This year we have invited prof. Ian Hutchinson of MIT to speak to the question, “how might science and faith work together to to bring greater knowledge?” many more details to come. for now, a short youtube clip
Give this a listen/read. How relevant to the church culture. Can we lose the lectures please?
Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool : NPR | LinkedIn.
Feb 4, Fusion is hosting and inviting the International Student community from UNH to join us to ski, board, tube, and connect. It’s looking like it will be Gunstock Mt. ~ $40/person depending on what we get for transportation. More info soon
LOTR marathon Jan. 14, 10am to 11pm at the Bessette’s. Bring food inspired by the LOTRs if you can…
On Saturday December 24′th at 6pm, we will gather at the Lighthouse for a Christmas Eve Candle Light Service. We will not have a community worship gathering on Sunday the 25′th.
During our regular community worship time on the 11th at the Lighthouse we will have a good ol’ family sit down meal. A sign-up for food and decorating is available at http://www.doodle.com/6gr5bm6ywdtrrt4v
We will also have activities and a yankee gift swap after the meal. Be creative, feel free to wrap up something old or something new, the new should be under $5.
Ok, so from late Oct. through Nov. we spent 5 weeks during our community worship times looking at a book in the Bible that details the prophetic work of a guy named Amos. Considering the rise of the Occupy movement around America this fall (2011), it was interesting to see the connections between the complaints being brought up now and those of injustice brought by a small town shepherd to the King and the city of the King in Israel sometime around c750bc.
The first week, we brought in a couple of hay bails and read the book of Amos out loud. After, we took notes on some of the questions and emotions the book brought up. Go ahead, give it a read…
The second week we spent some time trying to understand what was going on in c.750bc. Where Amos was from and who on earth he was talking about. (unfortunately we didn’t record this conversation and there were a lot of notes, so I will include only a short summary statement below. Along with the book overview, we made the important observation that when Amos was talking about judgement on other nations, his audience was Israel, not the other nations and that the brilliant twist of the book or series of speeches is how he moves from observations of injustice against other nations to includes Judah and finally Israel in the inditement on injustice. Essentially, a you may want God to deal with other people, but injustice is injustice and if God’s going to deal with it, it’s not going to a happy day for you either… Sounds a lot like, Jesus, telling a crowd to focus on the log in their own eye…
The Third week, considering the language of Amos that appears to include God sending fire, killing by the sword and other destructive punishments, we talked around the question, “Does God do Evil?” You can listen in on the conversation:
The fourth week of Amos our conversation centered around inequality and the unjust treatment of those who have less resources, influence, and opportunity. Part of this discussion surrounded thoughts on a clip from Richard Wilkinsons, TED talk on How Economic Inequality Harms Societies, which is available at http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
You can Listen to our community conversation from wk 4:
And finally, in week 5, which btw was the first week of Advent, based around the fascinating description of hope and restoration given in the final verses of Amos, we asked, ”What is it that Christians are basing there faith in, what are we hoping for, and what does this have to do with heaven anyway?”
Here’s that conversation:
Lastly, if you were looking for the overview mentioned in the week 2 summary, here it is:
In the light of the political changes that took place at the beginning of the eighth century (Assyrian expansion and the capture of Damascus), Israel was able to widen its economic interests and restore its hegemony over a greater area of the Transjordan. In addition, both Israel and Judah were ruled during the first half of the century by strong kings (Jeroboam II and Uzziah respectively) with long reigns. This made it easier to establish a comprehensive economic policy that concentrated on the mass production of export items such as grain, olive oil and wine. Large areas of the Shephelah and the lowland valleys had already been given over to wheat production (2 Chron 26:10). Now, in the eighth century, the elite were able to impose this economic policy on the small hill country farms and villages. As a result, previous agricultural strategies that attempted to distribute potential risks between herding and farming were overturned, and the land was given over to specific cash crops. The smaller holdings of the peasant farmers, overburdened with debts, were enclosed into large estates. This very efficient use of the land, however, eliminated the mixed crops that had formerly been grown in the village culture and more quickly exhausted the soil. Leaving fields fallow and grazing animals on harvested fields would have been eliminated or rigidly controlled. Under this new policy, an attempt was made to increase exports to the extent that there was a real hunger problem for the peasant class, while the nobility and merchant-class were able to indulge in the luxury goods supplied by their Phoenician trading partners. Thus in addition to facing rising prices at home on basic goods, such as wheat and barley, the impoverished peasant farmers now found themselves forced into debt servitude or day labor. Seeing them ground under the heel of exploiting employers and cheated by greedy merchants who sold them adulterated or inferior grain for their meals, it is no wonder that Amos harangued the rich for their lack of concern for the poor. In such an atmosphere of social injustice, agricultural specialization and economic speculation, the prophet reminds the Israelites of their covenant obligations.
Re-Posted with permission
CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE: AN INTRODUCTION
The following post is the first in a series of reflections as I read and work through the book “Celebration of Discipline” in an effort to dig deeply into the Spiritual Life. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or links that you’d want to share, please comment and do so! And if you want to link and share these posts with someone, feel free! Follow along as I go through this, because as anyone who has lived deeply knows, there is no way we do this “life” thing without community.
Introduction To My Discipleship:
First, HELLO! and welcome to one of my many blogs. This one is one I occasionally use to thought-dump about God. If you’re interested in my others, let me know. But why this? What’s going on?
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Bryan Bessette, the pastor of Fusion Community Church in Durham (also part of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries) to figure out a course of spiritual discipleship over the next year. There are plenty of reasons for it… and everyone loves lists! So, why I am doing this “discipleship” thing:
After meeting with Bryan a number of times, and talking with Ben Sturgill, the IV staff worker at UNH, and having my plans of being at UNH fall thru, it was time to choose someone to be the man who could help guide me in this process, leading me deeper into understanding and experiencing my faith, and who could challenge me in my thoughts and hold me accountable. Bryan became the natural and actually “easy” choice. Easy because we had already fallen into a pattern of meeting for coffee. Natural because in Bryan I see a man whose curiosity and questions and over-analysis match or exceed mine.
Bryan’s posture is one I want to emulate: Every time I talk to him, I get the sincere feeling that this conversation could change his beliefs.
That’s not to say that he is fickle in his faith or beliefs, but rather that he is truly open to seeing the world from a different perspective, of evaluating that perspective, and of rationally discerning which perspective is the most “true”. Bryan is a Truth seeker. This is what I have always aimed and determined to be.
The Course of Study:
After determining that Bryan was going to be the main guy I go to for discipleship, we had to figure out a course of action. What was it that I needed to work on? We agreed to meet up the following week with a list of 3 things we both thought I needed focus on.
Thankfully, our lists were almost exactly the same:
Quick note on all of those.
Breadth of Scripture- Though I was raised Roman Catholic, and have professed belief in Christ and in the Bible as the Word of God, and though I am very skeptical etc., I have never actually read the Bible front to back. I’ve “tried”, but reading solo is not easy, especially when I don’t have that excited feeling that I see so many others get when it comes to reading the Bible. I’ll reflect on this more in another post. Regardless, I wanted someone to lay out for me a course of study, and to hold me to it. This was/is the perfect opportunity.
Spiritual Discipline- This is the most personal of all of the focuses, and going to be THE subject of my blog posts in this blog. I cannot stress how beautiful and important I believe the spiritual disciplines to be. I have met many Christians and non-Christians with varying degrees of self-discipline and ability to focus. The one thing I’ve noticed is that those who seem to be the most Holy, or God-loving, are those who practice these disciplines either consciously or unknowingly. Truly inspirational, and truly where I want to be. I’ll reflect on this in the next post when I talk about the introduction to the book.
Service- Anyone that knows me in my daily life understands that I am a big talker about Community Service and Volunteerism. I love the idea, I live to serve, and I… frankly don’t do nearly enough service. This one is straight forward: I need to stop talking and start doing. Thus, I’ve asked Bryan to help guide me in this, to discovering what service means, to figure out the different aspects of it, both large (think “mission trip to Africa”) and small (think “picking up a candy wrapper on the way to class”).
Keep your eye on the prize!
So where does all of this leave us/me/you/God/them/insert-pronoun.
Well, you’re sitting (probably) at a computer somewhere and reading this. If you’ve gotten this far, it means that either you really don’t want to do what you “need” to get done, or that something in all of this intrigues and interests you. Good for both. I applaud and am a fan of procrastinating. Not unhealthily, but here’s my point: procrastination is sometimes our minds way of saying “woah, slow down, pump the breaks and figure outwhy you’re doing any of this in the first place… and then Go.”
If you’re the procastinater, figure out what you’re putting off, then figure out why you need to do that, then figure out why it is you’re not doing it. Sure it’s not the same advice as my dad would give “Just get it done!”. But in many ways I am not my father. Eventually, you have to “do it”, but only if you truly desire and believe the end-goal is most worth it.
Which is why I did so horribly in college, because for the most part I did not and do not desire to live the American Dream. I did not and do not desire to get a degree to earn a lot of money to take care of my family and myself and live comfortably and “happily”. That’s far too shallow and our world, our God, and our possibilities have so much more to say about living life!
And for me, I have to start on a very personal level in order to understand how to make God’s vision of Heaven a reality here on Earth. I am going to be involved in “Kingdom Work” in some way, but how can I do that if I haven’t begun to let God do His work within me?
Thus, I’ll be reading the books “The Drama of Scripture” and “The Story” for the next few months to get a deeper appreciation of the wider story of the Bible. Of course that will bring up questions and deeper closer scrutiny, but that’s the point.
I’ll be doing regular service, hopefully weekly, and reflecting up on that service on the blog at CatFroPrinting.comAnd lastly, what you’ll read here, I will be digging deeper into the Traditional Spiritual Disciplines in “Celebration of Discipline“.Hopefully you’ll join me on this journey, in some way. One of my prayers, when I am at my most connected to God (not every day, sadly) is that all of my actions will point to Him and glorify Him in some way. This is the same of my writings. If that you get anything out of these posts, please let me know, but more importantly, share. If you get riled up or have questions, feel free to ask and discuss. If you’re in the area, we can get coffee etc.
Anywho, enjoy life, get back to whatever you’re taking a break from, and God’s peace be on you and your soul.
Yours in Love,
~Sean Edward Seamus Matthews
Original blog posted at blogger Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God: Celebration of Discipline: An introduction.
My religious journey started when I was 2. My faith now is 20 years in the making. If that isn’t slow, I don’t know what is. I was baptized on October 28, 1990. I was always told that I was baptized Protestant. That was all I knew, I was a Protestant…I didn’t know what a Protestant was, or even a baptism, but that didn’t matter! I remember talking about it with my mother when I was 4ish and living in Alaska. I was playing with the money jug and I found one of my father’s old crosses and I didn’t know what it was. So, I asked my mom. I’m pretty sure she explained that it was my fathers and it was a symbol of faith. That was what I knew. At some point between then and 6 I learned that Hell was a bad word that we couldn’t say, and I was baptized Protestant. I was told that when you are baptized you get water splashed onto your forehead. I was under the impression that as a baby I was dunked under water and came back up. Boy was I happy that I couldn’t remember that particular experience!
Fast forward a few years, I am now in 3rd grade, living in Wisconsin. I still know that I am baptized Protestant, and that is a sub category of Christianity. I also knew that you were either Catholic or Protestant. I finally learn that Hell is not really a bad word if you refer to the place but it is in every other connotation, and I also know that Jesus Christ is a swear word. I am not allowed to say Jesus Christ, only my parents can when they are mad. It comes out as either Jesus Christ! Or Jesus Beeping Christ. Don’t repeat that! I also know that I have a friend named Emma who conveniently gets to skip school every time we have an assembly for Christmas, Easter, or any other religious festivity. Come to find out, Emma was a Jehovah’s Witness. I was so surprised that she didn’t even celebrate her birthday! She got no presents! I talked to my mom about it and all my mom could tell me was that they didn’t celebrate any holiday. Also, whenever we saw her and her mom come up our driveway, we would shut off all of the lights and hide in the kitchen. They were there to spread the word and we did not want to hear it!
We are now going to skip a few more years and go to July, 2002. My great grandfather died after a long battle with lung cancer. I was 13 years old. This was the first time that someone I was close to had died. This was also the first time that I stepped into a church. By this time, I believed in God and I believed in Heaven. I knew that my great grandfather was in Heaven with God. The church was absolutely beautiful and the service, while long, was beautiful as well. My grandfather had a Catholic funeral so there was a lot of kneeling and standing and sitting as well as a lot of singing.
By this time, my views on Christianity were more defined. I knew that Christians believed that a guy named Jesus Christ (which isn’t actually a swear word!) died on a cross and then was brought back to life and because of this we have Christianity. I also knew that there are many different religions out there and I could even name a few, although I was still under the impression that if you were Christian, you were either Catholic or Protestant. I also knew that by this time that Catholics were “Bible thumpers” who went to church quite a bit and if anyone who had a Bible in hand looked like they wanted to talk to you, run away! I wasn’t surrounded by anyone who outwardly showed their religion, but somewhere along the way, I gained the preconceived notion that Christians were just trying to shove their ideas down my throat. I still didn’t understand what the values of Christians were all about. Also, around this time my paternal grandmother, a devout Catholic, came to visit us for a few weeks and she insisted on going to church. So, I decided to go with her and my father to a Catholic church. I don’t remember much of the sermon, just that after almost everything the priest said it would be followed by something that the audience would say, and again, that there was a lot of kneeling and standing and sitting. The one thing that stands out in my memory though was near the end of the sermon, it was time to take part of the Eucharist. I didn’t really know what was going on but my grandmother looked at me and my father and said “you haven’t been consecrated so you can’t take part of the Communion.” What? Why does that make sense, God loves everyone, we are all his children, and yet we cannot partake in a worship practice because we haven’t been consecrated, whatever that is?” It didn’t make sense to me. In that moment, I felt as if I was an outsider. That I didn’t belong there, that I wasn’t wanted. As I watched everyone else get up and do whatever it was that their member’s only club was doing, it felt as though everyone else was judging us, saying, why are those non believers here, don’t they know that only Catholics are welcome here? It was quite a bad feeling!
Then, high school hits. And with high school comes all of the teenage drama and angst. My sister, who is 4 years older than me, graduated high school the same year that I graduated 8th grade. My sister was the epitome of teenage drama and angst and she let the world know that she wasn’t happy. But she left the summer that I was going into high school and with it, she left my mom and dad depressed. A year later, in the summer before my sophomore year in high school, my mom decided that she needed to not be depressed anymore and in order for that to happen, we should go to church. So we did. We got dressed up in our Sunday best and we went to church, we went to a Community Church as my father was not a fan of the Catholic Church. Again, there was a lot of sitting and standing and singing. Also, this was about the time that the Passion of the Christ was in theaters and we went to see it, so I finally understood more about who Jesus was. But even if I understood who he was, I still could not accept his role in religion. How could someone die and come back to life? Why would God sacrifice his Son for everyone else? And aren’t we all God’s children, so what made Jesus so special? We go to church for 4 or 5 weeks and my parents seem really into it. They started talking about being baptized again and being initiated into the church and all. Then we go on a cruise and miss a week, and well, we never went back to church.
Also, in high school we learned about the origins of different holidays and what not and we learned that Easter, the supposed resurrection of Christ, actually got its start as a festival for a Pagan Goddess Esther, the Goddess of Grain. I guess they used to pray to this Goddess at this time before they planted their crops. Then, I learned about the role that the Catholic Church played within history and that they used to sell tickets to get into Heaven. Then, there were also the mass trials of child abusers and molesters within the church as well. All of these things just did not sit well with me. I felt like the church was made up of a bunch of power hungry child molesters and that the Bible was made up to get the Pagan people in line during the Roman Empire. My historical senses would not allow me to believe in something historically inaccurate. And if Easter was actually for the Goddess Esther and Jesus Christ wasn’t actually born on December 25th, then it must’ve been all made up.
Now, even though I had these reserves about religion and I had these stereotypes that it was like a member’s only club and I wasn’t a member, I still felt envious of people’s faith. To have absolute faith that everything was going to be OK because there was someone who was looking out for you was amazing to me. To know with absolute certainty that some being loved you completely, faults and all was such a foreign concept to me. I wished that I felt that connection to a God. Sure I figured that there was a God and I talked to that God, but why would that God be listening to me? Why would I be so special? Why were my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs worth anything to God when there was a war going on and tsunamis, and earthquakes? This period of my life was when I felt most alone.
Then, college happens. Freshmen year, I met a friend who was Episcopalian. What an Episcopalian was, I didn’t know. But this was the first time that I could remember where I had a friend who was religious and where I was old enough to actually understand what that meant. One day, my baptism came up. Now, all of my life I was told that I was baptized Protestant. So, when he asked what I was baptized in, I told him…Protestant! He said, yeah, go on. I told him that that was what I was baptized in, I was a Protestant. Well, after he was done laughing at me, he explained that you couldn’t be baptized Protestant because there were too many subcategories of Protestant. Ohhh. So I called my mother and asked her, “What religion was I baptized in?” and she said, Protestant! So I told her that I couldn’t possibly be Protestant, that there were too many sub categories. So she asked my father, who didn’t know, she asked her mother, who didn’t know, she asked my god parents, who didn’t know. Finally my grandmother got a hold of her cousin who was married by the same person who baptized me and she told my mother who told me that I was baptized Baptist!
I also had another friend whose religion was Messianic Judaism. She held a Seder meal in the dorm that year and invited me to join in. I had no clue what a Seder meal was but I knew that it was something religious and it sounded kind of interesting, so I went. I was becoming more open to religious ideas.
Now, by this time, I already had my own beliefs concerning spiritual faith. I wouldn’t consider myself religious by any stretch of the imagination and I definitely wasn’t Christian but I kind of created my own semi-religion that basically said there was a heaven and a hell and that as long as you lived morally, no cheating, stealing, raping, etc., you would be considered a good person and you would go to heaven. I believed that there was a God. I believed that God hears me and that I can talk to him no matter what. I believed that God loves everyone no matter who they were or what they did because we were all created by him. I still didn’t have that faith that I was so envious over but my views evolved with time to encompass the fact that I was worth something to God and that I wasn’t alone, that he was listening.
Then sophomore comes around and I meet two very lovely ladies, Erin and Sarah, who were the first people who I met who were my own age that I could say were devoted to God. Erin is a Catholic who takes God into account in every aspect of her life. And Sarah is a Christian Scientist, different than Scientology, who also takes God into account in everything she does. And although these two denominations are pretty different from each other, they are still both Christian. And they broke every stereotype that I had about Christianity. They didn’t force their religion onto me, they are open minded and caring, and even though I had no religion to speak of, they still liked me and were still my friend. And they have that faith that I was so envious of.
The way that Sarah has helped was a little different. Sarah wasn’t having issues with her religion. She has always had such a strong connection to her beliefs and this was amazing to me, not only that her faith was so strong but that she had such a strong connection and yet, still didn’t feel the need to try to sway me into her way of thinking. The first thing that I remember her saying about Christian Science was that God is love. And that really touched me. That wherever love is, God is also there, no matter what. All of this started the wheel turning.
Junior year came, and with it, came more thoughts and ideas about Christianity. By this time, I fully considered Erin and Sarah to be more than friends; they were and still are my sisters. I fully gave up all of my stereotypes about Christianity; Christians are actually really nice people. Of course there are those that are extremists but it’s the people who are extremists, and not the religion. I still had problems with Christianity though. I didn’t believe that the Bible could actually be factual and I didn’t believe that there could be a God out there who would sacrifice his only Son. Why would he do that? But, I was becoming more open to it. I’m not sure if they realize this or not, but every time Sarah and Erin brought up religion (which happened fairly often as they both take God into account of their daily lives), I was just soaking it in. I was turning it over and over in my head. Trying to understand what they were talking about and trying to piece the puzzle together. The wheel was going a little faster than in my sophomore year.
Finally, the climax of the story, my senior year of college. Erin and Sarah are still a big part of the story, but we add another huge character to the picture, Matt. Sarah studied abroad for the first semester and Erin left the dorm to go live in another one. Matt moved to the room across the hall from me and I knew that he was a nice guy and he was capable of having a conversation because Erin told me that she had conversations with him but even though this would be the third year of living in the same dorm as him, I still didn’t have a conversation with him. So, because he moved across the hall from me, and because I knew that he was a nice guy, I decided to talk to him. During these talks (and many cribbage games) it came out that he was also a very religious person. Matt is not one to wear his religion on his sleeve but his faith is still very strong and unshaken. So, every once in a while religion would come up between him and other people in the dorm and unbeknownst to them, I was soaking it up. Also, not only was I getting to know Matt, I was also getting to know Mitchell, Matt’s younger brother. And Mitchell had no problems telling me his views of religion and why Christianity is the only religion that I should put my faith into. Now, before, I said that I hated it when people shoved their religion down other people’s throats…well I didn’t feel like that was what Mitchell was doing. He was very secure in his faith and when I asked, would tell me what he thought. He wasn’t condescending about his faith.
What got the wheel to go from a crawl to actually rolling forward was a conversation between Erin and me. Although Erin talked to me about her religion quite a bit, and she knew that I wasn’t religious, we never actually discussed what my beliefs were. It was a very eye opening discussion. For the first real time, I was talking to someone religious who I knew would not judge me for my beliefs and reservations on religion, about my beliefs and reservations. And she addressed some of my concerns about the Bible and Jesus.
So now, the ball was really going. I had been acting like a sponge for the last three years and I was ready to really ask questions, to not just play a passive role to the conversations that were going on around me but to really be active in my spiritual maturation. Then, everything happened so fast. For the first time in my life, I decide to give up something for Lent. I decided to give up despair and because despair is an emotion and you cannot help but feel the way you do, I decided that how I would give up despair would be to stop listening, singing, and thinking, about sad songs. This might sound very easy to do, but when 95% of the music you listen to, is sad songs, it’s a little harder to do.
So, Lent 2011 started on March 9th and somewhere between March 9th and March 20, 2011, I had a conversation that completely flipped my spiritual journey upside down. Matt, Erin, and I were having dinner in the dining hall, and religion pops up again. I told them, “you know, I think I would be Christian if it wasn’t for that whole Jesus thing” Well, needless to say, they both started laughing and they told me that you can’t have Christianity without Jesus. He is what makes Christianity, he is the core. So then Erin said, why can you not get behind Jesus, what is your reasoning? So I told them that God created everyone so shouldn’t everyone be God’s child? Also, what kind of God would sacrifice his own Son? And why do I have to talk to Jesus, why can’t I just talk to God? Then Erin said something so profound to me but that everyone who was brought up in a religious household seemed to know. She said “you do realize that the holy trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are all one thing, right?” And I didn’t realize that. I said so Jesus is God? And she said, well I don’t know much about it but yes. In that moment, the puzzle was coming together faster than I thought was possible. That one concept caused me to have even more questions, but I also felt like I was coming even closer to understanding the true God and coming closer to feeling that same faith that I was so envious of before.
So, I went to Sarah and got her view on the Holy Trinity. And she said something completely different than Erin. I guess Christian Science believes that Jesus was a man who was so in tune with God, that he could heal, but that he was not the son of God. That just confused me! So I went back to my room and I was trying to do homework but I kept on coming back to this notion that Jesus and God was the same thing. I finally decided that it was time to take my spiritual journey to someone who does church for a living, a Pastor, Priest, etc. So, my options of a church were limitless. If I asked, Erin would take me to her church, Sarah would have found a way to take me to her church, and Matt would take me to his church. I chose Matt’s church because from what he had said about it in the past, it was just a Christian church with no ties to any one denomination. It wasn’t limited. I still don’t know what the difference is between Catholic and the rest of them, just that Catholics are more strict, and Sarah’s church is all the way down in Massachusetts so that wouldn’t have worked too well.
I called out to Matt and asked him if his church was run by a priest. He said no. Which kind of disappointed me, so it was just student run? He said, no we have a Pastor, Priests are Catholic. This was when I started laughing, I told him oh, and I said I knew about Priests, Pastors, Bishops, and Popes, just not too much on the differences. I then asked him if his Pastor would mind questions. Matt said of course not. Are you sure? Yes, in fact he encourages questions. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to church with him. I still didn’t know if I was really ready to commit myself to going to a full church service but I felt that it was the right thing to do. So, I decided to go to church with him and his brother on March 20, 2011.
So, the day was there, I was a nervous wreck. I had asked Matt throughout the week if we had to get into our Sunday best and are you really sure jeans are OK, are you sure that I am allowed to be there, are you sure that your Pastor is going to want to talk to me, are you sure that this is OK. I’m pretty sure I drove him nuts, but he didn’t show it, he just answered all of my questions with a calm yes and maybe a chuckle.
We walk to the basement of the lighthouse and the room is crowded, I am thinking what have I got myself into! We go and sit on a couch right inside of the door. This wasn’t planned (I don’t think) but I was thinking oh good, I can run away if this gets too scary and if Bryan starts preaching Hell and brimstone to all of you non believers. I ask Matt one more question; does Bryan know that I am here? He said no, I will go tell him that I brought someone who wants to speak to him. Throughout the whole sermon I was a shaky mess, but I was listening intently, I was soaking everything up. Then came time for Communion. And I thought, oh here we go again, I am going to be told that I don’t belong again, that I shouldn’t be here (all you non believers are unwelcome in this sanctuary); I am going to feel like an outsider again! Matt said that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to, and I told him, well, I have never been consecrated so I don’t think that I am allowed to. Even though everyone else went up there, I didn’t feel like anyone was staring at me thinking, oh look at that non believer trying to get into our club! Pfft, she couldn’t possibly ever be as close to God as we are. That didn’t happen. (I guess I still had my doubts about Christians at large)
The sermon went off with a hitch and now it was time for Bryan to come talk to me. He came over and introduced himself, we sat on the couch and he answered all of my questions. My dire question, the one that would be the tipping point as to whether or not I could finally believe in Christianity, Jesus Christ and all, was my first question. Is the Holy Trinity really all just God? And he said yeah it is. This just blew my mind. So I said, “so God was walking around as Jesus, why do that?” And he said that the people were able to relate to Jesus more. He mentioned Mount Sinai and how the people refused to talk to God themselves because they were too afraid, but wanted Moses to be their spokesperson. So, I said, that God needed a different facet to talk to the people, and thus he created Jesus. And this means that God didn’t actually sacrifice his son, but he sacrificed himself for his people. I could understood that sacrifice, I finally could understand how great Christianity is, how great our God is. A light bulb switched on and I just felt so light and full of wonder. A God sacrificed himself for the people he created so that the people he created would believe this and would be able to take our sins away, how wonderful is that? Finally, after 20 years, I can understand God and I knew why people had such faith that they do! Because a God, willing to sacrifice himself for you, will be willing, and able to help you through anything! I I think I was glowing for the rest of the day.
Then, as I was asking questions, and understanding things, Bryan mentioned that the Fusion church has a discipleship training course and although they didn’t have plans to start one until next fall, when I told him that I was graduating and that I wouldn’t be at UNH next year, he said well, I’m sure Matt would go through this again and Mitchell seemed interested in it so why don’t we just start one? When he said that, I felt so special. I felt like I belonged already, that this wasn’t a member’s only club. I felt accepted. That, within minutes of meeting me, this person would give up his time to help me unwind this mystery that I was so caught up in. It was just unbelievable.
Now, just because I was now going to church, didn’t mean that the wheel had totally stopped. I knew that if I was seriously going to commit to this relationship between God and me, I was going to have to do a few things. First, I was going to have to talk to God more, instead of just talking to him when I was in trouble, I was going to have to talk to him and let him be involved in my life. Also, if I was going to subscribe to the Christian religion, I was going to have to read the Holy Text, so I made up my mind that I was going to read the Bible, front to back, asking questions when I had them. And I had a lot of questions! I felt that I couldn’t call myself a true Christian if I hadn’t actually read what the Christians believed. And even though I didn’t understand all of the underlying connotations, I definitely got a better understanding of what God is asking of us, as his people.
The reason why I am telling you this story is because of a thing called the Slow Movement. I am a huge fan of going slow, of taking your time through things. It took me 2 years of thinking and contemplating God and religion before I even thought about stepping into a church. This slow process, has allowed me to have a thirst for knowledge and to know in my heart that I believe in this, that since I took time out to think this through, I know that for me, this is right. Now, everyone has different speeds. Not everyone goes as slow or as fast, but if you take the time to just stop and wonder and contemplate and think about your life, the decisions that you are faced with, as well as God and Jesus, you just might find that you feel more confident about yourself, and your life..
I am going to leave you with these parting words. A few weeks ago, Bryan had us write our own Psalm of Lament. I could not do that. I am still feeling wonder and passion and feel like God is doing what is right in my life. I found I could not find a lament in me when all I want to do is to celebrate God and share my joy in him, not my sorrow. So I decided to write something a little different and I would like to share it with you.
My God, you were there when I didn’t see.
You were there when I didn’t listen.
You were there when I didn’t feel.
You were there when I didn’t understand.
Now I see
Now I listen
Now I feel
Now I understand
Even in my darkest moments of solitude, you will be there.
