Dec 15 2009
A Boydseye View
December 16, 2009
Two young children saw the twinkling lights on the trees in the sanctuary and opened their mouths in amazement. This is beautiful one girl said. Look what they did in the big church, a young boy screamed as he ran down the education hallway.
A young elementary student raced in from the outside to check this week’s soup on a Tuesday night. As a regular participant, he was eager to see if his dinner was to be cheese and broccoli or chicken noodle soup. It helps that along with soup one can usually get oreos. (I’m told that middle schoolers like to put peanut butter inside their oreos too!)
A group of high school students, led by Tammy Martens, sang Christmas carols in the living room of a dying man, surrounded by his family, sharing prayer, laughter and tears amidst Jingle Bells and the final line of Silent Night, which is “sleep in heavenly peace.”
Ken Pennings asked us to share our “defiant nevertheless” moments in worship. Those moments when in spite of all that is happening in the world and our lives, we can still rejoice in God’s love. It was hard to stop that spontaneous sharing. Even though we did conclude it in worship, the sharing continued long afterward in small groups and one-one conversations.
The congregation voted to approve a fund raising campaign, endorsing the sentiments of long time member Dick Rossmiller, who said the founders of this church took a leap of faith and now it is our turn.
What is spiritual formation if it is not embodied in each of these moments or cadences of life and faith? What does it mean to be a community of faith if it is not sharing such moments? Some of them come in small, intimate settings. Some come in worship on Sunday. Some in our homes, among friends, in places where life’s joy and sadness intersect.
There was a time when liberal or progressive faith was defined mostly by the content of our ideas. While it is critical that we not have to leave our minds at home when we come to church, increasingly we are remembering that spiritual formation is a whole life, whole body experience. What a child experiences in twinkling lights may one day be experienced in words like mystery, awe, Advent or God’s light. Today’s chicken noodle soup may be understood as compassion, caring and inclusiveness later in life. Likewise, while it may be open minded thinking that brought us to church, it may be Oreos or the singing of Taize songs (In the Lord I’ll be ever Thankful) that keeps us here.
What has been briefly described here in events of the last two weeks is but a snippet of the life of this community. It is but a small glimpse of our entire life of faith. What is essential to it all is a community of people who walk together, learn together and seek in love and grace to live out God’s compassion as we understand it.
As this calendar year comes to a close, and as we celebrate the coming of God into all of our lives this Advent and Christmas season, may we also give thanks for this community and pledge ourselves to find ways to strengthen and deepen the bonds, the formation, and the faith that already exists.
Peace,
Winton Boyd
