So, today I decided to paint this Giant peg-board wall I have in my dorm room. It was a solid dark brown, which was nice to break up the monotony of white walls...but a bit boring itself. So, I drove to my house to get my paints. Then I bravely climbed up into our dark, scary, "grudge"-like attic to find my paints. After I drove back to campus and spent a good twenty minutes trying to find a parking space SOMEWHERE in the remotely close-to-my-dorm parking lots. After finding no spaces there, I progressively searched farther and farther away. I finally found one of the very farthest lot- on the literal edge of the MC campus. While walking for miles and miles (not literally) I asked some people what was going on to cause so many cars to be there. Apparently there was a state-wide basketball tournament going on (as well as other events on campus). Ahhh....that explains it. (Methinks MC really needs 'Student ONLY' parking...)
After arriving at my dorm, I put on old Pjs pants, opened my windows (to avoid getting high off paint fumes), turned on some randomized music on my laptop, moved my couch and started painting.
I was very pleased with what I painted! It ended up taking the shape of a large blue/green flower with orange bits, a red center and multi-shade green leaves. Its kind of what they call pop art. Then I scrawled LOVE in messy painty letters off to the side. (Kind of cliche, but love is so important and a beautiful concept.)
As I was cleaning up, and as my room mate walked in the door, an embarrassing Backstreet Boys song just happened to start playing. Of course she recognized it, laughed at me and then told me that she knew it. It now has been stuck in my head all day.
So, that was my big project/adventure of the day. I am well pleased with my work.
Then, to top off my wonderful day, I got to go and hang out with some friends at our bi-weekly worship night! I gotta say, that's one of the highlights of my week. Worship is something so near and precious to my heart and that, combined with my fantastilicious (haha ;D ) friends, is such a delight and encouragement.
So, pretty much, today was excellante.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
This Cheezit is my body, broken for you...
A few points I've been pondering (to use a fun word.):
We Christians today tend to over simplify and cheapen so many things. What do I mean? Let me explain.
One example of us simplifying the beauty and poetic mystery of humans interacting with God is how we view Bible stories. These stories, given to us as a guide to a life-long journey with our creator, get simplified and condensed into a few points rather than explored and applied to our own lives. We see the story characters as characters and not real, living, human beings. And by real, I don't mean that they did happen or that they are true. By real, I mean that the characters in the stories were people. They had emotions, thoughts, they ate food, had dislikes and likes, slept at night and loved their families. When someone has grown up hearing these stories they can become just that : stories. We forget how real these people were. Like, if a young girl from a well respected family came up to you and claimed that she was pregnant, but it wasn't because of her sleeping with a man, you may think, "Yeah right, this girl is terrible at making up excuses." Her parents might be ashamed of her, her friends might avoid her and whisper behind her back, she may want to go hide away in her room and not be stared at every time she goes into town. As I have been reading my Bible the last few days, I have tried to look at the people in the stories as real, living, sinful and searching for truth people. It really puts a new spin on things!
Another thing I have been thinking about is how we as the church simplify and ritualize many of our core practices. One example is communion; we stand in a line (or sit in our seats), waiting our turn to pick up the sacred little cracker that is Christ's body and take the funky shaped plastic cup filled with grape juice that represents his blood. We pray, holding the cracker and juice, and then slowly one by one consume them. We may recite a few Bible verses about Christ's blood and body, etc. This is the typical communion. We regard the crackers and juice as elevated and holy somehow. People would be greatly offended and scandalized if you suggested having communion with something else; like Cheezits and Rootbeer. Why would this be wrong though? All the food and drink are are symbols. They remind us of Christ's great, life giving sacrifice on the cross so we could have life with him. I'll bet that if Jesus looked in the cabinet of the house downstairs and found Cheezits and Rootbeer instead of bread and wine, the Last Supper story would look a lot different. I mean, the disciples took communion as a meal for crying out loud! They probably were sitting in someones house, ripping off hunks of bread and drinking their fill, all the while talking about Jesus, reminding each other that he was the Messiah, he would come again and that he was their Savior and King.
There are many more examples of this I can think of, but I think that may have to wait for another time. I remind myself to look at the gospel as a mysterious, beautiful poem that speaks to the heart rather than the mind and has to be explored and breathed in to fully appreciate it. If we compartmentalize scripture, simplify everything and make it fit into our religious checklist, we are missing the true meaning and life-giving power of God's love letter to Mankind.
We Christians today tend to over simplify and cheapen so many things. What do I mean? Let me explain.
One example of us simplifying the beauty and poetic mystery of humans interacting with God is how we view Bible stories. These stories, given to us as a guide to a life-long journey with our creator, get simplified and condensed into a few points rather than explored and applied to our own lives. We see the story characters as characters and not real, living, human beings. And by real, I don't mean that they did happen or that they are true. By real, I mean that the characters in the stories were people. They had emotions, thoughts, they ate food, had dislikes and likes, slept at night and loved their families. When someone has grown up hearing these stories they can become just that : stories. We forget how real these people were. Like, if a young girl from a well respected family came up to you and claimed that she was pregnant, but it wasn't because of her sleeping with a man, you may think, "Yeah right, this girl is terrible at making up excuses." Her parents might be ashamed of her, her friends might avoid her and whisper behind her back, she may want to go hide away in her room and not be stared at every time she goes into town. As I have been reading my Bible the last few days, I have tried to look at the people in the stories as real, living, sinful and searching for truth people. It really puts a new spin on things!
Another thing I have been thinking about is how we as the church simplify and ritualize many of our core practices. One example is communion; we stand in a line (or sit in our seats), waiting our turn to pick up the sacred little cracker that is Christ's body and take the funky shaped plastic cup filled with grape juice that represents his blood. We pray, holding the cracker and juice, and then slowly one by one consume them. We may recite a few Bible verses about Christ's blood and body, etc. This is the typical communion. We regard the crackers and juice as elevated and holy somehow. People would be greatly offended and scandalized if you suggested having communion with something else; like Cheezits and Rootbeer. Why would this be wrong though? All the food and drink are are symbols. They remind us of Christ's great, life giving sacrifice on the cross so we could have life with him. I'll bet that if Jesus looked in the cabinet of the house downstairs and found Cheezits and Rootbeer instead of bread and wine, the Last Supper story would look a lot different. I mean, the disciples took communion as a meal for crying out loud! They probably were sitting in someones house, ripping off hunks of bread and drinking their fill, all the while talking about Jesus, reminding each other that he was the Messiah, he would come again and that he was their Savior and King.
There are many more examples of this I can think of, but I think that may have to wait for another time. I remind myself to look at the gospel as a mysterious, beautiful poem that speaks to the heart rather than the mind and has to be explored and breathed in to fully appreciate it. If we compartmentalize scripture, simplify everything and make it fit into our religious checklist, we are missing the true meaning and life-giving power of God's love letter to Mankind.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)