The dictum to "be in the World but be not of the World" is famous among the Society of Jesus (a.k.a. Jesuit Order that the Basque father, St. Ignacious of Loyola, established). Until now this meant to go with the flow but be not caught up in the distracted, consumer world view and consequent separation from God's great "I AM" world of being. After the sermon this past week, though, it seems our minister is challenging us to go beyond treading intrepidly among fellow sinners while keeping ourselves from being consumed by those things. Rather he pushes each person to live in an alternate reality, one filled with God's love for us; a sort of "heads-up display" that helps us to navigate all that comes in front of our field of view. In other words, it is not enough merely to leave the controlled environment of a religious community and venture among the teeming unwashed masses, able to hold simultaneously the dominant secular world view and also the Godly world view. One must also actively cultivate and occupy a world of relationships governed by God's long view of great intimacy and care. A suitable visual illustration might be to walk "with your feet firmly on the ground and your head fully in the clouds." So merely walking with feet firmly on the ground among one's fellow sinners and embodying God's love is only half the task; one must also actively strive to keep one's head in the clouds and reach for the time when "...thy Kingdom come on earth as in heaven."
Another thread of this morning's conversation was about the way that people act first and only later look back to give meaning, reason, authorization or justification for their deeds or words. In other words, much as salespeople experience, most people are motivated by emotion first and supply rationalization through articulating the event only after the fact. Others may frame a decision ahead of time, but once again it is emotion that precipitates the decision.
If this phenomenon of human action is a general principal, then perhaps it is the same for participation in communal worship and church life, too: emotion (fear, blame, entitlement, joy, eagerness, etc) that triggers one's feet to go worship, including the pleasure of social engagements and giving/getting peers' respect and acknowledgement, as well as the powerful feelings of lyric and musical line, and the shape of a strong sermon.
