So I'm going to turn a corner, so to speak, and talk about why I regularly attend two church services on Sundays. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm an Episcopalian. I was not always an Episcopalian. The Episcopal Church became my family's church of choice.
THE TALE OF A RELIGIOUS SLUT
I /we, my wife and I, started out as Lutherans and not just any old Lutheran, but members of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - a rather conservative and somewhat evangelical minded type of Lutheran. My wife and I were raised, baptized, confirmed, and married in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Our children were baptized in that church also. Upon leaving the Lutheran Church, we spent a couple of years attending a United Methodist Church, but we never joined. What led us out of the Lutheran Church and into the Methodist Church is the fact that I'm an organist. In the end we decided to join the little Episcopal Church in our community where I wasn't an organist for almost four years. I am now.
Let me just say that being a church musician has its challenges and is, in part, why I left churches and why I returned. I should also say that I had intended in my younger days to enter into the Lutheran ministry, which was not a good fit. I didn't admit to that until after I left the Missouri Synod. Even then I continued to wonder if I had a calling to ordained ministry.
When we joined the Episcopal Church I entertained the idea of entering into Holy Orders with the goal of eventually becoming an ordained priest. To that end I finished my college education at a Roman Catholic Benedictine college with a degree in Religious Studies and Philosophy. In telling a friend of my religious journey, she looked at me and said, "Norm, you know you're nothing but a religious slut." Well... I can't deny that. I've been around the religious block, so to speak, and I have come to embrace the meaning of her colorful expression.
UNORDAINABLE
Through the discernment process for entering holy orders in the Episcopal Church, I figured out that ordination is not something I should pursue. Interestingly, at the end of that process, a whole new field of work opened for me, being an advocate for the rights of the mentally ill which became my ministry and my passion until I retired last year. In many ways that experience deepened my perspective of what it means to be human and has demonstrated time and time again the effectiveness of listening closely to find the person residing in the identified patient or, to broaden that concept, to find the person identified as the problem; people frequently unheard because of a label given to them or because of a perception about them.
To be honest, I probably have more reasons for not attending a church than attending one. I could spend several posts getting into that, but I attend church because of deep sense within me that I am part of something or something is a part of me that is much larger than me, much larger than my beliefs, that I am part of something or something is part of me that I cannot perceive or conceive of, but that perceives and has conceived me and everything I know in the experience called my life.
CULPABLY RESPONSIBLE
I attend church because I have a responsibility to the theistic religion that has given me my sense of being. I have a responsibility as a human being to that sense of being-ness. I also have a sense of culpability in what my religion gets wrong and a responsibility to help it get whatever is wrong with it right. I recognize the inescapable religious nature in being human; that religion is largely what we humans have made it to be, and trying to walk away from something that is innate in us is form of blindness and a willful attempt at being sophisticatedly ignorant.
To say that Christianity frustrates me from time to time, would be an understatement. There are those claiming to be Christian who do not seem to have anything in common with what I feel and sense as a Christian to the extent that it has made me doubt whether I am a Christian. It has made me wish, sometimes, that I never was, but I cannot deny the fact that I am.
In what I thought would be my final exit from the church, from Christianity, and from theism, I wrote the following poem addressed to God, who I felt wasn't there:
* * * * *
A PSALM
You've been my discomfort
And my distress;
Seemingly absent
When I'm a mess.
Are You there?
Are You anywhere?
Are You a phenomenon,
Or were You created just for fun?
Why all the hoops?
Why all the loops?
Are You fair?
Do You care?
And what, exactly, does it do if I believe in You?
Will it give me a hereafter? Is that all?
What about the here? What about the now?
Doesn't it have value? It should somehow.
What's wrong with this life that it can't be fixed?
Why suffering and pain? Why war?
Do they make us love You more?
It's all so ineffective. It just doesn't do the trick.
Norm Wright
September 5, 2011
* * * * *
I'm sharing this poem, a modern day psalm of complaint, because at the time I was really angry To be blunt, I was royally pissed off at the church I attended, at Christianity as a whole, and at God. I wrote it and then forgot that I wrote it only to discover it in the notebook I scribbled it in, last year and in reading it again, it brought back just how angry, upset, and feeling abandoned I was at the time.
CAUGHT RUNNING
But the truth is I wasn't abandoned at all. The truth is I was trying to run away only to be caught. I was angry because I thought history was repeating itself and I felt foolish that I hadn't learned my lesson from the first time I left a church, the Lutheran Church I had spent my whole life in. I was upset because I let people get under my skin again and irritate the heck out of me. I was hurt by what people said and I said some hurtful, but honest things back in letter meant only for my church's vestry, but was published in less then 8 hours after hitting the send button.
"E-mail, thou art a heartless bitch." to paraphrase the character, Sheldon Cooper, on "The Big Bang Theory."
"E-mail, thou art a heartless bitch." to paraphrase the character, Sheldon Cooper, on "The Big Bang Theory."
The truth was while angry with some people, who I wasn't all that concerned about upsetting, I hurt people I didn't intend to hurt. The reality was the particular incident that sent me out the door of a church wasn't like the first time I left a church, where people, even my closest friends, didn't bother to say anything to me or try to convince me to stay. Unlike that experience, this experience was different. The people I probably hurt the most were those who cared most and who wrote me almost instantly upon hearing of my departure. They didn't plead for me to come back, but they expressed their care and, at a deeper, unspoken level, their faith that things would be okay for them and for me and my family. They spoke without judgment or judging anyone. It was vastly different from the previous time we left the church that had been part of our entire lives.
GRACE IS A LADY
Then one day a gracious lady from the church came to our door. She had been drafted to be a replacement for me as an organist one Sunday. She hadn't played organ for some time and didn't want to play, but she didn't speak just for herself, she spoke for others in the congregation. Her gracious words and the fact that she took the time to talk to me and my wife personally touched my heart, and I realized that I was being selfish and ungrateful for what I had to offer in the light of what was being offered me in all the concern and the well wishes of those who called, wrote to me, and undoubtedly prayed for me and my family.
The reason I returned was mostly because I had a responsibility to use what was given to me, music. I'm not all that trained as an organist or a musician. One could say it came naturally, but I wouldn't say that. It came out of love for the music of the church which spoke to me as a small child, a language I acquired and that I speak fluently and fluidly. The music of the church pours out of me when I sit at the organ console or a piano in on-the-spot improvisations. That's not bragging. It's just what happens and is why I play. I don't have to think about it. It's like speaking English. In fact, I guess I could say music is my second language.
I'm not particular fond of the word "gift," as if I'm special in any regard. I think of gift as actually more akin to what motivates me in the service of others. It is in that sense that I feel responsible to be in church to give voice to what motivates me to serve others. In that sense, everyone is gifted; everyone has something that motivates them or ought to motivate them in the service of others as a response to the life they have.
A DEEP RIVER
The poem I wrote also belies the depth of the faith that courses through my being. One can't say the things that I said in that poem without recognizing that it was addressing something, even if I was in denial of or trying to deny what or who I was addressing. In retrospect, I can see where I was trying to push a part of me away.
That I titled it "Psalm" also belies an affinity with the Holy Bible even if one could describe it as a troubled relationship. I recognize in the poem the perennial frustration that is present in being religiously aware, the weariness that comes with caring about something at a deep, personal level.
MEA CULPA?
I can hear the minds of some saying, "So you attend church because you feel guilty. Right?"
No.
I don't feel guilty about what I did or necessarily what I do, unless it involves something I willfully did to hurt someone. My sense of culpability and responsibility in being a Christian does not proceed from guilt. Most of what people feel guilty about is waste of time if they don't do something about it. I don't deny that guilt is a motivator for doing some things, but its is a very poor reason for going to church - and I know some will argue that; as in, "Isn't church about recognizing our sinful nature and need for repentance?" There is that aspect of going to church for some, but it's not the reason I feel responsible to attend. It is not associated with my feeling of culpability in being a Christian.
My sense of culpability in being a Christian is related to my sense of responsibility that comes with being one; in that, if wrongs are done in God and Jesus' name, I have a responsibility to help correct them. Christianity does not have a very good track record, in my opinion, and it seems it's becoming increasingly tarnished by radical Christian-ism (otherwise known as Bible-thumping fundamentalism) which is fomenting hate in the name of God and in Jesus' name.
Most religions don't have good track records because the history of humanity does not have a good track record, but I'm limited in what I can speak to. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Hindu. I'm not an Atheist. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm not Jewish. Each and every other religion has their own track records that their followers ought to address. I'm a Christian, even though some could and would argue that I am not, and some have said I'm not. I do not view Christianity as a gift from God. Rather I see the mess that's been made of it over the centuries as a responsibility I and the whole of Christianity has to put right, as best we can; guided by the sense of God we possess and the teachings of Jesus we proclaim.
WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS?
I can also sense some thinking, "What about God? What about Jesus? Do you get anything out of going to church?"
The simple answer to the last question is yes, but the reality is that for me to talk about what is in it for me personally is complicated and nothing about this blog is about simple answers. I believe religion to be as complex as anything we humans do. That it gets written off by some as fantasy or by others as God's saving grace to humanity is, in both cases, a form of denial of the collective culpability and responsibility for the religions that we humans shaped and have been shaped by over the centuries; the former as a display of sophisticated ignorance and the latter as a display of God-blinded-ness.
As far as God and Jesus go, I have already written extensively on these topics. Since this post is the turning of a page, so to speak, I will be talking about God and Jesus in a different light than I have in the past. I will be using the term God, but advise any reader to review what I've said about God, Jesus, and the Bible in my past posts. I'm not having a change of mind, but rather taking a new approach to what I've said in explaining why I feel religion, as a whole, is important to human existence and the role I feel my religion, Christianity, has in facilitating religious singularity.
Until next time, HAPPY THANKSGIVING and stay faithful.
That I titled it "Psalm" also belies an affinity with the Holy Bible even if one could describe it as a troubled relationship. I recognize in the poem the perennial frustration that is present in being religiously aware, the weariness that comes with caring about something at a deep, personal level.
MEA CULPA?
I can hear the minds of some saying, "So you attend church because you feel guilty. Right?"
No.
I don't feel guilty about what I did or necessarily what I do, unless it involves something I willfully did to hurt someone. My sense of culpability and responsibility in being a Christian does not proceed from guilt. Most of what people feel guilty about is waste of time if they don't do something about it. I don't deny that guilt is a motivator for doing some things, but its is a very poor reason for going to church - and I know some will argue that; as in, "Isn't church about recognizing our sinful nature and need for repentance?" There is that aspect of going to church for some, but it's not the reason I feel responsible to attend. It is not associated with my feeling of culpability in being a Christian.
My sense of culpability in being a Christian is related to my sense of responsibility that comes with being one; in that, if wrongs are done in God and Jesus' name, I have a responsibility to help correct them. Christianity does not have a very good track record, in my opinion, and it seems it's becoming increasingly tarnished by radical Christian-ism (otherwise known as Bible-thumping fundamentalism) which is fomenting hate in the name of God and in Jesus' name.
Most religions don't have good track records because the history of humanity does not have a good track record, but I'm limited in what I can speak to. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Hindu. I'm not an Atheist. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm not Jewish. Each and every other religion has their own track records that their followers ought to address. I'm a Christian, even though some could and would argue that I am not, and some have said I'm not. I do not view Christianity as a gift from God. Rather I see the mess that's been made of it over the centuries as a responsibility I and the whole of Christianity has to put right, as best we can; guided by the sense of God we possess and the teachings of Jesus we proclaim.
WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS?
I can also sense some thinking, "What about God? What about Jesus? Do you get anything out of going to church?"
The simple answer to the last question is yes, but the reality is that for me to talk about what is in it for me personally is complicated and nothing about this blog is about simple answers. I believe religion to be as complex as anything we humans do. That it gets written off by some as fantasy or by others as God's saving grace to humanity is, in both cases, a form of denial of the collective culpability and responsibility for the religions that we humans shaped and have been shaped by over the centuries; the former as a display of sophisticated ignorance and the latter as a display of God-blinded-ness.
As far as God and Jesus go, I have already written extensively on these topics. Since this post is the turning of a page, so to speak, I will be talking about God and Jesus in a different light than I have in the past. I will be using the term God, but advise any reader to review what I've said about God, Jesus, and the Bible in my past posts. I'm not having a change of mind, but rather taking a new approach to what I've said in explaining why I feel religion, as a whole, is important to human existence and the role I feel my religion, Christianity, has in facilitating religious singularity.
Until next time, HAPPY THANKSGIVING and stay faithful.
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