If you see two posts for today, I *thought* I had posted yesterday, but J informed me tonight nothing actually posted. Once I finally returned to my computer, the post sat in "draft" status. Turns out my brain really had shut off for the night when I wrote. . .
Tonight, I spent an hour or so at a singer-songwriter event held in an old Christian church. Three performers with vastly different styles sang "in the round" - one belting a tune, then the next, then the next and then they started over again. My jaw kept clinching and each time I encouraged my muscles to relax, they returned to the locked position. I don't know why.
My musings shift between the thrumming volume, the vibrating vocals, the discomforting position of the artists (perched on a stool under the spotlights, listening to their other two stage-mates plugging away). Maybe the voices straining to create a "rich" sound made my neck tight. My mirror neurons guessing at how much force of will it takes to play an instrument and sing out lines of your soul to a room full of strangers with red ticket drinks in aluminum cans and plastic cups.
The venue arrested me as well. A beautifully bricked church now a playhouse. Arched windows once opened to the sun, now wooded over; a stage where a pulpit and choir likely sat, set with half walls, fake entrances, make-believe windows. All the light of the sun blocked out, so spot lights and stage lights won't have competition. Raised auditorium seating with chevrons up front replace staid pews of wood and cushion.
Maybe the building grew into what it always was - a place for an audience to ingest a product sold by people playing a role, the message given through imitations of life and illumination.
A harsh critique? Probably too much so. I don't consider myself cynical, yet those words are from my brain. . .
I like the idea of a church being a playhouse, as I find God 110% the eponym "Creator," and where creation occurs, play dances in fairy rings and rainbows - tree roots and mycorrhizal fungi dependent on one another for life; rain and sunshine colliding to birth colors. If church is anything, maybe it needs to first seek to be playful - to be like God in the world - creative, surprising, giving.
As I consider the Holy Week's arrival, I wonder, however briefly, if we have really understood all this time what Christ came to do. If we haven't, I pray we will.
PRACTICE
Lectio Divina: Read the following passage through after a few deep breaths and pay attention to any word or phrase which sticks out for you. Read through again and pay attention to anything further you notice about the word/phrase and how it applies to you. Read through again and spend time in prayer with the word/phrase asking God what you need to understand/know/do with the word/phrase (i.e., How might God be guiding you? What needs your further action? Where may your understanding need to be changed or expanded? How may this impact your relationship with someone else?). End with a time of thanksgiving.
Luke 18:1-8, NRSV
The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge
18 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ 4 For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
No comments:
Post a Comment