February 11 th, 2020 – In Which Soren Ponders Elements of Corporate and Individual Worship
“But the Lord is in his holy Temple;
the Lord still rules from heaven.
He watches everyone closely,
examining every person on earth.” -Psalm 11:4
This Psalm is a chronicle of yet another one of David’s misadventures. Written sometime after he was king and there was another group wanting to murder him. This Psalm is written as a reaction of David after being told that he should flee to the mountains to preserve his life. David seems to react to being told to flee by saying that the Ark of the Covenant is right there in the city, not out in the wilderness. I assume part of the reason David did not want to flee was that the Ark was in his capital city and did not want to flee and leave both unprotected.
Trying to make sense of this, I do understand why people would be upset about a threat to the physical embodiment of their faith. It is not the exact same concept in Christian thought, but I do think there is something important about having a designated sacred place for experiencing God through prayer, meditation, and study.
Growing in faith we find the things we started with may not fit a well as they once did, and we may find the need to incorporate other aspects. It took having about a decade of living and working within the Southern Baptist realm to realize that I need more to live than the political anarchism and being anti-liturgical for their own sake.
That journey took me through examining Catholicism, my SBC roots, experimenting with various types of prayer, and accidentally landing in an offshoot of Lutheranism. What I have found has more meaning because of having gone through the adventure of finding it. Yet, it is not something I feel a need to prove over a contest of wills and anger. A person who needs to be right more than others need to be safe is someone with terrible priorities and does not need to allow a leadership role.
There is something wonderful about God’s love and existence not being dependent on me. God’s capacity for love and grace is not limited by humanity. And that is enhanced by being part of a community that is liturgical but in a way that encourages people to follow their convictions on how to properly observe the sacraments.
Religion is our corporate worship and needs to be involved in a community. Spirituality is our own personal connection to the divine that is exercised through spiritual disciplines. Each human needs both, however, our separate needs vary from person to person.
It’s so important to find a community that inspires you to be your best self, to be honest, but to be encouraged to grow. When we have that it is so special. It took me over a decade of searching between my first and second groups, but man it was worth the struggle.
This spiritual journey, this stumbling from place to place…I could have never plotted such a wonderful and reckless course on my own. The pain, the tears, the hope, the prayer, the wonder, the mystery…it has all been worth every ounce of rejection and moment of physical illness.
Somehow the divine and the temporal meet in a way that is mysterious. Love and faith are mysteries on a level with the Eucharist.
I wish I had words, but sometimes the best worship is silence.
