If you remember from a couple week ago, or if you read my previous post, I am taking a vow of silence this month of August for many reasons. I am writing this post to update where I am with it.
I want to add a goal to that initial list: to subvert the culture of "mindless talk" in the embodiment of my person. Of course, I have tried this before: to subvert the culture of lazy, air-polluting, lung-destroying car-driving, I walked (and later biked). I don't think many caught on, and I'm okay with that. When time comes such that we can't drive our cars from high gas prices or future debt-ceiling apocalypse, or when poor health demands we do something, I'm here to talk about good shoes, safe paths, staying strong, etc. So while subversion is not my only goal, it is a goal, and I will own up to it.
I must also express my disappointment in not being able to take a full vow of silence. I see some inherent flaws in doing this half-heartedly, the reason being mostly that I must keep up with communications with professional contacts as I start working again. And I can't go a whole month without talking to my family or my husband. Also, being able to talk to some but not others allows my extroverted self to be appeased and quite comfortable. It also comforts my introverted self that I can shut out everyone when I want, because I have a decent excuse (though I think simply being introverted should be good enough). Therefore, I still wish to find a time to stay present but totally silent in the future. It might be a week-long project at some point in the future. But the point is not just silence, or not-talking. The point is learning to listen deeply. For this, I think I am learning quite a bit so far.
On the prayer/fasting-from-words front, I have been begging God for some way to bring people together- not in any uniformity of opinion necessarily, but a way for people to see that we are inherently tied together. When one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. The more I pray about it, the more I realize how much we already have that brings us together. It's actually quite amazing that we pretend we can individualize our entire lives and ignore whole groups of people, and in a way, ignore everyone but ourselves for most of our lives. It's all about us. Our society encourages that, yes, but our broken humanity does as well.
I drove through a subdivision yesterday where every house looked alike. The color was the same, the patterns in the brick were the same- I had to look hard for the house numbers (all located in the same place on each house with the same font) in order to know where I was going. I came home and told my husband about this, and we joked how even patriotic Americans act like Communists sometimes. This also comes to mind in our traffic patterns- many people like to take vacations around the same days and times, and we often go to the same places. Yet we so often care not for the common good of those people...who seem to do things pretty much exactly like us. How similar must we be before we consider each other friends or neighbors? Is it coincidence that we develop relationships? Random meeting? Circumstances? How much time does it take getting to know someone before we start caring for their welfare? Does it only take one commercial of sad-looking children in a developing country? Or a commercial of sad-looking kitties? Is it just easier caring for strangers, or for innocent animals (in juxtaposition to guilty humans)? Why do we care so little for each other? It's easy to answer with one little word, but I resist such simplification. I am going through my mind every face I remember seeing in my life, and questioning why things worked out the way they did. If they came to me now in need of help, how would I respond? Thinking of their circumstances (i.e. unemployment, child-birthing/maternity leave, food stamps, tax breaks), I question how my vote makes their lives easier or more difficult. Is there a stronger implication about their care if they are unemployed and facing poverty, over situations of abundance? Does our current definition of poverty in this country, particularly as amount of income in relation to family size, really reflect the reality of poverty or the response we should make? Is education really an asset? I want to say yes, but I know some really well-education musicians and professors with doctorates who make very little money. This will take more investigation- perhaps more communally than individually.
On a personal note: I learned two things about myself so far this month.
1) I am a bit of a gloomy preacher. I already knew this. But I looked over my past sermons and I read their accompanying scripture readings, and I see that the Bible has a lot of gloominess. The Bible really isn't all unicorns and puppies and rainbows (to quote Dr. Anna Carter-Florence). I was a little worried that I was simply pessimistic, but the Bible isn't really all that optimistic or falsely-upbeat. I still think I'm a much better pastor in the face of death than in the face of new life though. I wanna learn to dance in reckless abandon like David before the sight of the Lord, and then I want to teach it to others. Recklessly-dancing Presbyterians? Now that might really be a sign of the end times.
2) I have a love-hate relationship with the church. To be more specific, I really love many, many things the church does, and I hate a few of the decisions that people have made on behalf of the church in the past. I won't list my grievances, other than to note crusades (old and new) against people who don't fit into the local culture of the church [which might have more to do with loving certain cultural aspects- we'll call that "Justin-Bieber-ism," as in, Justin Bieber might have little or nothing to do with God and the church, but if you dare forget or choose not to proclaim your undying love for (enter cultural element here, such as Bieber) in the local congregation, then there is no place for you at all in the church]. So my revelation is that my disdain for the church that comes up occasionally is actually the flip side of my love for it. They are one in the same. They are both part of my deep affirmation that the church is important. What we do as the collective body of Christ has massively important implications for other people and for ourselves. I don't just love the church because it makes me feel good about myself- I love the church because it is a witness to the kingdom of God in this place. It is the hands and feet of Christ in this place. It points to God, who is love. When the church lives out its mission well, it is nothing short of connection-making with the divine and each other. When the church starts axing people and drawing lines in the sand about who's in and who's out, it stops pointing to God and starts pointing to itself (and maybe Justin Bieber). It takes on idolatry, and sometimes even self-idolatry. Yes, I know it's part of this broken life; yes, I know that all of us (myself included) do this often in our own lives. But also yes, as a response to this we should keep our eyes open and remind each other that God is our focus, and what that means. So a love-hate relationship with the church is actually a good sign- it means we still care. It means the church is still important. It means that change is coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment