Electric Heart

I'm just getting home from Wicker Park Grace. We had a taize service tonight. It's my second favorite service, I think, just behind jazz vespers. Taize worship was born out of the Taize community in France. It usually involves singing a few verses in repetition as a way of spiritual...uh, engagement. I'm not long on words tonight so I'll let you discover for yourself what it sounds like. It's the music that seems to get me, but in a good way.

I was just listening to Generosity by Mirah. I wish I could find a way to play it here. You can listen to it here, though. It's the first track.

Lately I'm keeping my small notebook in my lap during church. I wrote a lot tonight. I don't feel the need to write expansively in my notebook since it's just for me, but I often challenge myself to do so, just as a practice. I figure it's good for my brain and I want to drop the chances that I will just be all drooly at 90.

I'm not going to write here all that I wrote. Can you imagine if we shared with (a small chunk of) the world all we bothered to jot down? I guess that's the stuff we reserve for those closest to us. Close community and lovers, sometimes family.

1. I'm starting to understand and feel a bit better a genuine Christianity that doesn't rely on atonement theology. Genuine, as in something that has roots and can stick, something that is real and isn't just a pleasant belief system to make us feel good about pain. Part of this expanded sense of Christianity is through my fellowship with the Beatitudes Society, which asks our participation in testing out a curriculum for future fellows. More importantly, the fellowship and Society try to get "progressive" Christian leaders to be more articulate and vocal about their Christianity. (More on this later. Much more, I think. Also, I can't say "'progressive' Christianity" without making little quotation marks in the air with my fingers. I don't have many compulsions, but that is one of them.)

2. My church isn't perfect. I come there for spiritual... opening and to see a chunk of my community, including some of the people who know me best and who honor me with their friendships and presence.

This is important. That place is important.

Parts of me that go into a coma during the school year get to awaken in this spiritual community. I don't have spiritual community at school, though it is full of spiritual people, so I am going to get all that I can this summer while I am in Chicago.

3. We probably get to find God through relationship with other humans. (We may get it some in nature.) Shitty as it might be, it's also one of the greatest things we can figure out; that is, how to relate well to people. We have to deal with this and learn it so that when we are confronted by relationships that seem to matter on a deeper level, we don't freak (or freak-the-fuck-out, as my minister friends like to say) out. This crap isn't easy.

4. I'm thinking about vulnerability some these days. Over the years, we've all had a spectrum of messages about being vulnerable to others. We don't get to be known, er, we don't let others know us unless we make ourselves vulnerable. But we don't get hurt if we don't let ourselves be vulnerable.

There is a good chunk of society that is deeply afraid of being hurt. Some people get this sudden awareness of when they are becoming vulnerable and they fight it. So, we have all sorts of defenses that arrive in a second, many that may not even seem like what they really are. Some time our defenses are attacks.

Maybe, as a starting point, we can just try not to hurt each other, and see where we go from there. I don't know what the answer is. There will be hurt that occurs regardless of others' intents, but we could probably do each other a favor by reducing the chances that we hurt another. No games?

What do you think?

5. I'd like to make music again.

Here's some food for thought. Yes, I know it's Psychology Today. It's fine. "Testing your illusions of certainty about your emotions is the key to happiness, better relationships, healing, and growth." Well ain't that simple.