On Being Cool Redux…

Not sure why, but starting 2009 with a repost from Sept 13, 2008 just felt like the right thing to do on this snowy day in New York.  Happy New Year to all…

I don’t think I am remotely cool enough to roll with some of the new Christians. I’m forty-two and I sometimes watch mindless television. I wear pointy high heels and makeup and I don’t drink beer.

Of course, I used to be cool enough. Back when I sat on the roof of my apartment smoking cigarettes, reading A Clockwork Orange and looking down my nose at the people who didn’t get it. Back when I didn’t wear shoes or makeup but I did drink beer…and rye whiskey, which I preferred.

When I was cool God was in the poetry of the Bhagavad Gita or captured in a rose quartz crystal or dancing next to me at a Grateful Dead show. God was in a kiss or on a breeze or buried in the deep recesses of my mind when I’d created the perfect chemical storm.

And then, once I’d applied my considerable intellect and more considerable arrogance to the question, God was nowhere. I stopped searching and I was alone.

Fast forward a couple of years, a couple of kids and a couple of drinks and God became a “power greater than myself.” And, armed with a hint of humility I began to change.

Jesus had not called me yet—but I think he was watching.

When he came it was unannounced and uninvited. There was no frenzied altar call or sinner’s prayer. There was no hip pastor or tail-kicking band. No French roast coffee or modern art. There were no candles and no incense. No Power Point presentation or fill-in-the-blank bible study. It wasn’t even a particularly welcoming environment.

No, my Damascus Road was not modern or post-modern or denominational. It was God doing what God does wherever and whenever God wants to do it. Once I assured myself that the pain in my chest, inability to breathe and nausea was reverential fear and not a heart attack, I somehow knew that I believed something and that I would never be the same.

Of course I knew nothing of Christianity or Jesus or the Bible at the time. I thought I did, having debated the atheist party line for years. But, in the true spirit of Amazing Grace, I went from blindness to sight in a moment and was compelled to learn.

This story could go on for pages—and it eventually will—but I need to get back to my original premise, why I am not cool enough to be a new Christian.

It has been a little more than five years since I came to believe. In that time I have had some of the most wonderful and some of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I have learned from everyone—the whole mismatched Christian family—including televangelists, silver-haired, hymn-lovers, Southern Baptists, emergents, people who used to believe and Mike Seaver from Growing Pains.

While I might not share their style, or their politics or their history or their views on what it means to be a Christian (or a follower of Christ), each and every conversation, sermon or rant is a gift from God. These folks— like it or not—are my new family. And I am learning to love this new family; every quirky one of them. Even when I don’t really like what they say or how they act or what they claim to believe.

This unconditionally loving approach to life is brand new for me and it makes little sense. It is often uncomfortable and always counter intuitive. Sometimes I fail miserably. But sometimes I don’t. And when I don’t I have come to believe it is a gift from God.

Because, back when I was cool, I loved conditionally, starting with myself and extending to a small group of people who also read A Clockwork Orange and smoked cigarettes and drank beer…or rye whiskey…and looked down their nose at people who just don’t get it.

Thankfully, I’m just not that cool anymore.

 

Am I an Emerging Emergent? Maybe I’ll Find Out in Memphis

I leave tomorrow morning for The Great Emergence, a two day event in Memphis hosted by Phyllis Tickle and organized by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt.  The release of Mrs. Tickle’s book of the same name is the premise for the event, but the schedule is jam-packed with speakers, breakout sessions and several opportunties to eat amazing BBQ.  You can find some background on Mrs. Tickle, her book, a list of speakers and other info here if you are interested in learning more.  

I’d love to tell you that I can’t wait to go or that this is my emergent dream come true, but that would not be true. On the contrary, I have a nasty cold (maybe the flu) and, while I have read and enjoyed the writing of many of the key emergent authors since I came to faith in 2003, I have to admit that I am still very much a listener in the emergent conversation.

That being said, since I come to the Christian mosaic as an adult convert (I was 37) with no church experience (I was raised in a secular home), I am taking my time answering the frequently asked “what kind of Christian are you?” question that I get over and over again from my new brothers and sisters. 

So, why not just read the book?  Why am I spending money I do not have to get on a plane, stay in a hotel, rent a car and attend a conference? 

I have absolutely no idea.  

All I know is that, informed by a barrage of Holy Spirit serendipity that I cannot explain but always follow, I believe that I am supposed to go.

So, I’m going. 

This is the part of the Christian faith that I never bargained for when I was an outsider looking in. There always seems to be a new and exciting adventure unfolding in front of me if I am willing to take the leap. So me and my aches and pains are off.  And, as if to confirm that I am there to listen, I am rapidly losing my voice into a froggy ‘yo quiero Taco Bell’ version of laryngitis.  

Isn’t God hysterical?

I’ll be posting dispatches from the road here and on Twitter if anyone is interested in following…

 

Ever Been Hurt by Christians or the Church?

There is a trend among some Christians that I would like to bounce of you.  

Some churches, having heard and acknowledged that the capital-c Church has done many “unChristian” things over the centuries (and today), have taken to apologizing for current and past sins that have been committed in the name of Jesus. From hypocrisy to slavery to poor treatment of homosexuals to the Inquisition, supporters of this trend believe that it is important to take responsibility for these warts on the nose of their faith in hope that it will lead to healing and, potentially, reconciliation.

Others feel that apologizing is either not warranted (since they were not directly involved in these actions) or that, since direct amends cannot be made, the apologies could appear to be pandering rather than a genuine desire for reconciliation. 

I believe an argument could be made in either direction.  

That is why I thought I would take the question outside of Christian circles and ask the people who would would be receiving the apologies…people who feel like they have been hurt by Christianity or the church.

If that is you, I would love to hear from you. Specifically, I’d love to know:

• What happened?
• How did you respond?
• How did the church/Christian in question respond?
• How would you feel if you got an apology from the person/church that perpetrated the “wrong.”
• How would you feel if a Christian who had nothing to do with it apologized to you?

Hope to hear from you.

Joan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Being Cool…

Repost from Sept 13, 2008.  Happy New Year all…

I don’t think I am remotely cool enough to roll with the new Christians. I’m forty-two and I sometimes watch mindless television. I wear pointy high heels and makeup and I don’t drink beer.

Of course, I used to be cool enough. Back when I sat on the roof of my apartment smoking cigarettes, reading A Clockwork Orange and looking down my nose at the people who didn’t get it. Back when I didn’t wear shoes or makeup but I did drink beer…and rye whiskey, which I preferred.

When I was cool God was in the poetry of the Bhagavad Gita or captured in a rose quartz crystal or dancing next to me at a Grateful Dead show. God was in a kiss or on a breeze or buried in the deep recesses of my mind when I’d created the perfect chemical storm.

And then, once I’d applied my considerable intellect and more considerable arrogance to the question, God was nowhere. I stopped searching and I was alone.

Fast forward a couple of years, a couple of kids and a couple of drinks and God became a “power greater than myself.” And, armed with a hint of humility I began to change.

Jesus had not called me yet—but I think he was watching.

When he came it was unannounced and uninvited. There was no frenzied altar call or sinner’s prayer. There was no hip pastor or tail-kicking band. No French roast coffee or modern art. There were no candles and no incense. No Power Point presentation or fill-in-the-blank bible study. It wasn’t even a particularly welcoming environment.

No, my Damascus Road was not modern or post-modern or denominational. It was God doing what God does wherever and whenever God wants to do it. Once I assured myself that the pain in my chest, inability to breathe and nausea was reverential fear and not a heart attack, I somehow knew that I believed something and that I would never be the same.

Of course I knew nothing of Christianity or Jesus or the Bible at the time. I thought I did, having debated the atheist party line for years. But, in the true spirit of Amazing Grace, I went from blindness to sight in a moment and was compelled to learn.

This story could go on for pages—and it eventually will—but I need to get back to my original premise, why I am not cool enough to be a new Christian.

It has been a little more than five years since I came to believe. In that time I have had some of the most wonderful and some of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I have learned from everyone—the whole mismatched Christian family—including televangelists, silver-haired, hymn-lovers, Southern Baptists, emergents, people who used to believe and Mike Seaver from Growing Pains.

While I might not share their style, or their politics or their history or their views on what it means to be a Christian (or a follower of Christ), each and every conversation, sermon or rant is a gift from God. These folks— like it or not—are my new family. And I am learning to love this new family; every quirky one of them. Even when I don’t really like what they say or how they act or what they claim to believe.

This unconditionally loving approach to life is brand new for me and it makes little sense. It is often uncomfortable and always counter intuitive. Sometimes I fail miserably. But sometimes I don’t. And when I don’t I have come to believe it is a gift from God.

Because, back when I was cool, I loved conditionally, starting with myself and extending to a small group of people who also read A Clockwork Orange and smoked cigarettes and drank beer…or rye whiskey…and looked down their nose at people who just don’t get it.

Thankfully, I’m just not that cool anymore.

 

God is Real…

I started to write a follow-up to the “Am I the ‘Not the Religious Type’ Type” post in an attempt to share, as promised, my experience at the first (first annual?) Center City Summit: Where Faith and Secular Culture Meet in Cambridge, MA. In high journalistic style, I sat at my laptop and laid out the details:

• More than 150 people from more than a dozen states
• Compelling speakers sharing a heart-felt desire to connect with and communicate with secular culture
• Interesting uses of models and psychological theories to help understand the variety of ways people approach (and retreat from) God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit
• Passionate times of prayer and conversation.

This observe-and-comment format is easy for me. I get to play the role of subject matter expert. “Here’s what I saw. This is what I liked. This is what I didn’t like. This is what they should keep doing. This is what they should do differently. This is why.”

And, there were a number of things I liked. I enjoyed learning more about Dave Schmelzer’s centered-set verses bounded-set model of faith, Carl Medearis’ stories about two-decades of communicating with Muslims in the Middle East, Charles Park‘s amazing story of making and losing $43 million and his wife Caroline’s loving attention to prayer and obedience.

There were also a couple of things that gave me pause. Like how easy it might be for people to misuse M. Scott Peck’s stage theory to perceive themselves as spiritually superior to people at ‘lower stages’ or what I perceive to be some potentially confusing uses of the word ‘mystic’. But, when push came to shove, it was clear to me that even if I reread the books and reviewed my notes, I was no subject matter expert. In fact, as I considered this post, I realized that I came away from the Center City Summit with more questions than I did answers.

And that’s a good thing.

This conference made me think. It made me wonder what questions my new, thoughtful friends at deconversion.com would have asked if they had been there. It made me wonder how other Christian “factions”, particularly those who are less familiar/comfortable with the notion of having a direct “experience” with the Holy Spirit would react. (This was my first time rolling with people who I would describe as mildly ‘charismatic’ or ‘pentecostal’.) It made me wonder about the notion of Christian “factions” in general, the wide variety of ways that people experience God and how that frequently leads to in-fighting among Christians and confusion for people who are on the outside looking in.

And that made me think about my friend.

This is a real friend not one of those metaphors. She has a name and a home and a family that is crumbling under the heavy weight of untreated addiction. She and I spoke by phone several times while I was away. She is hurting. She feels very alone. She says she has no hope. She tells me that she has always needed “a rock” upon which to anchor herself. She has relied on her parents, her husband, and–more recently–friendship. She says that friendship has been “a shining light” in her life, that it has provided the “strength, the truth and the love” that she has needed to see through deception and see her circumstances “as they really are.” Without that, she says, there is “only darkness.” This woman is one of those people out in “secular culture” that they were talking about in Cambridge. She grew up without God. She had many successes in her life without God. And now, in her darkest hour, she needs “something” that she describes by unknowingly and unintentionally speaking the language of faith–without God.

And that made me remember.

I recalled that God was working in my life long before I knew he was. Back in the early 1990s when I was the one whose family was falling apart. Back when I was the one who was hurting and alone and needed a shining light and an anchor. Back when I thought I had no hope. Back when I found hope in a recovery program through a relationship with a “power greater than myself” that turned out (after 7 years of Christ-bashing agnosticism) to be the same God (with the Son and the Spirit) I pray to now.

And, ultimately, it reconfirms my belief that God is real. That, while I believe that there is one way to the Father, there are millions upon millions of ways to the Son. Unorthodox ways. Irreverant ways. Unpredictable ways. Doubt-filled, messy, leave-it-to -the-last-breath ways that I don’t always understand or even agree with. Ways that don’t fit into 45-minute Sunday school sessions, line-by-line intellectual assessments of Bible passages or high-tech “culturally relevant” A/V productions. Ways that paradoxically challenge my notion of love and mercy in the face of discipline and hardship.

And so, despite the uncertainty, I choose to continue to pursue this God. This Jesus. This unexplainable Holy Spirit of God. I seek Him/It/Them in solitude and in the community that is created in church, online, and at wonderful conferences like the Center City Summit. I try to understand him in the face of my friend’s pain–and in the memory of my own.

Unbelievable.