The Flatulating Church

In Leonard Sweet's new book he conveys this little story:

"a distinguished older gentleman rose rather decorously. I later found out everyone knew him as a respected medical doctor who was the head deacon in the church that hosted the event. His comment was in perfect English. When the wind blows through the church, he noted, and the church is narrow, it makes a weird sound. From his view, the narrower the church gets and the stronger the wind blows, the more the church can be heard fighting the Spirit, and the sound the church makes when it’s fighting the Spirit sounds like the church is farting. He then sat down."

In all the work that we do in the Church to define with great specificity what we believe (and what we don't), what is orthodox (and what is not), what differentiates the denominations, dividing over LGBT issues, and drawing lines of who is in and who is out - could this all just be an exercise of narrowing the Church. And as the Church narrows, the stronger the wind blows. And the stronger the wind blows the louder the, um, noise? 

Light switches and spirituality

He is 17 months old and deeply fascinated with light switches. His name is Evan and he is my youngest son and like other children, Evan is learning about the world through repetition. Performing the same action over and over. 

And over and over and over and over and over. Ad nauseum. 

Evan will walk up to me with his little arms stretched out displaying the universal signal understood by all people everywhere: "Pick me up." Then, using a series of grunts and finger signals, we walk over to the nearest light switch. With his eyes wide and big smile Evan proceeds to flip the light switch up and down each time looking for which lights turn on and which ones turn off.

This exercise brings him joy like few other activities. Which is unfortunate for my arms because I have the load carrying capacity of a table waiter on their first day. But I stand there for as long as I can to watch something beautiful in the eyes of my boy: his first spiritual practice. 

Spiritual practices are those things that humans embark on that brings a sense of wonder in the life of the practitioner. And there may be nothing more wonder-inducing to a child than pondering how it is that a switch is connected to the light. You can see that the more Evan flips the switch the greater his fascination. The greater the sense of wonder. The greater understanding that his small actions are connected to something beyond himself. The greater the awareness that he and the light are somehow intertwined. And, paradoxically, the more he practices this the more he wants to continue to practice it.

Evan is not at that stage where we adults tend to remain where if we do not understand what we are doing and how it all "works" then we will not continue to practice. On the contrary, it is the sense of not-knowing that drives Evan to practice even more. 

He may not understand electricity or currents or breakers or switches, but he is beginning to understand that there is great joy in just practicing turning the Light on. 

Golden Record shot into space and the Bible

It may still be in the collective memory that back in 1977 there was a golden record shot into space. Known as the Voyager Golden Record, it contains sounds and images of life here on Earth. It has words of greetings in all sorts of languages as well as images of an X-rayed hand to a woman at a supermarket (here is a list of the contents of the record).

Do you use a record player or a laser disk to read this thing?

This is a beautiful and humbling project taken on by many people and curated by a few people before it was "officially created". There was controversy to be sure of what was included and what was not included. There is only so much space on a record made of gold and only some things just did not make the cut even if they were considered by people to be worthy. And while the prospect of this record being found and played by creatures beyond earth is slim to none, it does not take away from the beauty of the project. 

This project was dedicated to try to express deep truths about life here on Earth. It tried, through image and song and language and poetry, to give a glimpse into what we believe at that moment in time to be "timeless". It tried to express something to future and different generations about what we think will be universal and beautiful and enduring. It was not a perfect project. It has faults. For instance, the fact this whole project is one a gold record exposes the cultural surroundings of the contents. Or the fact this was deeply influenced by Americans contextualizes the contents of the record. This record has its own biases and limitations. And although not exactly the same, this golden record is similar to the Bible.

Located in different times and cultures the scriptures have their own biases and faults. They are human products that try to express the the deep Truths of God through poem, prose and song. Many people contributed to the creation of the canon but it was curated by a smaller number of people. And there are stories and texts that just did not make the cut for one reason or another. The scriptures try to express what it means to be in right relationship with God and neighbor and self and it tries to tell the story of God. It has faults (Methodists do not believe the Bible is infallible) and it has quirks (like when she-bears maul some boys who mock a prophet of God).

For all it's failings it is the best artifact that I know of that can guide one to know God in Christ through the Spirit. (To be clear the Bible is not the Word of God, but the word of God.)

One can imagine that if we were to create another "golden record" tomorrow, we would have similar aspects to the original. However, one could imagine that we would even brand new aspects of what it means to be human on planet Earth. Just because we have a canonized Bible does not mean that we have learned everything there is to know about God, the nature of reality and what it means to live in right relationship.

So as we move into this Pentecost season may we continue to be open to what the Holy Spirit has to remind, show and expose us to about this beautiful loving creator we call God.