Worth writing on our hearts, why church?

Two days ago I reflected on the "We" in the following quote from Stephanie Paulsell, "We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with others, a continual conversion of life, a permanent openness to change." Today, my mind - well actually my heart - is dwelling on "...to study as if we might learn something worth writing on your hearts..." Study often narrows our focus to right information, right ideas, correct side of the ideology spectrum. Study too often is narrowly defined by correcting a deficiency, filling a void, learning to catch up. Study in the church and in community is not to catch up but rather to catch on. Study is to connect information in our minds with our hearts to form us in Christ's life. Study is not a text but a testing of where the goodness of God makes a home in us. As those in church we can and should hold different and diverse ideas in our heads even as we appreciate that those written on our hearts determine who we are.

Why Church?

The following quote answers for me "Why do you go to church?" "We need places to pray as if someone were listening, to study as if we might learn something worth writing on our hearts, to join with others in service as if the world might be transformed. Churches are places to learn to practice, with other, a continual conversion of life, a permanent openness to change." Stephanie Paulsell, from "Soul experiments," Faith Matters in the Christian Century. The message begins with a "We." Why church for me is always about a We - there is just not enough of my own spirituality that can fill all the world with God. I need the We to embrace all of God. And the "We" is gathered in shared prayer that has movement, structure, music, silence, emotion and thought. I need the dynamics of worship to open for me the tiny facets of God. And the the "We" is about listening. If God is listening to all of us, then what "We" share with God is a mere speck of sand in the vast beauty of God's restful short. I need the "We" to feel part of the ecology of God's creation. Tomorrow...something worth writing on our hearts.

Easter Wednesday

The journey through the Psalms is complete. It ended on the plane ride on the return flight from Oklahoma City and the "Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace" Conference. After two whirlwind days of speaking with the church's emerging voice about gun violence, I read/walked through the last 25 psalms to soak in all my recent experiences. I read the Ascent Psalms that the pilgrims sang as they climbed the final hill to the gates of Jerusalem. I stood at my own gates of the City of God when Holy Week began. Martin Smith when he was a brother at the Society of St. John the Evangelist wrote that Lent was trying to drink from a waterfall with a tiny cup. My Lent Journey of the Psalms was my waterfall but God filled the tiny cup I had by guiding me each day to stand on a ledge by a different place of the thundering water. When the torrent of the rushing baptismal river began in Holy Week, at least my feet and clothes were already wet with the spray of God and I was ready. Now it is Easter Wednesday. Time is lay in warmth of the light God created, to feel the freshness of my skin that mirrors the freshness of my soul, to touch the cold rocks of my hardened places of my heart warming to the heat surge of new life around me, and, to listen to the rush of the water knowing that is there to carry me to a new life with God.

In the Fourth Week of Lent, Psalms 99 through 102

Probably because I memorized Psalm 100 in Sunday School, I thought all psalms should be like this one. Reading through the psalms, they certainly are not tilted towards the exuberance found in Psalm 100. Reading to this point in the psalter lead me to wonder, how can so many psalms be devoted to the fear and struggle of life? In Sunday School it is appropriate to learn that all the earth worships that Lord and that 'his steadfast love endures forever.' Most likely it is not until later in life that we learn that all the earth struggles. That lesson may not come to us until it is our own struggle that grabs hold of our feet and we feel we cannot break free no matter how hard we try to run. Reading through the psalms I experienced in a comforting way that wrestling with life and wrestling with God is sanctified in our prayers, our pleas, and our worship.

The power of wrong, Psalms 91-94 today

How many wild-eyed characters have we seen or read spurting forth, "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord." The crazed character has been pushed to the edge of her or his tolerance for what is wrong with the world. The Power of Wrong is about to overwhelm. So, justice is taken into the hand of a man or woman. And, mostly the actions taken are themselves wrong. Psalm 94 speaks of God of vengeance but not a God who picks off the wrong doers to defend the right doer. Vengeance as James L May comments is "a plea for the Lord to vindicate his reign by intervening in the human situation in a time when wrong is rampant. Vengeance is not from the anger of the Lord but from the One who is the ruler of all creation to bring about the balance of justice. It does not mean the wrong does are wiped out, that is the human solution. Vengeance is God reasserting what is right. How do we rather than destroy what is wrong bring out that which is the love of God for all?

Catching UP, Psalms 76 to 80 today

Its inevitable that disciplines clash. At least its inevitable for me. Each day is a set of competing priorities around which I allocate my time and my heart. Lately the allocation has been in time for others. Today, my heart and my mind need that time. So I am catching up. Its similar to catching up with a trusted friend. Its time to reconnect, recenter, have coffee with someone who really understands you and will ask the discerning questions. So today after five days of putting off my psalm journey, time is set aside to center in again. As long as we know we are on a journey, even when we wander from the path, we can always rejoin the purposeful movement toward the destination we have set.

Two in One.

Today is two in one. Two sets of psalm readings in one day. Thursday's four psalms were 52 through 55. Today, Friday, the psalms are 56 through 59. As I read all eight psalms this morning, I was sitting the the waiting room of my mechanics shop. As the oil in my car was being changed, I read psalms with the background music of a rock radio station. Plaintive words are plaintive words regardless if the beat is a deep bass or the chant of the congregation. I wondered, did those worshiping with a new psalm text experience the song in the same way we experience a new rock tune. Was a new psalm of 2000 BC as edgy and enticing as a rising rock hit today? Was a new psalm as suspect as a new hymn today? Did the congregation of the Jerusalem temple cry out, "What happened to our favorite psalms?" just as congregations cry out today, "What happened to our favorite hymns?" That which we venerate through the ties to our ancestors of faith was new at some point. That which is new today will be venerated in the future. Can we find ways to live faith as both old and new? Two in One.