Finding Momentum

Whoa, okay, here it is again, stronger than I remem­ber it being.

EVERYTHING SOUNDS LIKE RELIGION. Or, at least it makes a very close rhyme.

Why did fol­low­ing Christ have to get tan­gled and mixed up with all this junk? With a polit­i­cal party, with hyp­o­crit­i­cal media images, with cheesy tel­e­van­ge­lists, with West­ern pow­er­mon­gers? Why does fol­low­ing Christ make me con­scious of appear­ing like a finger-pointer, lie-speaker, law-enforcer, Bible-thumper?

And what the heck do I do? Do I react against these stereo­types and try to act & dress hip, lis­ten to cool music, try to prove to (who?)somebody that Jesus is, on the con­trary, a rock­star enviro-conscious Demo­c­rat who loves you, and respects your reli­gions but dood you don’t have to accept him, it’s all good.

Reli­gion: I feel this way the most at fel­low­ship and church. I bite my tongue when I see one of my broth­ers talk down to another (but hides it in high­fa­lutin’ spir­i­tual lan­guage). I get this way when Chris­tians get in a tiff argu­ing over minor doc­tri­nal issues. I get it when pride rears its ugly head. Man, I’m more bit­ter than I thought. Help me God.

Am I naive to believe that inti­macy with God is the source of Life? That inspires a per­sonal response of holi­ness, grat­i­tude and wor­ship? That pushes us onward and out­ward to pur­sue social jus­tice and mercy causes, that starves hypocrisy and births love love love?

And I know that all this bit­ter­ness is already tak­ing me down the wrong road???I’m mak­ing this big blan­ket state­ment: Don’t tell me what to do! And I’m already in dan­ger of brush­ing off encour­ag­ing words and Godly advice and dis­cern­ment from gen­uine friends and author­ity figures.

ARGH! I want the real thing, I want Youy­ouyou and NOTHING else. I want it to be so real it’s unde­ni­able to every­body else. From lec­ture halls to bath­room stalls (!). I want to strip all this junk away and get to the core of this won­der­ful­strange­mys­te­ri­ous relationship.

This desire???it pounds in my heart it dries my mouth it waters my eyes???to dwell wholly and fully in You.