I mentioned to you that we’ve been attending a Presbyterian church this year. On Sundays, I sit in the pews of a place that has been in the neighborhood since 1902, a place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, a place that speaks the words in my heart. As I sit in those pews I have been asking myself, what does it look like to be Christian right now?
When I ask “What does it look like?” I am not after an appearance. I am after what it means and what it calls me to do: contemplation and action. Kind of like the swing when you were a kid: some time to fly and some time to pump your legs, both very woven together. I crave rituals of traditional Protestant service because there is both time-honored meaning within them and a call to behave differently in the world because I’ve participated in those rituals.
I love the mystical experience that I think taking communion is intended to be (never alone) and I love who it calls me to be in the world (not ever for myself alone). Another ritual at the Presbyterian church is a corporate confession. The one we’ve been saying as a community lately has landed in my head and my heart, long past the service:
Merciful God, we have not loved you with our whole hearts.
We have turned from you in the busyness of our days.
We have rushed past the beauty of your creation,
missing the precious and remarkable you provide.
We have heard the loud news of the world
and missed your whispered grace.
Forgive us, God of all,
and bring us back to hearing and seeing you,
in every moment, every person, every place.
Amen.
Here’s a perspective I’m not sure looks like a Christian but it’s going to have to work: I don’t take communion or participate in the corporate confession because I was born bad. I choose to do those things because I was born human – loved and loving, but so prone to forget. So prone to distraction and confusion. (I think that’s what sin means anyway). I participate in religious rituals so that I can remember. There are so many aspects of this corporate confession that capture my interest, but for today I’d love to explore the first two lines.
Loving God with our Whole Hearts
What does it look like to love God with our whole hearts? I feel lucky to have a lifetime to figure that out, because I think it involves a lot of trial and error. The best practical advice I’ve come up with is using “loving God with my whole heart” to discern next steps – even on something as simple (but difficult!) as how to respond on any given day.
How am I going to treat this person in traffic, in the store, at the airport, on the phone? How am I going to spend my 45 minutes of free time? How am I going to respond to my teenager when it’s 10:30 pm and we are all tired? How am I going to treat myself when I’ve fallen short of my own expectations yet again?
The idea of loving God with my whole heart makes me feel a little perfectionisty, so I have to be aware of that and remember that it’s not up to me to be perfect, and certainly not a good idea to pretend I am. Hiding behind a fearful mask of so-called perfection is never offering real love. I would guess that is not what God (aka the Really Real) would want. I am always comforted that God knows everything about me already anyway so it’s no use pretending or hiding. (It’s not that I’m that important, it’s that I believe God is that big.)
So many good things flow when meaning and doing are inseparable: authenticity, purpose, fulfillment, and a richness of life. I want to create a tiny little slice of heaven on earth in my interactions with others and myself. That’s what it looks like to love God with my whole heart.
We have turned from you in the busyness of our days.
This is the other line I want to explore, but first, a related poem from the incomparable Marie Howe:
Prayer
Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention
—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage
I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here
among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.
The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?
My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.
Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.
The line from that poem that particularly slays me is “Why do I flee from you?” I feel empathy and a similar sense of helplessness at my own distractability. I see it in my clients – the number one thing we are exploring right now is what it looks to make space for spiritual life amid addictive, pervasive distraction.
Typically what it looks like for me to make space for spiritual life is to schedule time at places and with people I trust to engage with me in meaningful experiences. Whether I feel like it or not, I make time to go to church just about every Sunday and listen to the podcast or YouTube version if I miss service. It also looks like bimonthly meetings with my spiritual director.
Making space for spiritual life on the daily is a lot more slippery. I resist scheduling spiritual practice because my schedule truly varies day to day and that flexibility is extremely important to my family and to me. I also want my practice to be optimally meaningful and I tell myself it will be more meaningful if I choose something in the moment based on what I feel like. I have the meaning covered but not always the doing. (This is an Enneagram 4 black hole).
My day is punctuated with the spiritual – things like asking if this or that choice looks like loving God with my whole heart, tarot, little prayers, spiritual books and podcasts, rich conversations. However, I know I would feel closer to God if I was carving out longer stretches of connection and seeing what happens. Or maybe failing to live up to my vision of a cloistered life when I have a family is just a way I can be hard on myself. It’s a work in progress.
What’s Next and Recs
I am going forward into one of the busiest busy seasons, broken up into seconds and minutes and hours like they all are. I can make choices that feel more like loving God with my whole heart, one decision at a time. I can turn towards God instead of running away. I can be compassionate with myself about my humanness. What about you? Does any of that sound compelling, or are you working on something else? Either way, tell me!
Some random recommendations as we head into summer are: 1) Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, 2) this happy and perfectly paced Sam Cooke song, and 3) the book I’m slowly working my way through but that comes up in my mind every day, The Score by C. Thi Nguyen.
PS: I have taken May off without meaning to the last few years and this year I’m going to do it on purpose. See you in June!
