I've been a "church person" most of my life. From birth to about age 16, then again from about age 23 on towards 35-ish, then again from around 38-55 and again from 59-63 where I find myself today. BUT, how I interact with the institution and the practice HAS evolved and changed. Today my "worship" is service. Its primary form is in a cooking service on Saturday/Sunday in rotation with others, preparing food for a downtown feeding program for the campers and other street dwellers in our downtown core.
Why don't I partake of worship activities? hearing impairment and poor acoustics, a state of mind where silence is currently more useful than liturgical content in encountering the Divine, solitude more meaningful than gathering together, retreat and repose seem like the most fruitful means of pursuit of engagement with matters of spirit and faith. So, gathering together with other parishioners to cook for unnamed, unknown others is my formal, collective form of worship. The other week I delivered the completed food to the pop-up cafeteria downtown and met the receiving public. It was a tough crowd, but a very compelling experience as well; individuals on the bitter edge of society, a short step from utter disaster every day. It's the same crowd that Jesus sought out over 2000 years ago. The two primary commandments; 1) love the Lord your God...2) Love your neighbor as yourself; these are enough for a lifetime of discipline and action. How can you both "be" and "do" within these mandates ("thou shalt...)? Being is about time spent in the present, in the presence of, silent and listening, open to hearing what God, or the universe, as to say to you. Doing is; "doing something, anything, somewhere in service to others"..."when you DO FOR the least of these, you are doing for Me"... These are things that one can observe in the life of those who claim to be Christian, or those who don't, but claim to live intentionally by moral principles without reference to a universal being or truth as motivation or guidance. "By their (?) will you know them...the word is fruits, or works, acts, behavior, treatment of others (all others).
Just finished Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving Stone -- fascinating human, and relevant to your observations for the following reason: Darrow was a complete agnostic, whose works of charity in defense of the poor and moral defense of what he believed was right led many to assume/believe that he must be Christian.
"If your lapel pin has a cross but you talk to people like dogs, then take the pin out and leave it in your pocket, alright?"
AGREED! Those who talk to people like dogs are ANTI-Christians. They DO NOT, and HAVE NEVER, walked their nominally Christian talk. IOW, they are HYPOCRITES, period.
The Book of James in the New Testament is more polite than I am, but basically says the same thing.
JAMES 2:14-18:
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
C.S. Lewis had something to say about arrogant egocentric, uncaring people:
C.S. Lewis wrote, “What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is ‘remains’... To be an ex-man or ‘damned ghost’—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in the self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will” (The Problem of Pain, 113-114). If Lewis is right, then seeing ex-humans with uncontrolled wills will do much to help us understand why they are lost.
“A person you know may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such that you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare” ~ C.S. Lewis
I've been a "church person" most of my life. From birth to about age 16, then again from about age 23 on towards 35-ish, then again from around 38-55 and again from 59-63 where I find myself today. BUT, how I interact with the institution and the practice HAS evolved and changed. Today my "worship" is service. Its primary form is in a cooking service on Saturday/Sunday in rotation with others, preparing food for a downtown feeding program for the campers and other street dwellers in our downtown core.
Why don't I partake of worship activities? hearing impairment and poor acoustics, a state of mind where silence is currently more useful than liturgical content in encountering the Divine, solitude more meaningful than gathering together, retreat and repose seem like the most fruitful means of pursuit of engagement with matters of spirit and faith. So, gathering together with other parishioners to cook for unnamed, unknown others is my formal, collective form of worship. The other week I delivered the completed food to the pop-up cafeteria downtown and met the receiving public. It was a tough crowd, but a very compelling experience as well; individuals on the bitter edge of society, a short step from utter disaster every day. It's the same crowd that Jesus sought out over 2000 years ago. The two primary commandments; 1) love the Lord your God...2) Love your neighbor as yourself; these are enough for a lifetime of discipline and action. How can you both "be" and "do" within these mandates ("thou shalt...)? Being is about time spent in the present, in the presence of, silent and listening, open to hearing what God, or the universe, as to say to you. Doing is; "doing something, anything, somewhere in service to others"..."when you DO FOR the least of these, you are doing for Me"... These are things that one can observe in the life of those who claim to be Christian, or those who don't, but claim to live intentionally by moral principles without reference to a universal being or truth as motivation or guidance. "By their (?) will you know them...the word is fruits, or works, acts, behavior, treatment of others (all others).
Just finished Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving Stone -- fascinating human, and relevant to your observations for the following reason: Darrow was a complete agnostic, whose works of charity in defense of the poor and moral defense of what he believed was right led many to assume/believe that he must be Christian.
I recommend that you also read Darrow's autobiography, Attorney for the Damned.
"If your lapel pin has a cross but you talk to people like dogs, then take the pin out and leave it in your pocket, alright?"
AGREED! Those who talk to people like dogs are ANTI-Christians. They DO NOT, and HAVE NEVER, walked their nominally Christian talk. IOW, they are HYPOCRITES, period.
The Book of James in the New Testament is more polite than I am, but basically says the same thing.
JAMES 2:14-18:
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
C.S. Lewis had something to say about arrogant egocentric, uncaring people:
C.S. Lewis wrote, “What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is ‘remains’... To be an ex-man or ‘damned ghost’—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in the self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will” (The Problem of Pain, 113-114). If Lewis is right, then seeing ex-humans with uncontrolled wills will do much to help us understand why they are lost.
“A person you know may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such that you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare” ~ C.S. Lewis
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