A Cup of Sadness

I went to church last week.

Not really unusual, I know. But since I haven’t attended church for nearly 2 years, it was a big deal for me.

What I found disappointed me, yet it didn’t surprise me.

Having been ‘out of the loop’ for a period of time made me accutely aware of the extent to which the church is really only for the initiated.

There is a different language–it’s cliched and exclusive to those in the know. There were so many assumptions made–assumptions that everyone would know and agree with certain key points of doctrine, assumptions that everyone would have an understanding of what ‘worship’ is, assumptions that everyone is straight, middle class, and Christian.

There is strange music-. At thgis particular service, surprisingly for a Evangelical church, no ‘pop Christian’ songs (a-la-Hillsong) were sung–or at least none I could recognise. The music was dull, uninspiring, repetitive, and, after standing for 25 minutes ‘worshipping,’ my middle-aged feet really couldn’t take a lot more. To make matters even more confusing, the ‘worship’ leader had so much intensity and so little charisma (or joy, for that matter) and her face ached with angst when she prayed.

It really wasn’t a happy place. While we knew a few people and had good interactions before and after the service, those on stage weren’t welcoming. Those in the congregation weren’t joyful. It seemed like everyone was trying a little too hard to impress. The happiest person I saw was a lady who mistook us for someone else (I think she had dementia) and, when she realised this, it didn’t seem to matter at all.

As we climbed into the car for the trip home, my wife and I exchanged disappointments and deflated looks. Tears welled up. How is it that these few hours had turned into a cup of sadness which we both felt we could not bring ourselves to drink? Could it be that we have moved past what once was a taken-for-granted weekly ritual? Are we that far removed that we can’t even entertain the idea of getting back into a Sunday morning religious routine? Has our worldview shifted so far that the thought of subjecting ourselves to an hour-and-a-half of Evangelicalism provokes such intense emotion in us?

I’ve been brought up going to church.

We raised our family in church.

We were actively involved in all aspects of church life and used our gifts to grow and nurture our local church.

We are grateful for the friends we all made and the personal growth we all experienced in that community. (At the same time, it hasn’t escaped our attention how many we have never heard from since we haven’t been frequenting our regular house of worship.)

I’ve also had it drilled into me all my life that going to church isn’t about us but about what we can bring to the community and what we can give to God.

I’m not sure we can give anything to this community and certainly have no inclination nor motivation to invest in a view of God that we find at odds with all we have come to know and experience regarding love and truth and the nature of our amazing universe.

We are not who we were two years ago. It’s beginning to dawn on me that we actually weren’t that far then from where we are now, but we denied it, white-washed it, mislabelled it for the sake of our family, our friends, and our community.

We still value these circles of relationship and long for the friendship and community. But I don’t think, at least for the time being, that we will be finding it again in a church.

Silence

Did you know that the Dalai Lama gets up at 3:30 every morning and meditates for four hours before he starts his day?

No. I didn’t either.

What a waste of time!

Or so I thought.

But then I heard how that, at 83 years of age, his mind is sharp and his memory is crystal clear (he can remember the clothing worn by someone he met  when he met them 20+ years ago–Go on, try to do that!)

Maybe there’s something to starting the day in silence.

While all around us is noise, it seems like quietness is a luxury. Yet, this is something that folks are paying a good price to enjoy. Just a quick serach shows me that I can pay a local complimentary therapy chain $60 for a 45-minute session in a float tank. That’s without the black-out effect of the same thing in a dark, gravity floatation chamber (which can be yours for $80 an hour).

Yes, silence is golden.

There is a reason why these therapists are able to charge this much for these treatments, The reason is that we are an increasingly disquiet people. Noise is the rule these days. Music blares. Cars rumble. Plans zoom above us. Power tools, kitchen appliances, machinery . . . and then there’s the ubiquitous TV in every home–maybe even 2 or 3. Even the ‘peaceful’ noises of bird song, frog croaks, or grasshopper humming can become a cacophony for the growing number of us who have a newly-recognised disease called misophonia, or sound sensitivity disorder.

There are few places in the world we can travel where we can escape the sounds of our planet. In even the quietest of forrests, birds still sing. In the vastest of deserts, the wind can still distratct from the peace.

But we need silence.

We need moments of nothing.

Our minds need time to focus, sharpen their thinking, become more sensitive, develop a higher level of consciousness. We need a reset. 

Silence has a way of doing just that.

If you doubt, have a look at the benefits of silence (click here or here or here).

The Dalai Lama is on to something and it would do us well, Buddhist or not, to learn ourselves the art of being still.

 

Limited Vision

I got up this morning to see my wife off to work. She works in a bakery where she does amazing things with cakes, so the 4am alarm clock is our constant not-so-much-loved companion.

As I was waving goodbye, I noticed something strange happening down the street. It was as if someone had gotten thick grey curtains and was pulling them across the street one house at a time.

A thick fog was rolling in.

Thick, ‘pea soup’ fog that you can’t see through.

It was still there three-and-a-half hours later when I headed out the door, and it was raining as well.

Lights on, wipers going, traffic was slowing down drastically.

Limited vision.

Slowing, confusing, frustrating inability to see beyond a certain point.

Half-blind, stumbling (or, in my case, driving very slowly) through the fog, trying to make out what is ahead but not seeing it until it is nearly upon you.

We’ve all been there.

The truth is we all have limited vision aboiut what is ahead.

How can we see beyond what is right in front of us, today? Perhaps we think we can make out something a few weeks–or months–down the track. But is that because we actually see it, or is it because we hope to see it?

We don’t know what tomorrow brings. As St Paul wrote in the eloquent love chapter (1 Corinthians 13), ‘. . . now we see as in a miror, dimly.’

In the day this was written, mirrors were polished sheets of metal and the reflection they gave was often cloudy–a little like being in fog. What you saw staring back at you was often not much better than a shadow.

My vision is limited.

So how then can I navigate through my life in this fog?

Carefully. Even if I have a GPS, it won’t show me obstructions that are in my way on my travels today. I need to be careful to avoid these impediments if I want to arrive at my destination safely. Chances are that, if I put my foot down and drove at the posted speed limit all the way to work, I would have had an accident. I would most certainly hit another car that I couldn’t see in time to brake.

Confidently. We have a general sense of where we are going and work towards that goal. This is why education is important. This is why looking at the ‘maps’ of those who have travelled this way is essential. This is why I listen to the traffic reports on the radio as I navigate this well-worn route. I have as a great advantage that I know the road to work very well. I can navigate through the fog confidently. However, should I be less familiar with this route, it would do me well to look to those who have gone this way before.

Consciously. I need to focus on what is firectly in front of me now and move with a consciousness that this is the only moment that matters. There is great power in centering myself in the present. Relating this to my life, living in the past won’t help me  just as much as living with an idealised view of the future won’t get me where I need to go.

Today I arrived at work safely. The fog lifted as I drove. By the time I pulled into the car park, only a little drizzle was there to greet me. While it may be foggy again tomorrow, I’ll live now in the truth that I am safe, I am dry, I am wartm, and I am in the place I need to be right now.