during the Pantry Challenge. That is, with what we have and to evaluate that bounty against what we need. I want to begin to give a lot of it away to those who might need it more than we. My desire is to live with less. I want to begin to go through our “stuff” a little each day of these 40 days and have it leave our home for good, without the desire to replace it.

I say all of this as I leave for a quilt show. The main attraction is the vendor hall. Filled with fabric calling my name. There is a (very) little which I do need to purchase in order to make this quilt for a class on Sunday:

But … I have so much fabric, that if I were better prepared, I ought not to need even this. So I’m purchasing the fabric I need for this quilt. And two other pieces I need for quilts already in progress. These are pre-planned purchases. My heart is feeling faint as I write this. Please, if you read this, pray for me this weekend.