a time for everything... in this case - tear down

The first night, I almost cried. Hopefully it was only because it was a strange day and I had some emotions built up. The second day, my mind ached from satisfaction. It wasn’t from attempting to understand what was said either, it was because it made so much sense. Today, I had to take a deep breath because my heart began to beat faster than normal. This was not just from the chai; he was speaking directly to me.

One single idea shakes and excites my actual physical make-up. My life over the past year (and longer, but mostly just the past year) has brought me to a place where I’m ready for the breakdown – or should I say, deconstruction, like a good post-modernist. The ideas I’ve been wrestling with and mulling over in my mind are being fleshed out in these books. Could it be that I’ve been caught in a cultural tradition so strong and severe that even the thought of reacting against it is met with utter backlash and aversion from not only the populace, but from within myself as well. While at the same time, even my physical heart feels the freedom to which I have been called and the truth in dissecting the established, time-honored and revered myth.

What myth you ask… the myth that church is what we’ve made it. That it is so far from its godly origins that even a good post-modernist struggles with the thought of deconstructing the church and his place within it. Could it be that through years of distortion and disgrace, we have brought the church so far from its original intent and purpose that we have lost its original intensity and power? I feel it to my core that this is not only possible, but true. We have traded being for going, living for sitting, giving all for tithing some.

So what you ask? “I like my church. I enjoy the service. God gave us the church.” Good, great, grand. The people of Israel also wanted to go back to slavery, but God had so much more in store, about which they had no idea. The same is true of us. I feel it in my being. It shakes me. It rattles who I am. Who I can be. Who I am called to be. This initial bout with church is not a small matter, it sends a tremor down to my soul that I can not ignore. So, now what?

I’m learning… So bear with me… Maybe soon, we’ll have some answers…

(by the way, the title is a link to part of the preface of one of the books I’m reading – thanks Wolfgang)