losin' my religion

no, this is not an homage to R.E.M. keep looking if that is what you're searching for. this is about the church. in 18 days it will be a full year since i left the bureacracy of the church. the control room of the monster as i've now come to know it. the thing is, i had the bureacracy of the church mixed up with the Body of Christ in my mind before this. nothing like stepping behind the scenes to see the little man pulling the strings. he is hard to ignore.

since then, i've been attending the methodist church, which has a thread of liturgy and custom in it. coming from a place where all i've known is nondenominational churches, the liturgy and routine of it all is probably something i could embrace.

deb tells me it is nice to have liturgy and prayers to pray, words to speak for these times when words fail, when comforts cease to comfort, when friends sit weeping beside us because none of us know what to say anymore.

liturgy. yes, if i could just figure out the magic formula to the little book of prayers deb lovingly sent to me, i could find some comfort there, but i am too thick to make the liturgical leap just yet, it seems.

today in church, as we sang to keith green, i could feel my soul begin to warm and soften again. it has been frozen in the belly of the earth for quite some time now, but i feel it quickening again in moments like these.

then, the hymns started.

i love hymns, don't get me wrong. but we are worshipping (or attempting to worship) to instrumental cds. the tin-y sounds of the techno hymns saps my worshipful posture every time. i closed the book and stood there. silent as the grave, once again.

seems, i'm losin' my religion. i've lost the comforts of religiosity. the works of man that make me feel saved. now i am just hanging on God's good favor. i am just hoping in His mercy. for without it, i am lost.

i keep hoping some spiritual director, like brennan manning would appear in my life, but apparently the student is not ready. for i am still sitting silent and alone at the feet of Christ. there is no room for religion there. there is only room for devotion. only room for relationship. only room for a child to revel in the doting Father's love.

my doting Father is not answering me or comforting me as i would like him to in these moments, but then i think of when my girl needs to learn the hard lessons and i must hold my comfort, stymie my rescuing for a moment, so she will understand what she needs to understand. i cannot explain it to her and expect her to reap the same benefits, she must go it "alone" but i hover in watchful silence, waiting for the moment when i will swoop in and gather her up like so many frightened bunnies and take her away to safety.

that is where i am at. the frightened child crying out for the doting Father to come and save me. religion will not serve here. it is empty and meaningless.

they say, devotional time is the first thing to go in hard times. and i am sad proof of that. but i have seen this time as a purging of what i mistook to be God. the purging of religion, man's shaky ladder to God. man's tower of babel to ascend the heights. there is no place for God in man's religion.

so when i say i've lost the comforts of religion, i mean, the artifical working out of my own salvation. the notching of my spiritual belt and the puffing up of my spiritual self to appear "godly."

this time is not void of God however. He has shown Himself faithful to me. in my darkness, in my confusion, He whispers,

I AM still here my child. I AM still here.

as i stand weeping, washing dishes. when i kneel, praying scrubbing toilets, He gently whispers,

I AM here my child. I AM here.

what do i need of religion then? it is void of that comforting presence of God for me. it is the manufacturing of so much goodness that i am sickened at the sight of it. but i know, there will come a day when God will call me to return to His beloved church and speak life. i am much like jonah, catching the first boat out of town at that word. half digested now, i am ready to return. ready to go where He bid me go. and speak.

i don't know what is beyond this place. i cannot see.

as karen blixen writes,

God made the earth round so we would not see too far ahead.

and

this is not what i expected to happen to me now.

nor i, karen. nor i.

i am losin' my religion, and finding God.