Front PageFinding God in the wilderness
Submitted by bill on Mon, 03/21/2005 - 10:33. church
This Sunday we were fortunate to have a reunion of sorts with several friends from a past life in another church. An experience like this one reminds me that the Church – the Ekklesia – is large and diverse. Although we move around or flee one organization for another, we're still connected. We're connected not only through our shared emulation of Jesus the Christ but through our shared experiences – both good and bad.
Unfortunately, other than the experience of meeting at the same place for several years while watching each other's children grow, the most powerful experience we share is probably that of suffering through a church implosion together. The sordid details of the story are not important but that each of us, in our own way, tried to stop the failure and then to fix the failure and then to stop the bleeding. Subsequently, each of us had to come to that realization that what was, is no more. What humans build will fall. Human systems will fail but God remains.
It's a requirement of life that all things are born, grow and grow old, and then die. And so it must be with our institutions. We can prop them up with great effort but pushing against entropy – swimming upstream – requires enormous amounts of energy. Perhaps we should focus our energies instead on birthing the new and growing it while its time is here. We should let the old die a noble death and herald in the new. Let each generation have its church while honoring what came before.
Still, we must suffer through the winter before we can enjoy the spring. Each part of life's cycle has its purpose. And as said elswhere on this site, Jesus took his message to the wilderness. It was a wilderness in more than one way. It was a wilderness in the usual sense and it was a wilderness in that the people found there were discarded by man-made religion. They were discarded by the “in” crowd but not by God. For it is in the wilderness that we find God.
So I believe that those of us either fleeing to the wilderness or cast out of man-made religion into it, will there in the wilderness find God.
bill
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Re: Reunion
Submitted by bill on Mon, 03/21/2005 - 18:23.
reido wrote:
[...] it's bitter pill when you visit a place where you preached for twelve years and the preacher (who doesn't know me) uses the Sunday sermon for a public scourging. Sometimes you just have to consider the source.
Reido,
This really grieves me. Not only am I sorry that you had such an experience but I'm sorry that good people in the pews let other people do this. What grieves me though, is that some people encourage using the “bully pulpit” for revenge and then hide their hatefulness under a guise of defending the faith – as if God needs us frail humans to maintain the purity of His truth.
Perhaps I'm missing something but you just don't strike me as someone deserving of such treatment. Your wisdom has been very helpful to me and to others. You are certainly loved here.
bill
» reply
No Grief
Submitted by reido on Mon, 03/21/2005 - 19:45.
Bill
I somewhat expected as much, but wanted to see my friends anyway.
As far as deserving it goes, I understand that I am about as far from what these folks consider the truth as anyone they know of. Being seen in the local burrito restaurant drinking a beer makes big news in a small town.
But you know, I don't see how we can pretend to be other than who we are. Putting on a face, now that gets real old with me fast.
As for the love, it is mutual. The way I see it, we have no choice but to live and enjoy it -- so I pick places where I like to go. This is one.
reido
» reply
Reunion
Bill
Thanks for the link...I found a dangling note that I had meant to add to that chapter, and moved another note to a better home. I have not had much time lately to write due to much overtime at work.
I think it was you who mentioned the possibility of reunion with old friends. I have had some friends for years and maintained the same character of friendship even though differences may be great. Some, are not affected, others seem to want to make an effort to please God by letting me know how errant I am. I don't take it personally when done in kindness, but it's bitter pill when you visit a place where you preached for twelve years and the preacher (who doesn't know me) uses the Sunday sermon for a public scourging. Sometimes you just have to consider the source.
Life has a way of coming full circle doesnt it?
reido