It’s that time of year again. The master’s students have handed in their dissertations and the PhD students (who have no clear deadlines) haven’t handed in theirs. People I’ve grown to love are leaving one by one. There’s always Facebook I guess. Liquid Love. I don’t know whether to state boldly that I’ve gotten very good at this and that I’m looking forward to the next couple of months in Durham or whether to say that I'll never get good at goodbye. I feel like Kristin Scott Thomas in the final scene of the Horse Whisperer.
I may not be able to write here very often in the next couple of weeks: I’ve got to get broadband set up in the new place. Anyway, I was running out of steam. I’m feeling really challenged churchwise and I’ll spare you all the further coffee dates in which I get told not to worry about discipleship, that my smile might be “lifting someone’s cross off their back” or some other stupid nonsense. Geez, I should compile a book about the crap sentimentality people pass off for Christianity: that would help humanity I’m sure! Let’s get that out in print, for everyone to reflect upon.
I just can’t believe how comfortable and chummy we’ve become with God. I feel like crying out with Ibsen: “Your God is an old man whom you cheat!”, but mostly, it’s not just God that’s getting cheated, it’s us, and that’s why Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor is such a stunning piece of literature. I could learn it by heart, I could speak it out on the streets: Of course we love our Pop Jesus, but we’re being placated by this stupid religious practice, our spirits are maimed, vanishing into irrelevance and we never got a drop of the freedom Jesus was talking about, we haven’t got a spine, we are not new creations. We’ll just discuss Simon of Cyrene over a cup of freaking coffee. Good thing I usually manage not to throw my cup against the wall.
John, a Benedictine monk, once asked about my weird relationship to Church. The best analogy I found was that of domestic cats and wild cats. I’m a wild cat, overly cautious and wary, who usually stays out in the woods but who might come out to eat once in a while when it’s been starving for too long on its own. That’s before it gets all crazed up again.
It’s been the same pattern for years. I’m not a Church-going Christian because I hate church and I’m incapable of attending this respectable social club for very long. I also don’t want show up at the Lord’s table unless He’s got my undivided goodwill. I think that anything else is unworthy of God. I can't help it. So I’ll stay in the wild, trying to work out what reconciliation looks like.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift”. Makes sense. But that means I’m staying clear of the church building more often than not. How do other people work this tension out?
I may not be able to write here very often in the next couple of weeks: I’ve got to get broadband set up in the new place. Anyway, I was running out of steam. I’m feeling really challenged churchwise and I’ll spare you all the further coffee dates in which I get told not to worry about discipleship, that my smile might be “lifting someone’s cross off their back” or some other stupid nonsense. Geez, I should compile a book about the crap sentimentality people pass off for Christianity: that would help humanity I’m sure! Let’s get that out in print, for everyone to reflect upon.
I just can’t believe how comfortable and chummy we’ve become with God. I feel like crying out with Ibsen: “Your God is an old man whom you cheat!”, but mostly, it’s not just God that’s getting cheated, it’s us, and that’s why Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor is such a stunning piece of literature. I could learn it by heart, I could speak it out on the streets: Of course we love our Pop Jesus, but we’re being placated by this stupid religious practice, our spirits are maimed, vanishing into irrelevance and we never got a drop of the freedom Jesus was talking about, we haven’t got a spine, we are not new creations. We’ll just discuss Simon of Cyrene over a cup of freaking coffee. Good thing I usually manage not to throw my cup against the wall.
John, a Benedictine monk, once asked about my weird relationship to Church. The best analogy I found was that of domestic cats and wild cats. I’m a wild cat, overly cautious and wary, who usually stays out in the woods but who might come out to eat once in a while when it’s been starving for too long on its own. That’s before it gets all crazed up again.
It’s been the same pattern for years. I’m not a Church-going Christian because I hate church and I’m incapable of attending this respectable social club for very long. I also don’t want show up at the Lord’s table unless He’s got my undivided goodwill. I think that anything else is unworthy of God. I can't help it. So I’ll stay in the wild, trying to work out what reconciliation looks like.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift”. Makes sense. But that means I’m staying clear of the church building more often than not. How do other people work this tension out?
Drawing by Rembrandt, click for larger picture.
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