When I first encountered the Episcopal church, I was fascinated by the structures and rituals by which ordinary people could order their lives. Brought up on the fringes of the Kirk, I had never even seen anyone kneel to pray in church - in fact, it was rare for anyone other than the minister to utter a word during the service unless in singing hymns. So when I became an active Episcopalian, I welcomed Lent as another opportunity to express my commitment - but to what? To God? Or to the church I had recently found?
Now I find I don't think about Lent in quite the same way. What I have done is spend time considering the relationship between the church and its teaching and the God we profess. And I find myself drawn to the idea that the whole structure has grown out of the difficulty of containing and expressing something too big for any of us to cope with. Perhaps all we can do, in Lent or at any other time, is stand in wonder and stop pretending we know anything.
But you don't make converts that way, do you?
You don't make converts; God does that through you surely.
ReplyDeleteWho's to say that standing in wonder doesn't catch some folks.
"What I have done is spend time considering the relationship between the church and its teaching and the God we profess."
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder if there is a relationship. Isn't that awful to say, but at times I feel that the (Episcopal)church completely excludes me, while I never feel that God excludes me. The church here in Alabama does not treat me or my relationship as it does others.
You know I am a student of science and the more I learn the more I stand, no, the more I exist, in wonder. And "in wonder" is a wonderful thing.
yes, I don't like the word 'convert' much -but if it's to convert self and others to continuing wonde4r, then I'm in!
ReplyDelete