Bundle of observations to begin 2013

:: Red Herring of Christmas?

Maybe it took over during the dark days of the Industrial Revolution to bring a little cheer to the masses, but whatever the motive and opportunity, somehow the main trajectory of Christianity to dwell on the Holy Week, death and resurrection has been overshadowed by the bright and shiny Christmas story. Of course the advent of God among his people (and attention to Epiphany, therefore) is important and necessary step that makes

possible the main story of public ministry and outcome. But surely the modern day conflation of the birth with ritual gift exchange is disproportionate to larger themes of Christian life and learning. How might the year look with a subdued or otherwise demoted celebration of Christmas? Isn’t it time to get back to the teaching/instruction of Jesus & the model he demonstrated in deeds? All the rest is distraction, dissipation or prone to temptation.

:: Time Presses DownCould it be an artifact of middle age to begin to see people, places and events as part of an expanded timeline, rather than as something contained and defined in the present moment alone? This wider consciousness includes some awareness of the contingent, temporary and uncertain nature of proceedings, too. So, for example, it occurred to me that the Sunday morning worship consists of a few paid participants leading the word and song. But that the attendance from one week to the next ebbs and flows according to willing people who otherwise are not obligated to be elsewhere. In other words, the communal experience of worship is dependent on the willing participation and appearance of all those who occupy the pews from one week tothe next; some weeks are full but others are somewhat sparse. And while it seems unlikely, still there is a possibility on a given week that schedules conflict for almost everyone, with the result that the benches sit practically empty, as one imagines of the huge houses of worship in Europe.

:: Dour Christians?What does a follower of The Christ look like in the course of daily life; in the arc of a lifetime? Popular portrayals including things like: selflessness, plain speaking and presentation-of-self, earnest and optimistic, but also more on the side of seriousness than on the side of levity? Is clear vision and dedicated action compatible with a light heart? Or must a True Believer embrace the lack of beauty and respect and go forward with a heart that is heavy; or at least is not light. One thinks of the images of a jolly friar, the vat quantities of abbey-brewed beer and wine, and the joy of balanced amounts of manual labor among parishioners and monks.

:: Revelation includes “shock and awe” rhythm and textureBut perhaps it is best to wrestle with these passages in the same way as any other pages in the Bible: to ask of the text what the message (upshot) is; ask how it helps us to understand the core of Christian thinking and action about drawing nearer to God in love, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. From that standpoint, Revelations means that God remains committed to his people (expanded to include more than Jews alone) andthat people should continue to love each other, even in trying times.

:: Balancing “Citizen” and “Pilgrim”Most of one’s waking week and lifetime is lived outside of the Word of God. The weekly worship service normally includes a few passages given as Liturgy. And some people do Bible study alone and with otherson a weekly basis, too. But still the majority of conscious time is spend outside The Word. How would it be the other way around, though? Imagine spending most of one’s  moment to moment awareness steeped in the stories, people and places of The Bible and only enter into concerns of The World once per week for an hour on Sunday mornings (or Friday night at parties, for instance)? Surely times would look very different under these reversed conditions.

:: Trend in communal worship services

The order of worship that each denomination follows probably stems from a time before the Protestant Reformation to the time before the East and West split occurred in the Catholic Church, and before that to the Order of Service at synagogue, since house churches of Primitive Christianity often began with Jews seeking the ways of Rabbi Jesus. So the language shifted from local languages of the house church to the official language of the Roman government after Constantine I. Thereafter Latin prevailed until unofficial and later official edition of the Bible were produced and in use at church services and homes. Finally in the 1960s, after Vatican II, services went from Latin into local languages. The result was to make the distant, mysterious, exotic language of worship become something closer to lived experience.

Similarly of dress styles (a little more casual) and sermon style (increasingly conversational), there seems to be a trend to reduce the gap between experience in The World and experience in Worship. The question then is how far can the shift away from bounded, sacred space and toward informal, stream of (consumer) consciousness: will one style come to colonize the other so that The World includes the heart of Jesus interpersonally, or the reverse in which The World takes over the environment of church activity, intention and experience?

:: Hunger for meaning (own perspective on the world) & significance (received meaningfulness)

One of the defining characteristics of humans is to make meaning of one’s present circumstances and the motivation to intend meanings in one’s prospective circumstances. In this arena, it could be that one can satisfy this urge best by having a wide assortment of concepts, experiences and visual exposure (sort of a personal gray matter database), as well as practice in talking with others about such things. Many people both expand their world of experience and gain practice with the terms by going to college. Traveling has long been seen as a form of life-learning, as well. So there may be some real differences between a person lacking the stimulation of college or travel (or voracious reading and/or discussions; purposeful and structured Internet browsing, watching, reading and engaging others, too) and a person who has all those things at a typical level, or at an extensive level; namely, that the person with the benefit of these experiences/education may be expected to have more ways and more models for finding or making meaning from the circumstances that he or she faces on the path of life.

Looking for one subset of learning, what difference might there be for a person who actively seeks answers of the Bible and the people, places and things of Christian (Jewish, Muslim) history and culture, on the one hand, and a person who does not seek answers to these things. If the same generalization is true from above, then the difference results in the Big Learner having more tools for making meaning than the Small Learner. The former has a wider vision, a deeper understanding, and has more pieces to build a picture of the subject than the other person. In short, it is easier to detect connections, see patterns and understand relationships when you have a big pool of experience to draw from than when your pool of learning is restricted. Thinking like a mathematician, what is the trend as you increase the volume of learning to the Nth degree, approaching infinity (that is infinite knowledge and connections of languages, ideas, events): will the ability to make meaning also grow until everything is connected and all is one? Or is there some moment before that point corresponding to some sort of Enlightenment?