A Visit to the Village: Part I
I have spoken of holy grief before -- the idea that there are some things in this life that one should not resign themselves to being quieted about. The sorrow over that gap between the way God intends the world to be, and the way things so often are, specifically as a result of our human free will used for walking away from it.
I was excited to write a post about my first visit of the village today, but I have become distracted, instead... I was foolish enough to go straight for the church and sit in its pews for rest, and yet my praying ears could not help but listen, oh... and it was the same news I have heard from churches across the land, speaking not of God, nor of Christ, nor of mission, nor mercy; but of comfort, habit, and familiarity. The Body, seemingly content to gather in His name without remembering His presence. A thousand soft denials... A thousand quiet desecrations.
And something in me flares, like it did when I was young. The anger I used to feel when others didn't rage at injustices I felt one should never let go of... it is back again. But it has changed. It is carried not on my own lonely shoulders but is a shared burden with God and prophets of old. The fire does not burn to destroy, but aches to redeem. I thought of my own minister, anon, worn down by administrative burdens. I wondered how much wisdom had sharpened him, and yet how much passion is sentenced to smolder under leaves thrown upon him by a system in place to serve the status quo rather than shake the foundations of our human powers and wills. I worry about what faithfulness looks like when it stops feeling like grief for the world, and becomes only endurance of inherited sin, bloated bureaucracy, and congregations that measure success by degree of personal comfort.
Would I last in this system? Would I ever begin to smile politely while watching the Temple gather dust? Not I... But maybe someone who looked like me in form alone... I... would be gone.
I want to be part of the solution.
There is a quiet voice in me that says: “This grief is part of communion. This sadness is not failure; it is fidelity. To feel this is to see God. To carry this is to walk beside Him. To resist numbness, is a kind of praise.”
I must sit with this a bit longer. I can't think clearly yet, let alone plan or act.
I will take my tea with honey, and tend my body. I will pray in silence, alone, back in the woods.
And when the time comes for me to speak... may the words carry both sorrow and light to ears that would hear, and hearts that would turn to you, O God. I am not perfect, I am not pure, and I would not make presumptions on divine will, but why are we all so wont stray so far from it?
