Transitioning Sunday (It's a long one---sorry)

Things are changing for me. For us. For our family.

Things I am allowing myself to not fight, but to be carried along by, even though I don't entirely see the whole picture of where it's taking me.

I don't usually write things of a religious nature here on the blog just because I know how personal and potentially divisive musings on spiritual matters can become. In my case, not only to the people that don't share my particular beliefs, but sometimes even with people who would think they do. Sometimes with those people most dramatically. But it is a great part of who I am, arguably it is who I am, and recently it has guided me around a corner.

For one thing, we've changed churches. The church we've attended for the last 10 years, since we came back to our little hometown America, was a pentecostal church. When I was in High School and met this girl who would one day become my wife, and we found that faith was a very important part of our lives and something we shared (in addition to a passion for the theater and an mutual interest in movies like Star Wars).

As our friendship became stronger and stronger, we and a group of our friends pulled away from our parent's church to take up with this pentecostal group. My folks called it the "funny church".

When our journey through higher education brought us back, now husband and wife with kids, we slipped back in with this same congregation. I've never really been 100 percent on board with any church I've been a part of, on the theology side. My real attraction has always been the people, and I don't like to let the little things get in the way of relationship.

I changed churches not because we were angry or compelled or anything like that. The changing came because I felt I was being guided to do so. I don't particularly see myself as a person who is prone to signs and wonders and messages in the sky. I tend to find all that a little suspect most of the time. Feeling like perhaps it can and does sometimes occur, but how do you tell the real from the imagined, or the servant from the showboat? I'm not sure where the feeling rose from, or how I became so certain of it, but I was sure---so we said our good-byes and thank yous, and stepped away.

What the stepping was not was from faith or belief. And we have found ourselves now at a new place on Sunday mornings. We're getting together with Presbyterians, of all things. I grew up in a church with robes and hymnals and wooden pews and never pictured myself back in a setting like this. But they have a special service earlier in the morning, before the pipe organ plays at 10:30. And it's a bit more unconventional. More casual. It'd have to be, wouldn't it.

For example, there is breakfast served every Sunday, so you get to sit down across from people you may not know and eat a bite. I've met someone new every Sunday for weeks. Some are my kids teachers, some are teachers I had back in school. Some are people I went to school with. Some have been the parents of the friends of my kids---so they already know my family before we've met (and so far, that's always been a good thing---whew). And we can continue to eat even after the five piece folk/rock band begins to play and every one starts to sing. And with donuts waiting, we have not had an argument from the kids about going since we started.

It's growing on me, but I proceed cautiously. People have expectations, and I can tend to unwittingly defy those a bit. My faith life is informed by things like the book "Velvet Elvis", the podcast "Wired Jesus", and the NPR radio show "Speaking of Faith". My spiritual pursuit tends to look for something more philosophical and mystically based, but in a community committed to real relationship. I'm not much for high church that has a top down drive for control and conformity. Show me pursuit of truth based in wisdom and gentle trust. Let God do the rest.

Perhaps it's foolish. But it most reflects God's model to me. As Jefferson said, "your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven." I have to trust that I can't come up with a better model than God.

I've written a lot in a book I keep to capture thoughts. I believe that this is the distillation of the Biblical principles I try to live by:

As much as it is possible, be at peace with all men. (romans 12) (hebrews 12)

Love your Neighbor [as you] . . . (mat 22) (romans 13) (gal 5) (james 2)

Love Yourself (mat 22b) (romans 13) (gal 5) (james 2)

Think of others as more important than yourself (phil 2:3)

Be Patient (1 cor 13)

Be Kind (1 cor 13)

Do not boast (1 cor 13) Be Gracious

Do not be proud (1 cor 13) Be Humble

Do not be Rude (1 cor 13) Be polite

Do not be Self Seeking (1 cor 13)

Do not be easily Angered (1 cor 13)

Keep No Records of Wrongs (1 cor 13) Forgive --which means to not wish others harm when you have been harmed. It has been said that unforgivness is the poison you take hoping some else will die.

Do not rejoice in evil (1 cor 13) Do not take pleasure to see harm come to others but seek to give them relief.

Rejoice in truth (1 cor 13)

Protect (1 cor 13)

Trust (1 cor 13)

Hope (1 cor 13)

Persevere (1 cor 13) Do not let personal difficulty deter you from keeping constant in the above.

Nine qualities of strength :

love (Gal 5:22)

joy (Gal 5:22)

peace (Gal 5:22)

patience (Gal 5:22)

kindness (Gal 5:22)

goodness (Gal 5:22)

faithfulness (Gal 5:22)

gentleness (Gal 5:23)

self-control (Gal 5:23)

Never perfect on any of these, but this is what I strive for.

A few months ago, on one of the Sunday's after I left our home church I woke up early on a Sunday morning with no where to go. So as the family slept, I got up and typed. This is what I wrote:

"This morning, as I lay in bed on a Sunday, much later that has been usual, I thought of how my internet friend Kate often writes about the guiding Yes. That spiritual flow that guides us on the path to what lies next in our ever ongoing awakening.

I lay there thinking how, to me, this new part of my journey is my very concrete attempt follow in this Ultimate Yes. But in my case the Yes has a face, and hands that bleed.

It's not a particular church. Not a particular denomination. Not a creed or race or nation. Something above all this and through all this.

I closed my eyes.

I picture Him waiting for the continuous Yes that will let us join back in with the universe. Not like it might look on a calendar or coffee mug at a Christian book store. I see Him as the resonance that holds every thing together and keeps it all good.

He is the Yes that said to Moses that I Am, and you can't look at me all at once because it's too much Yes at once, So I'll whisper it to you in the rocks and the trees (who will praise me if you don't), and the smiles and faces of children (whom you must become like to enter the awesome everything after), and in the love and kindness that people show to others.

He is the Yes that knew that the Yes was so important that He didn't want to just shout from a mountain top, but put on an earth suit to come down and touch our faces and let us love Him. And then let us vent our most destructive bile on him. Drawing it out of us like medicine drawing out poison and taking it into His own body so that he could create a space in us for Him to fill with Yes again.

He let us claw at his earth suit, ripping it and rending it until we drop from exhaustion to show that His Ultimate Yes is far stronger than an limitless army of No.

And when it was done, He came to us and held us and said, "Hey, that was unpleasant, wasn't it. But now it's over. And I'm still here. And so are you. That says something, doesn't it?"

Yes. To me it says Yes.

The Ultimate Yes.

So how could I say no?"