worship Archives - ilostmyprayerhanky

I have this severe desire to encounter god unmediatedly. Not attributable to mental state. Not attributable to something I do, say, believe, or think. Not attributable to social construct, be it ritual, theology, ceremony. Not attributable to my sleep patterns and resultant moods. Subject to transcendent subject encounter. Is that just not how it works and I need to come to terms with that? If god is transcendent, I believe he’s doing a good job at that. I long for the deity’s immanence. Would I be unable to handle it, and that’s why it doesn’t happen? Is theology actually non-essentialist, and therefore, convoluted word play? If that is so, is my quest futile to begin with. I will admit this: I am clueless.

This morning we had a worship set in chapel that was refreshing. I sang the songs. Some familiar. Some not. It was refreshing. It was not what I would call an encounter on my part. I was very aware of my surroundings. But I won’t speak of my inner experience so much as what I witnessed on their faces. Maybe reverie isn’t the right word. Bliss might be closer to it. Just people lost in pleasure in their experience of god. It was quite soothing to me. People in surrender to what was happening to them. I miss that state. Is there any going back? Maybe I can go through the motions until the worship experience becomes “real” again. I mused on what they were thinking about. Undoubtedly, some were probably focusing on god’s love for them and others. Others were probably thinking about his mercy bestowed on their circumstance, and thankfulness for it. Some may have been merely caught up in the music, which I don’t tend to believe to be evil. A mighty few may have been checked out, thinking on their tasks for the day.

What would it be like to trade minds for a day? What if I picked a handful of people from that chapel setting, have us all experience a similar worship set again, but this time we thought with each others’ cognitions? Would they worship the same? With some of the verses I pointed out here, notably Isa 45.7, Lam 3.37-38, Amo 3.6, would others still be able to worship? Might they have an experience, belief matrix, or understanding that would allow me to worship again as they? I can’t cavalierly dismiss those verses with a “You need to check the context,” when the

context sort of reinforces what the “proof texts” are saying. But maybe it is that simple. Maybe I’m a touch rash when it comes to expected Evangelical responses. It may turn out that some of those explanations are true. I just don’t think so at the moment from my experiences and study. Back to worship. Would we grow closer if doubts were raised in the open, truly heard, and issues wrestled with to give constructive responses, or would that process do what many fear, and the Church would crumble like a deck of cards? If the latter, how fragile an institution to belong to. To me that’s like the poor Chinese government thinking it will topple if its people remember Tiananmen Square.

Maybe that’s a pipe-dream. Many people aren’t willing to share their feelings or thoughts with their significant others, much less the public. Many have been hurt by virtue of their raw authenticity. They share, only to have their faces shoved down in it until they choke. Some fear that definitely real possibility. But I think there is much to be gleaned from open sharing. It reduces what I guess I would call “others-idolatry,” where others are put on pedestals as gods, to the humans that they are, beings in process and imperfection. It opens up at least the opportunity for help in moving beyond what has kept one burdened in the past. What if I had opened up today when we huddled for prayer, really letting loose? What if, instead of playing it safe, asking for prayer for sleep because of my newborn son, I let fly with the father from the old story, “I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief”? Would I receive sympathy in my questioning, or lame attempts

at answering during what is supposed to be a time of prayer? Are some things only safe to share with some but not others, so it’s best to pick which occasions to be open? Is that authentic? Would shotgun openness build moral courage, or merely be narcissistic, masturbatory self-aggrandizement? What if when we heard someone question an established practice, we let them voice it, probe them for more, and then left them with some sort of affirming bodily gesture? I think still others are afraid of openness because they feel they have to have an answer (of which they happen to be ignorant) to the question/issue, missing the point that sometimes sharing is just a feeler put out for connection, not answer-time. Maybe some are afraid of openness because they have never asked such questions, and now they have anxiety, because, man, those are some good questions. And maybe I’m in the vast minority, and some think faith has nothing to do with questions, but with the naked exertion of belief against all odds. I’ve heard these people exist, and they probably do in great numbers; I’ve just never encountered them.

In church language, I covet your thoughts. Drop a line. If you don’t feel like putting it all out there for others to see, email me at ilostmyprayerhanky at gmail dot com. I’d love to correspond with you.

My mom got me a worship CD a few weeks ago. I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed it. For one, I have trouble with worship because of all my unanswered questions, with next to no answers. I’m actually sitting here wondering if I have any answers. But the worship CD. When I’m by myself, I entertain all the dark, lonely questions of the universe and am just that—alone. However, when I sing along with this worship CD, I’m serene. I feel secure. I’m thoughtful. I stand on centuries of tradition. I experience what many experience in their cars and in their churches every time they gather. I almost enter a place of “Do my questions even matter?” It’s almost like the bliss state from the recent, horribly cut-short show “V.” But then I get out of my car. Back to my questions. Back to my doubts. Back to cursed responsibilities (my wife and I get in fights about this all the time lol). Back to…reality? Are the feelings I experience while singing or listening to that worship CD merely a response to music, an altered state of reality? The guy on the album does have a smooth, hypnotic voice. If I read the bare lyrics, I know the same experience wouldn’t be there, but is that a bad thing? Can the tension just exist there, and I just let it lie (unresolved questions and what feels like very resolved feelings)? Probably not. I like coherence. I like for things to make sense. Granted, I like my horizons to expand to where formerly disparate things can coexist with the right understanding of them, but I am not in that place for my theological/hermeneutical questions and worship.

And just what are some of my problems/questions? Here are a few, and most of them come through a Christian lens, but with philosophical and theological flavor:

Revelation– Multiple religious traditions claim god or the gods have revealed themselves through a particular tradition. If that is the case, which one is right? They can’t all be right, right? Or can there be elements of truth in all of them, but not the whole in any? What criteria are there for teasing out revelation? Is it a book? Is it particular persons? Is it an impulse or feeling? Is it nature or reason? Is it a synthesis of many things? If there is revelation in the Bible, but the Bible isn’t inerrant, how does one determine what is or isn’t revelation without recourse to some mysterious spirit? If there were revelation, what does one do with it?
Religious experience and God– how does one know that the god of experience is the God of the Bible? Is the god of philosophical argument the God of the Bible? Is the god of religious experience a god at all, or merely physical responses to one’s environment or mental state?
Theology and culture– how much of Christianity is transferable to a Western context from a first century Palestinian context? Is it merely a product of its time, therefore, something to move past in foreign (gentile) contexts? Is Christianity of yore merely Judaism with Jesus as the messiah? What does that have to do with the plethora of Christianities today? Is the term “Christian” even useful in describing anything, given the amount of qualifiers the many Christian groups use to distinguish themselves?
The (in)justice of God– this list could go on for awhile. I won’t speak for other religions’ gods though I’m sure there’s enough injustice to go around. Christianity’s god seems rather doucheish. Rather than answer Job’s questions that emerged out of his pain, he responds with an elitist monologue (Job 38-40); I mean, imagine a being superior to the Jewish god telling him to shut up with his questions after his son died on the cross)
Source: Wikipedia
; David had to pick a punishment on his people for his own sin (which his god made him do…), because his god said so (2 Sam 24.1-17); the unstable lord of the flood incident (Gen 6.5-8) definitely doesn’t sound like a gal who wishes all to come to repentance (2 Pet 2.9); hell as eternal punishment for a finite number of sins (see many verses here); holding people without the law accountable for some somehow “obvious” but actually oblique natural theology (Rom 1.18-20, 1 Tim 1.9); sexual immorality being the only occasion allowable for divorce by Jesus when domestic abuse and emotional scarring sure seem like good ones to me (Mat 19.9, Mk 10.11); if we take the Calvinist sounding verses at face value god creates some vessels for destruction with no chance of redemption because of his immutably capricious will (e.g., Rom 9.22); forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist (Deut 22.28-29), wrecking people’s lives
Moore, OK Source: Getty Images
(Isa 45.7, Lam 3.37-38, Amo 3.6; attention brought to these vv here), etc. I’m not being original here, I don’t think. I’m sure some of the bloggers I follow here, here, here, and here could list many more. And many Christians have probably had trouble with many of these things like I have, but like I have in my past, simply stuffed them back under a bushel to run back to the fluffy god who loves. Or maybe some have come up with legitimate answers to these questions I simply haven’t heard yet. I’m all ears in the comments section or in email (ilostmyprayerhanky at gmail dot com).
Occam’s Razor– I started applying this pretty wildly a few years back. When I’m sick, I used to pray and take pills. Now I just take pills. When I was having trouble in my marriage, I could say myself, sin, and Satan were brewing the perfect storm; I would pray and talk with others on how to solve my problems. Then I just focused on my own problems I brought into marriage, without any reference to sin or Satan, and the problems evaporated. Yes there are still arguments, but they’re constructive and healthy. God and anything metaphysical just seem so irrelevant to my life, because when I concentrated on the concrete, results occurred that were controllable, predictable, and concrete.
Historicity of Bible and Jesus– suffice it to say, I have trouble with their historicity. I’ll provide examples if desired.
God’s absence– I wrote about this earlier, but I’ll mention it again. Things would be a lot clearer if god did his own speaking, rather than letting everyone else have mere opinions on what they think she means. Instead of liberal and conservative views, theist and atheist views, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, or Baha’I views, cataphatic or apophatic views, we would actually have god’s view on abortion, capitalism, Marxism, politics, essentialism, and anything we wished to ask him if she had the time. But instead the teacher leaves the kids to run unattended on the playground with complete freedom to annihilate themselves or grow morally.
I share many of the questions listed in the comments section of one of the Evangelical blogs I follow here.

So I sing along with a worship CD and enjoy myself. Should I take that away? Is it a healthy reprieve from my questions? Or a temporary lapse in judgment? Are the good feelings associated with worship music something to maintain or to disrobe? For my own happiness, contentment, and comfort I’d rather keep the good feelings. But in this case, is my happiness, contentment, and comfort the right thing? Is the right thing, rather, going through the grief process of an old system, and then moving on with life? I invite your responses, friends, foes, and strangers alike. One thing I do believe is that I don’t have all the answers and that many people’s experiences can enrich my own if I give them a platform.

Tag: worship

Worship and extreme doubt