I did! It was a nice place. I say that about every service I go to, huh? I was really struck by the diversity, and I liked that. Lots of different ages - babies, kids, young adults, older people. Single people, families, gay couples, multi-generational groups. Even ethnic diversity (which I bring with me wherever I go, personally), including a very friendly little boy from Kenya. I almost cried a couple of times, once during singing (because nothing affects me like music!) and prayer requests (because they were sad). I missed a bit of the message, partly because I was minding the baby and partly because I had a hard time relating to it. It was about Lent and the point was "sometimes, it's hard to be a Christian" and I don't really know what my aversion is to Jesus/Christianity. I have had nothing but positive experiences, personally, when it comes to Christianity, although I can't think of a time when I've ever prayed "to" Jesus. I guess I still wish I could find some "other" religion or group or something, where people who believe in God and want to learn and worship (and sing, please) can get together, and not get bogged down in rules and sin and saviors and so forth. I don't know why I feel like this. Maybe it (Christianity) seems too complicated. I want something simple...or whatever. Like, Judaism without the Hebrew, because I don't know Hebrew (or the rules, not because I am rule-averse, but because I don't know where I stand yet with the Bible, and because there's no possible way I could convert).
Still, I did like singing songs to/about God, especially with others. There was a beautiful pipe organ song, too.
I guess I don't know what I'm looking for.
I did have a realization, though, while reading a book called "If God is Grace: Why God Will Save Every Person." I thought to myself, I dedicate so much time and thought to "making God make sense," even though I have no personal qualms with the "logic of God." I have no problem reconciling God and science or anything else. But I live like the thought police are gonna jump out from around any random corner and force me to "justify" my belief. So, although I see "evidence" of God everywhere, in everything, I have to keep on "logicizing" God...maybe out of habit, maybe in anticipation of a theological showdown, I don't know. Anyway, so as I was reading, I was just struck by God's love and I thought also of Tillich's "Courage to Be" and Spong's "A New Christianity..." and how Tillich talks about the courage to be being predicated on the courage to accept that we are accepted (which made, like, NO sense to me when I first read it) and how the latter says the product of our knowing and loving and serving God should be Living, Loving, and Being (and I think the last term is open to interpretation) and it came together and I knew then that I haven't been accepting my *own* acceptance and that, for me, to Live is to live fully, to Love is to love God in the world and in everyone, and in my life, to Be is to BE, to live honestly and with my soul and my soul says, sings, shouts - "thank you!" all day long, to God, and I have so much love in my life, and although I am far from happy all the time, I *AM* happy to have this life, to live on this earth...at any rate, I get so caught up in this fear that my beliefs are going to be "challenged" that I am engaged in this constant inner dialogue, defending my belief in God, trying to be an existentialist and a believer at once, that I rarely stop and smell the roses that are God's love. And while I'm the first person to say that God loves everyone (else!) and loves the flowers and the hurricanes and the prions and the stones and the ducks and the rivers and anything else, I rarely admit that God also loves me. I don't know what that really means or what I should do about it, but it is something I need to remember. And, of course, share through my actions toward others.
Anyway...yeah. That's all I got.
I'm eager to look it over!
today at the bookstore. I have only read a bit (busy day), but I'm liking it already (especially since he's already mentioned Marcus Borg as an example of another author striving for this new kind of Christianity).
: Though I am not a "traditionalist" in many respects (though I guess in some, I probably appear to be), having Saturdays usurped by baseball games and then Sundays taken over by baseball practice is just a bit much. Even if we didn't go to church (which we don't always do on Sundays), I still feel that one day of the weekend should be left to families to decide how to spend it, not decided by outside commitments. Anyway, my little rant is over. I best come to terms with it, as this will go through mid-June, I think.
. It was a nice time. DH was there to take ds out when he got restless so I was able to focus on the spirit of the thing.
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