Saturday, January 30, 2010

How long, how long will I sing this song...

I use to have a Far Side cartoon posted to my dorm room wall back when I was an economics major. A guy is sitting in a class with his hand raised. He says, " May I be excused: my brain is full." That's the way I felt about reading John Keynes's economic theory. It is also the way I feel about the things that God is teaching me lately. I feel like I am absorbing so much, being changed, and waiting for God to show me what he wants to do with this changed me now. It is beginning to feel like I have been sitting on a fart for hours. My little ADD body is coming unglued.

I'm experiencing a kaleidoscope of emotions, and its beginning to feel like waking up each day to a hangover. I feel alive to be so moved by all that God is showing me. But I want to act...to do something, anything...that will make a difference. I'm angry because it seems like God won't tell me what to do. I dream, and then God allows those around me to go and live my dreams. And when I do do something, it seems so incredibly insignificant...like a raindrop on a pond on a very rainy day. I don't know that I even believe that the things I do matter at all in God's economy.

And on top of it all, I'm beginning to hate the church. Well, and at the same time I love the church. But I hate how the church gets so many things wrong....so many things that really matter. I hate how the church cuts off gay and lesbians from God. I hate how the church lets people all over the world live in poverty. I hate how the church likes hanging out as the church but doesn't like going anywhere uncomfortable to be the church. And I hate that all I hate about the church is true of me. GK Chesterton was once asked what is wrong with the church. He replied, "I am!" Right there with you Mr. Chesterton.

I feel the tunes of my college days nesting in my brain. " How long will I sing this song...." My days here on earth are numbered; forty plus years of them have passed never to come back. I don't want to waste my life, and "I still haven't found what I'm looking for...."

4 comments:

  1. I love the way you give me so much to think about and make me laugh at the same time... "Sitting on a fart for hours" that is one of the most funny, yet descriptive phrases I've heard in a LONG time!!

    God has us in such a similar place right now, I'm certain that it's no coincidence, if nothing else but to continue to challenge each other to stop just doing church and BE the church! Love ya friend!

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  2. Thanks for saying out loud what a lot of us feel. I guess I shouldn't be too inclusive there. I know I feel it. Regarding feeling insignificant, it takes the thought in a different direction than what I think you were expressing but is still in the same ball pakr when I heard of someoen else struggling with this. They summarized it with the commnet: "I know who God is. I just dont' think God knows who I am."

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  3. love the chesterton quote. thanks for sharing ginny.

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  4. g. I am moved by this entry. re-reading it from the first time when I gave a thoughtful comment, but my laptop farted and it was erased instead of posted (i'm just trying to speak your language :) In my role as pastor, i share my own love/hates with 'the church.' mostly i ask God why his plan to mediate Jesus to the world for 2,000 years has been to do so through such imperfect people in less-perfect organized groupings, all damned to not do it perfectly this side of heaven, yet charged with the brilliant humble task of literally being the 'body' of Christ in the world. I think its a bad plan. but the better ones i can think of all involve either magic or the coercion of human will. but still, i just wonder if God could have thought up a better plan for the container pouring out the message of grace through Jesus. theologically and logically i don't think he could have, but existentially, i want him to. anyhoo...i would seriously like your thoughts on how to be inclusive of homosexuals in our church, remaining true to ourselves and our scripture. Mike Moses

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