I was reading something yesterday which touched upon a few (of many) “Christianese” statements, and in particular as it related to Resurrection Sunday.
“Hang on, Sunday’s comin'” does have merit and communicates a truth about this already but not yet kingdom we live in.
As a slogan, this reminds Jesus-followers that death, destruction and the works of the devil do not have the final word. Nevertheless, even yesterday as I joined with countless siblings in Christ in celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, at the same time, I needed to also remember “Hang On, Monday’s Comin’ ” too.
By this I mean I had to brace myself and remind myself that the fact that “Sunday came” (Resurrection and Celebration of Final Victory) doesn’t wipe away entirely the reality that we celebrate a yearly observance. And, part of that cycle means the resuming of “Mondays” that are battle-filled.
Yesterday I visited a church for the first time and one scripture I took note of was “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” – Colossians 2:15
I thought about this truth as it regards certain battles I face, and I pondered what that actually meant in the natural realm since we are also told we are still “at war” in the spiritual realm in other scriptures. Sometimes, reconciling seemingly contradictory biblical truths can be challenging.
Since I need to find and be sure of where I belong in terms of local faith community, and being simply a “visitor,” I took note of many things.
The first thing I took note of was the lighting in the assembly (worship) room. I had thoughts about that which are based in past experiences, and personal preference and opinion. I suppose the creation of intentional lighting in a sanctuary is not a new thing. Stained glass pre-dates electricity. But I must say, that for various reasons, the utilization of lighting controls (to include colored lights) in a worship service gives me immediate pause.
However, I kept my heart and mind (and eyes and ears) open.
The next thing I took note of was the time of musical prelude. In some churches, we hear organs, piano or otherwise as the believers are coming into the assembly and preparing to worship. In some traditions, there is an absence of any musical prelude (especially in traditions that rely only upon beautiful acapella worship and simply the human voice).
This faith community clearly showed excellence in musical expression and the “prelude” included an instrumental jazz ensemble rendition of “Crown Him With Many Crowns” which was quite pleasing and joyful to my ear. I believe there were 3-4 brass instrument players and I identified what was likely a saxophone or related (bass?) instrument and others I didn’t know.
The next thing I took note of was that a younger woman I recently met in another context found me sitting there and immediately gave me a warm hug and said, “I’m glad you could make it!” She had her young son with her and he had a little cardboard box that said “live animals” with him. I immediately took note of that and she said something about little ducks (maybe they had been in Sunday School) and that he was taking them home.
I took note of the triggering of aching sorrow as I continued to watch this young family and their two sweet boys. They all sat next to me and I kept stealing glances (and smiling inside and otherwise) down at the young boy cradling a little baby duckling in his hand during the worship service, and later, the older son resting his head on the father’s lap and having his hair stroked, as the service continued.
I took note of bittersweet memories of my own two sons at that age (with contemplation of their current relationships with Jesus and with church), and how similar in feel (other than the generally darkened sanctuary with front stage lighting) that this sanctuary and congregational feel felt to me to churches I had been at so long ago with my own sons.
I took note of how different my stolen glances/observations of this young father and couple differed from that which I recall was at play when it had been my turn to be in my late 30’s/early 40’s and had “my family” intact…
I took note that this time in my life was long past, and my current family situation is riddled with many forms of pain, despair, hopelessness and the need for ongoing prayer and spiritual warfare. I took note of my constant feelings of loss which now permeate so much, and I took note of my inability currently to achieve the things that would give me the basis for any semblance of future hope for restoration in any meaningful way.
I took note of how incomprehensible the entirety (sum total) of my situation likely seems to many people that I’ve known over the years, and especially, that I have just met.
Even on the drive back home from my older son’s house last night, I was thinking about this. I was taking note that if I was yet in my 30’s/40’s and in that season of life–raising my sons and homeschooling–that I could totally imagine more easily connecting not only in that faith community but in general.
Maybe.
I took note of the sorrow I felt at many thoughts–including a difficult turn of events that occurred in my family situation this past Friday night. At the end of the service, this new Christian woman acquaintance who had actually been at my home here Thursday evening with her husband and sons, and were holding the baby lamb, spent some time talking with me among the noisy chatter that happens at the close of worship services where people in faith families personally connect.
Her sister came up and I was introduced as being the “woman with the baby lamb” that her nephews had gotten to play with. After the sister went off and I was still talking with the woman, I asked whether this congregation had life groups in homes. I start to think that maybe that is what I need, since life groups in homes were often so integral to my feeling of connection.
There’s something very different to me connection wise in home groups that is not replicated in small groups that meet in the building itself. We were discussing this, and I mentioned quite briefly the two integral “issues” I am dealing with in the battlefront of my life and family situation.
When I asked her if she knew much about the first “topical issue” she indicated she did not know in depth, but, seemed cognizant of the issue. The second issue, she readily understood as being a serious issue spiritually and quickly encouraged me to “keep praying.” Her quick response indicated she had an understanding that this “thing” was in fact a kind of “foe” to contend with.
I took note that this was a good initial base of connection.
Later, on my drive home from my son’s house last night, I took note of my own thoughts about what I said to her: “It is hard to come into a congregation and have ‘these kind of issues’ at the forefront of one’s immediate, personal battles.”
I take note of how foreign these battles are to many believers that have not been touched by the numerous and ongoing very real harms that the “transgender religion” and “neo-pagan occult influence and practices” by immediate family members inflicts.
I take note of how cut off I feel in this regard. I take note of how easily I can feel misunderstood in faith families as somehow being “weak” or “misguided” simply because others may not fully understand the nature of the unusual spiritual battles I am waging in my personal life/family.
I take note of how believing communities–even this one–might think they can offer some form of spiritual assistance, yet my ongoing feeling of being deeply alone in terms of local faith community. When I had inquired about life groups at this community, I learned they do have bible studies at the building, as does another local faith family I had tried to connect with.
I took note that I should continue visiting other churches, but, felt that I would likely come there again at some point.
She also mentioned they have 24/7 counseling services where anyone can call and talk with someone! That was quite an interesting and unique ministry in this faith family.
I took note of how good of a thing that might be for some people, but that I didn’t think it would really help me. But it was interesting that it was mentioned, among other things this community brings to the table in terms of bearing one another’s burdens.
I took note of my imagined expending of emotional, spiritual and psychological capital that would require of me to bring any active listener up to speed, so to speak, of the battle details. I have been in a chronic and protracted personal crisis on so many fronts for so long. What I need is consistent, supportive relationships. I need “normalcy” and that seems to elude me still, after over five years into my “post (2nd) divorce recovery.”
I took note of how my closer support realm of about 10-15 various believers who have truly known me (and many, have also known my sons) in some deeper manner during the past forty-five+ years are so currently spread out in other geographies. This motley crew of spiritual faith-family friends would be far more likely for me to reach out to with personal needs, than a 24/7 counseling line of a local church. I say that with no disrespect, simply taking note of what I know I most need.
I continue to take note of how daunting and incomprehensible my personal battles on multiple fronts actually are, even to the most deeply-seasoned, deeply-rooted collection of my lifelong siblings in Christ.
On my drive back from my oldest son’s house last night, I took note of a recurring thought I sometimes have when it comes to finding a faith community where I truly belong. And that is, the impediment I feel as a single, twice-divorced woman pretty much having to restart life in a whole new geographic location.
I took note of the differences in how I related to a faith family during each of my two marriages–even amidst marital difficulties. There truly is a different dynamic when marital partners enter and leave a worship assembly/service together. I believe there is a kind of buffering that in the ideal sense exists because “two are truly better than one” and in being alone. (Ecclesiastes 4…)
I took note that sometimes, as I’ve explored new church communities, I remotely wonder if I ever would find a suitable partner for a third marriage. I am not actively seeking that and in fact, more actively resisting that consideration. This is due to my perceived reality of my situation, and my own thoughts about the matter and what I believe God now wants of me. It all seems so incompatible with anything else but trying to survive on my own now and to pursue restoration.
I take note of the icky mire and subtexts in various other interactions in local faith communities during different times here in PA during the past five years, which leads me to bigger conversations in my head about my spiritual predicament here, generally.
Let me get back to some things I took note of two weeks ago when I visited yet another congregation that is quite close to me. I took note that upon immediately entering the sanctuary, I sensed a perceived presence of the Holy Spirit in a way that felt like it had in other church settings long ago. I took note that even though this congregation was much closer to me, I was still at least ten minutes late and they had already begun.
I take note that some might judge me that I cannot be on time to a service. I take note in my head that they may not realize just how overwhelming my life is, and, that if one doesn’t have a partner like my 2nd husband had been who was more time-oriented, or, like in my first marriage with young children (we often were late, too) that the incentive to be punctual to a service becomes more challenging to me.
I take note that the sermon from that church resonated with me, but also, they are searching for a new minister. I also took note that one of the worship songs there comes out of a current church movement I have valid reasons to be on guard about, theologically.
Yesterday, I took note that I really enjoyed the vibrant Easter service worship. And generally, I took note that there wasn’t anything “in my face” offbase biblically in what was sung, spoken or otherwise. Yet…truly I do deeply know that all churches are full of imperfect people, with their own slip-ups and otherwise.
I took note of the approach to teaching/sermon formation by this Pastor. Did he start with scripture or with topics? Was it a collection of prooftexts or exegetical? Of course, an Easter message is inherently atypical, I am guessing. All in all, there wasn’t anything I took note of that was an immediate red flag.
I took note that I also am unsure how to “weight” the various components of any faith family. There are always trade-offs.
I did take note of the pace of delivery which was quite animated. In terms of preference, I often prefer a slower-paced pattern of delivery. I take note that I am very quick-paced in my own thoughts and speech at times, and sometimes I just receive more from someone who is a little different–calmer and more logical, methodic.
As I write this, I take note that someone could say, “Oh, but that is making something about you and what you hope to receive…”
I take note of how exhausting it can feel when many of our most basic needs for unconditional love, care and a number of other things have gone unmet for so very long and how that looks especially in the context of not one but two divorces. I take note of how it feels at times that even a local church family might be a potential new arena of exhausting hoops to jump, and still with the same outcome of unmet personal needs and not feeling known, understood or that I truly belong and am able to fully connect. While ultimately it is God who meets our deepest needs, He often does this in the context of our “sibling” relationships in local faith families.
I take note of that superficially, how selfish that might sound.
I take note that it would be easy for yet more Christianese to be hurled at me by those reading the above paragraphs. Things such as “Give it to God” and “Let Go and Let God” and much else…all these statements bearing a truth, but not the whole truth.
I take note that yesterday, in the Pastor’s introduction, he was rightly jubilant (it was Easter!) and made the comment that we were there to celebrate, and that is one reason their church contained that word as part of their name, and that “no one would come” if the church was named (for counter example) “Sorrow Community Church.”
I took note that when he said this, my mind and soul experienced that immediate “ping ping ping” that is like a pinball machine released, a trigger of some sort.
I took note that I ruminated that actually, I might just be the kind of person who would attend or visit a church with that exact name. I take note that I think and overthink things. What does it say about me that I might be the kind of person to theoretically gravitate toward a church named “Sorrow Community Church.”
I don’t know. Well, I do know.
Sunday came…and I was among a wonderful, refreshing and different vibrant worship and praise assembly (I remember thinking of the verse, “there are shouts of VICTORY in the tents of the righteous”) but now, for me at least, Monday is here.
Monday is here with the same weights and burdens and sorrows. In the Episcopal tradition, “ordinary” time is anything in our church seasonal calendar that is not “special” time (such as Advent/Christmas/Lent/Easter).
Since we live in the already but not yet kingdom, based upon the teachings of scripture, I could easily make a case that sorrow (rather than joy) and tribulations/sufferings are in fact the “norm” for the followers of Jesus, in this world.
“He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
Just for starters.
On the drive to my son’s yesterday afternoon, I put on the service from my faith family in Newark, Delaware. I take note that while I’ve spent a significant time in my Christian journey in faith families that resembled more what I attended here locally yesterday, that the one faith family I also connected with on and off since 1981 (Newark Church of Christ) truly has a feel of family to me.
As long as there are elderly members there who remember me as a young 17-year-old teenage girl who somehow showed up on their doorstep asking for an after-school job in their daycare, I know that it doesn’t matter if I now (all these years later) show up there once every few months, twice a year or whatever, I will be greeted and received and loved and welcomed as one who somehow still belongs there.
This belonging surpasses any set of theological leanings.
I take note that yesterday, the person who spoke in that service delivered a message that resonated with me for a number of reasons. He warned that it would be intense, and involve sorrow and death. Interesting. An Easter message that named and outlined a number of weights that members and we as humans carry.
At one point, the speaker was mentioning Anne of Green Gables and that “joy is a pleasant ache.” This morning I was straining to recall this phrase he used, and looked it up. Of course, the internet tells us it might be from more than one source.
“The phrase “joy is a pleasant ache” is often associated with Anne of Green Gables and is a recurring theme in L.M. Montgomery’s books. It suggests that true joy, while exhilarating, can also have a lingering, bittersweet feeling that lasts beyond the immediate happiness. This idea is explored through Anne’s experiences and reflections on life’s joys and sorrows.”
“C.S. Lewis described joy as “a pleasant ache,” emphasizing that true joy isn’t just pleasure, but a longing, an unsatisfied desire that is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. This “ache” is a powerful, spiritual yearning, often described as a “sharp, wonderful stab of longing,” that points to something beyond the earthly realm.”
I take note that on this Monday, I intellectually ponder “joy” and know that in the midst of my ongoing sufferings, I also experience moments/times of joy as well as peace that surpasses my understanding of things. I also take note that I experience a stinging, piercing numbness at the same time arising from the situation on Friday evening, as well as the collective other things that are exhausting and depleting my sense of endurance and hopefulness.
In other words, that “joy” might be a “pleasant ache” is worth taking note of, but in a sense and at the moment in my world, a somewhat moot point.
My drive home from my son’s last night and my thoughts on that hour long ride involved so many bittersweet forms of “pleasant aches” as well as seemingly endless painful sorrows.
I take note of many things.
Including, the consistent intense fear I experience every single morning upon waking, that I must fight through before my day starts in earnest here. I take note of the plethora of scriptures or Christianese statements that might be quoted to me regarding this phenomenon that might bring into question me and my relationship with Christ. To have this level of fear, sorrow and a form of (passing) despair morning by morning for going on well over 6 to 10 to even 20 years or more now (it ebbs and flows depending on what is happening) just isn’t “normal” I might hear echo in my mind…from other “voices” of siblings in Christ…
It is like a never-ending D-Day for me…trying to get past the hedgehogs of fear and exhaustion that hits me in the approaching “boats” of wakefulness as I see the beach and shore of my daylight…I am sometimes just literally aching in my stomach with anxiety and fears of all sorts upon waking. I must ground myself with God and in my own self before I can bring myself to put my feet on the floor….
How long, O Lord?
What will be the outcome of all these battles?
I am battle weary, yet, I have no choice but to endure. And now, yet another resuming of a particular battle has reared its ugly head in my world Friday night.
I take note that people who are suffering in various ways can sometimes almost lose track of what day it is…so to speak.
Is it “Sunday” or, is it “Monday?”
Is today a day of shouts of victory, or the resumption (wow…that’s a word…the spell checker let me use…) of the sorrows and weights that “Monday” represents?
There is scripture…there is Christianese…and then…there is just forms of “motivational” speaking such as FDR that famously said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
I take note that it is now 1 pm, and I still feel that I need to tackle some very important communications with some other individuals, because that is what God is calling me to do, on this Monday. I take note of how many other tasks are before me…and how I have no choice but to cling to God in a variety of imperfect ways and diligently plug away and “hope for the best.”
I also take note that in yesterday’s local service, the same song/hymn was sung that was also sung in the acapella portion of the worship service I listened to from Newark yesterday. I take note of many, many things as I reflect here…
I will link the acapella version of “Because He Lives” (which was expressed quite differently in the other faith community with full and excellent instrumentation and leading vocals of a “praise band choir”) and will also take note that after leaving yesterday and pondering where I belong and for what reasons…and what I might trade off regardless of anywhere I connect…I thought of my love for the sound and messaging of worship such as this while at the same time inclined toward other worship expressions.
Because He Lives
Song by Bill & Gloria Gaither
God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!
How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he brings;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!
And then one day, I’ll cross the river,
I’ll fight life’s final war with pain;
And then, as death gives way to victory,
I’ll see the lights of glory and I’ll know He lives!
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!
This video is my older son and I on his piano last night. I take note of many things–thoughts, feelings, joys and sorrows–and mostly, I take note of my aging appearance and the slow changes even in the abilities of my hands…
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