David;
I hope that you are right. I hope that I am not the only one waiting to find an easy love for God.
It feels to me, when I sit in church, as if I am all by myself, as if I am the only person who is baffled and stymied by God. I watch everyone else sing the songs, but I cannot sing along: there are so few songs that resonate. (I am not claiming that worship songs fall short because they are all stupid and kitschy, though some are. Sometimes the true sentiments of a good song fail to take root because the words fall like seeds on a rocky pathway.)
I hear someone sing, “Your love is all that gets me through, all I need on this earth is you.” Suddenly, I am desperate and tired. I hear those words, this sentiment of confident love, and I want to sit down with my head in my hands. Sometimes, after my despair, I lift my head with a new determination, ready to pursue God with the force of my whole will. Sometimes I want to abandon even the pretense of halfhearted pursuit, and never sing any of these songs, or see any of the people ever again for the rest of my life. Sometimes, I feel encouraged and comforted, and am convinced that this is a good place for me, and I know what peace feels like. Sometimes, I want to laugh at the absurdity of it all. I am not sure what the appropriate response is.
As I look at the people around me, singing the songs, their eyes closed, their hands raised, I don’t see any confusion. Our church services avoid drawing attention to confusion, or failings; we scarcely even acknowledge them; I am not sure why this is. I like the penitential songs, the songs that are admissions of our weaknesses and of our foolish allegiances. I like admitting “I have not loved you with my whole heart, I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry, and I humbly repent.”
I hate the songs that are confident, the “I will not be shaken” songs. It is one thing to claim that “when the nations crumble, the word of the Lord will stand”; it is an entirely different thing to claim that “I will not be shaken, I will not be moved.” You know what? I am going to be shaken; I am prone to wander. If my salvation is vouchsafed by my ability to hold onto Christ, I am lost. I am not making a theological point, I am just telling you about the reality of my life. I am too lazy, too rotten, too stubborn, too skeptical… If it is up to me, I am not going to make it.
When I sit in the church and we sing our songs, I am often confused and often angry. I don’t understand what we are singing about. I wonder, David, if everyone else feels the same way I do, or if they are genuinely moved, genuinely responding to a sentiment that makes no sense to me. In my last post, I wished that I were one of the people who love God easily, with confidence, without remorse. There must be such people out there, else who is writing our worship choruses? I wanted to say two things: I don’t feel that way, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand – God doesn’t promise understanding, he promises peace that passes understanding. I face a choice, on every Sunday. I can choose to know, or I can choose to trust. Trust isn’t easy, but, for me at least, knowledge isn’t nearly enough.
3 comments:
I hear you. Unfortunately, I think it's difficult to make a church service meaningfully address the problems and struggles we face in our daily life. Church is a bunch of people doing the same thing or listening to the same thing and not really interacting with each other except in the most superficial way. I think the people who run church understand this and try to focus the service on something that it can do well, which is be peppy and invigorating. Probably if we tried to make a church service with a hundred people a time of openness and vulnerablility it would feel neither encouraging nor genuine. I think the kind of spiritual honesty many of us desire is really only practical in a small group like a bible study or one-on-one. As for church, sometimes I keep my mouth shut and just stand there, and other times I go with it, even though I know the songs aren't true for me. Also I don't think it's wrong to sing things that aren't true about me as a prayer. I suspect a lot of people do this.
But maybe that's not true at all. (What I said about how Church can't be genuine.) I don't know. I've been thinking about it and I keep changing my mind.
The Secret of the Easy Yoke
I could hear the church bells ringing
they pealed aloud your praise
the members faces were smiling
with their hands outstretched to shake
it's trud it did not move me
my heart was hard and tired
their perfect fire annoyed me
i could not find you anywhere
the devoted were wearing bracelets
to remind the why they came
some concrete motivation
where the abstract could not do the same
but if all thats left is duty
im falling on my sword
and least then i would not serve
an unseen distant lord
could someone please tell me the story
of sinners ransomed from the fall
i still have never seen you
and some days i don't love you at all
if this is only a test
i hope that im passing
cause im losing steam
and i still want to trust you
peace be still.
-pedro the lion.
Post a Comment