I lied. That was not the last post. This is. I am coming back for the summer, to work with more historic churches.
BUT...first...I visited Houghton. And saw friends. You know what? Friends are awesome.
AND...before that...I was home. For three weeks. Which was the awesomest awesomeness since they invented sour cream and onion potato chips.
Time to wax eloquent. I've been pondering why communal worship is so meaningful to so many people (including me). I know some of it has to do with feeling like part of a group, of belonging. Part of it is worshipping. Part of it is the beauty of communal worship (even that deaf fellow with the tin ear in pew three).
However, it seems there is something deeper and more meaningful. In fact, I have come to believe there is something, related perhaps to Jesus' words about "let them be one as we are One," that connects us in communal worship. It is something deep, so deep that we lose ourselves (for awhile) in the immanence of other human beings.
And this feeling is all the deeper and stronger when it is felt with God. There is nothing like the Oneness with God, which we find only in worship and which no one who has tasted of it has ever forgotten. Even those who wander away from the faith remember and long to sense God near. They convince themselves that they felt nothing but chemical washes, but they were experiencing Another.
This summer, I seek God. Historic churches, friends, family, books, Latin (I'm teaching myself), a novel that must be written all seem so important. But my priority is to sense again and again and again the nearness of God and His worshippers.
BUT...first...I visited Houghton. And saw friends. You know what? Friends are awesome.
AND...before that...I was home. For three weeks. Which was the awesomest awesomeness since they invented sour cream and onion potato chips.
Time to wax eloquent. I've been pondering why communal worship is so meaningful to so many people (including me). I know some of it has to do with feeling like part of a group, of belonging. Part of it is worshipping. Part of it is the beauty of communal worship (even that deaf fellow with the tin ear in pew three).
However, it seems there is something deeper and more meaningful. In fact, I have come to believe there is something, related perhaps to Jesus' words about "let them be one as we are One," that connects us in communal worship. It is something deep, so deep that we lose ourselves (for awhile) in the immanence of other human beings.
And this feeling is all the deeper and stronger when it is felt with God. There is nothing like the Oneness with God, which we find only in worship and which no one who has tasted of it has ever forgotten. Even those who wander away from the faith remember and long to sense God near. They convince themselves that they felt nothing but chemical washes, but they were experiencing Another.
This summer, I seek God. Historic churches, friends, family, books, Latin (I'm teaching myself), a novel that must be written all seem so important. But my priority is to sense again and again and again the nearness of God and His worshippers.
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