They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Well, Christmas morning my first step ended up with both hands in a cactus! Needing to get a little jump on my 06 resolution to lose 50 pounds, I was up early that morning jogging near my suegro's home in El Paso. Deciding to cut across an empty desert lot was the wrong idea. I crossed an arroyo, and as I climbed up the other side, tripped and fell right into several prickly pear cacti. Still pulling thorns from my hands...
Journeys are tough and painful, and anyone who says otherwise (to paraphrase Wesley--no not John or Charles, Wesley in "A Princess Bride") is selling something. 21st century Jesus-followers need to give up trying to explain life as some simple, easy jaunt. While always being worth the effort, it is often tough. Unexplained detours (or even ones explained by our own choices), trips and falls, spikes in the hand--these don't always make sense. At least not from our point of view. And they certainly aren't fair.
The world needs us to stop selling success and start living life. Life with all its bumps and bruises, joys and celebrations. Life is a journey. Take that first step...
3 comments:
so i dont get it. what's the first step?
To quote another movie from my top 6 list, the first step is "to get busy living, or get busy dying." Die to self, live for Christ. Or is that too Christian cliche? Or, maybe a better question, is that two steps?
Wow! Sooner should have started writing sooner! You've got so much good stuff there I'm not sure where to begin.
No doubts about the country club mentality that is in most churches (although I prefer the "ghetto" vocabulary). I did have a good friend who recently challenged my thoughts about Christianese, though. I've long thought that it is a language that we need to abandon. But Brad suggested that the language of Zion is a beautiful language, and has it's place, and he's right. Sin and redemption may be outdated words, and we do need to translate them to the world at large, but they are deep words, not easily replaced. Hymns of commitment I could do without.
As someone working for an institution of higher education in a Christian and Baptist context, I still have to agree with your assessment of the education you received at OU being better than at OBU. And this is a shame! All of the humanities--art, language, theology, etc--these should be the realm of those who worship the Creator. Unfortunately we've too often been engrossed with indoctrinating people in religious dogma instead of teaching them how to think and believe in their own relationship with God. Plus we want to protect our "clout" in USAmerican culture, returning to some mythical time when church and state were on the same page and the country was full of holy people. I agree--I believe it is time to abandon the fight to return a powerless god of all things American to cultural king, and instead time to abandon ourselves into the hands the God of all the world, of all creation, of all time, the One who judges all things and loves all people.
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