Church and Odd Food
January 11th, 2009What Would Aslan Eat?
I just got back from church. My sister really likes late services, and we had lunch on the way home.
Interesting experience today. A preacher named Darrell Hines was speaking at Rich Wilkerson’s church, and my sister wanted to hear him. But soon after we got there, she started feeling the presence of God, and she was pretty much inert for the remainder of the sermon. Kept asking me if I felt it. When we got up at the end, she was barely coherent, and she kept talking about it all the way home. She kept asking why people were interested in the things of this world, when they could have God’s presence instead. That’s exactly how I always feel when it hits me.
I felt it today, too, but not to the same extent. At one point while she was in this state, she bumped my arm, and for a time after that, I felt pretty wobbly. Very strange.
She said she didn’t hear much of anything Darrell Hines said.
This is what I like about this church. The music is too loud, and the sermons are good, but not mind-blowing, but God sits on this place like smog on Los Angeles.
We stopped at an Arab restaurant and grocery on the way home. I made some buys. I got some mamoul cookies. These are butter cookies filled with dates. Made in Saudi Arabia. I did not realize I could buy a single cookie, so I got a box. They’re not bad at all. I also picked up some Turkish coffee. This is what they drink in Israel. It’s very finely ground, and the Israelis dump it in hot water like instant coffee. It leaves a layer of mud on the bottom of the cup. I bought it for nostalgic reasons. I also bought a box of Turkish delight. I had to try it. When I was in the first grade, my teacher Mrs. Schabacher read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my class, and ever since then, I have wondered what Turkish delight tasted like. It’s very good. I was surprised.
Some pastries somehow ended up in my shopping bag. Funny how that happens.
I think the presence of God is the missing ingredient that has caused American churches to become so weak, perverted, and worldly. A typical church is not much better than a Moose lodge or a YMCA. It’s no wonder no one wants to go. The supernatural is what fills pews. Without it, what is Christianity? Unrewarding self-denial, plus prayer and study that accomplish absolutely nothing. Wouldn’t you go to church if you knew you would sense God there? That’s a pretty big draw.
He’s still with us, if you’re willing to look for him.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:06 PM
Three people can find the supernatural in a barrel, if they want to. On the other hand, ten thousand screaming idiots chanting the name of God don’t get anywhere near him, and if you can only think of your next date or Nintendo or a bottle of booze while you’re in church, not much can reach you.
I’ve lived among amish for a brief time, and there’s an attitude that prayer is not something you do only in church or on your knees but how you live your life. It makes their lives closer to holiness than most people, and I’m pretty well convinced that they have a lot of it right. It’s difficult to be Godly if you live a life preoccupied by worldly things.
I’m not giving up my truck, you understand, but still.
Glad your sunday was good.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:51 PM
Yeah, the last few times I had occasion to be in a church, I noticed the building had the same atmosphere as a school building. I mean an every day public school. The services were like school assembly, only better behaved due to the higher adult-to-teen ratio. When empty, the building felt like the school did on those days when I’d go see my dad on teacher workday — the building mostly empty, just a few people kicking around. (Oddly enough not too many teachers seemed to show up on teacher workdays. Or else they finished work early and took off to the nearest bar.)
I didn’t much like school, so I saw no reason to go to more school on what I considered my days of rest. I suppose that’s bad of me. But if I wanted to sit in a building that smelled like a just-mopped-with-sour-bleach locker room and listen to someone drone on about being nice to people, I would go to school and take sociology. Then again I wonder — is my need for church to be “different” and “special” just another manifestation of the demand to be constantly entertained that our culture practices? Life isn’t all fun and games. C.S. Lewis said something about that in (I think) “Mere Christianity” when he was talking about not really approving of people going off to form their own churches of like-minded people. He was of the opinion that maybe the old English system of having a parish church that everyone went to was better — that way you didn’t start thinking church should be about what you wanted to experience and what sort of faces you should see in the pew next to you.
Gosh all this church talk. Next thing you know I’ll be going to church. If you hear about a church roof collapsing on a 45-year-old woman in Central Florida, that might be me. But they gotta have good music. ;P
January 15th, 2009 at 7:22 PM
“The supernatural is what fills pews. Without it, what is Christianity? Unrewarding self-denial, plus prayer and study that accomplish absolutely nothing. Wouldn’t you go to church if you knew you would sense God there?”
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I think MacBeth, the betrayer of Friends and Country says best what the absense of God feels like:
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Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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Sounds like a man who ‘seeks the refuge of the grave and denied’ it. But then, what is life without God?
January 15th, 2009 at 7:35 PM
“Three people can find the supernatural in a barrel, if they want to.”
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… if they want to.
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Og… those 4 words pretty well sums it up. Its that easy, isn’t it?
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Thats like something out of the movie ‘The Razors Edge’ where the main character is trying to find enlightenment on a mountain top, reading from a Wise-mans book and freezing his ass off. His answer? He lit the pages of the book on fire to keep warm and started laughing.
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… if they want to. Absolute Genius. Its THAT simple isn’t it?
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“I’ve lived among amish for a brief time, and there’s an attitude that prayer is not something you do only in church or on your knees but how you live your life.”
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Yea… bring your church with you.