Sunday, April 1, 2018
Little Feathers: When the Student Is Ready...
Little Feathers: When the Student Is Ready...: I hope I can capture in words this Easter gift I was given today. Actually, the gift has been revealing itself for a few weeks now. But toda...
When the Student Is Ready...
I hope I can capture in words this Easter gift I was given today. Actually, the gift has been revealing itself for a few weeks now. But today a shift in perspective, a changing of the angle, as my great friend Mary says, let a precious insight sparkle like the very best light for my spirit.
Appalled by injustice and oppression done in the name of Christ, I have had a lot of trouble embracing the church for a few years now. I have wanted to apologize for, more than celebrate,the church on earth. This has caused the field of my faith to lie fallow, or sometimes downright dying. It has caused me to repeat, ad nauseum, all the things I can't believe about God. Some of the most troubling things are in the creeds and prayers of the church, and I have felt at turns blasphemous and rebellious when faced with dogma I feel was created to keep some in power and others under the thumb. Some in the club and some left begging at the gate. Many mixed metaphors, I know. I know you will understand just what I mean when I say I have wept that crosses -meant as the reminder of the ultimate sacrifice of a creator who would go to the very gates of hell to call "home free" to every creature ever made, those same crosses would be used to strike fear into the hearts of those who found them burning on their lawn. That's the best example I can think of to tell you the trouble in my heart. We won't even go into the Crusades, the Inquisition, the treatment of minorities of every kind, the blind eye to predator priests, using scripture as a battering ram or weapon of exclusion, etc etc etc.
A few weeks ago we started going to a nearby church. It could be any church, most likely, but this particular one was chosen for me. Because the Holy Spirit keeps giving words to the minister there, words that feel like living water poured on that fallow field. Little phrases that catch my imagination, the most important part of my brain, to me. Not new information, just little drops of water at just the right time.
Today the crowning moment came for me when the minister was preaching, and talking about the women who fled in fear from the empty tomb. As he talked about them running back the way they had come, fearful and confused, I saw my own self with them. Because I don't get it. I don't get so much of it. And the contradictions have dealt me a blow that I has left me reeling, for a while now.
But as the sermon went on, God had something private to say to me. The gospel reading today was not about the ones who later came and saw Jesus sitting in the tomb. But my mind went there anyway, led by a God who loves me. And instead of the words from the Bible, when Jesus saw me looking into the tomb, he said, just to me, "See, I have already been every place your fear can go. I have been in that place already. And you will not go there alone. No fear is beyond me."
I still have a lot of trouble with aspects of the church. But those are really people problems, not God problems. I have been left this day with a peace, a heart for understanding that God is so much bigger than the tiny parameters the church has given God. I know this is nothing new. But the peace is new for me today. And I am grateful.
Appalled by injustice and oppression done in the name of Christ, I have had a lot of trouble embracing the church for a few years now. I have wanted to apologize for, more than celebrate,the church on earth. This has caused the field of my faith to lie fallow, or sometimes downright dying. It has caused me to repeat, ad nauseum, all the things I can't believe about God. Some of the most troubling things are in the creeds and prayers of the church, and I have felt at turns blasphemous and rebellious when faced with dogma I feel was created to keep some in power and others under the thumb. Some in the club and some left begging at the gate. Many mixed metaphors, I know. I know you will understand just what I mean when I say I have wept that crosses -meant as the reminder of the ultimate sacrifice of a creator who would go to the very gates of hell to call "home free" to every creature ever made, those same crosses would be used to strike fear into the hearts of those who found them burning on their lawn. That's the best example I can think of to tell you the trouble in my heart. We won't even go into the Crusades, the Inquisition, the treatment of minorities of every kind, the blind eye to predator priests, using scripture as a battering ram or weapon of exclusion, etc etc etc.
A few weeks ago we started going to a nearby church. It could be any church, most likely, but this particular one was chosen for me. Because the Holy Spirit keeps giving words to the minister there, words that feel like living water poured on that fallow field. Little phrases that catch my imagination, the most important part of my brain, to me. Not new information, just little drops of water at just the right time.
Today the crowning moment came for me when the minister was preaching, and talking about the women who fled in fear from the empty tomb. As he talked about them running back the way they had come, fearful and confused, I saw my own self with them. Because I don't get it. I don't get so much of it. And the contradictions have dealt me a blow that I has left me reeling, for a while now.
But as the sermon went on, God had something private to say to me. The gospel reading today was not about the ones who later came and saw Jesus sitting in the tomb. But my mind went there anyway, led by a God who loves me. And instead of the words from the Bible, when Jesus saw me looking into the tomb, he said, just to me, "See, I have already been every place your fear can go. I have been in that place already. And you will not go there alone. No fear is beyond me."
I still have a lot of trouble with aspects of the church. But those are really people problems, not God problems. I have been left this day with a peace, a heart for understanding that God is so much bigger than the tiny parameters the church has given God. I know this is nothing new. But the peace is new for me today. And I am grateful.
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