Friday, July 6, 2007

Blog #2

So I think I could really get into this blogging thing. Especially the stream of consciousness, “unfiltered” nature to it all.

This blogging stuff is basically what I always wanted to say in seminary (and often did, with my friends) but had no one “out there” to hear it or read it. Lucky you! I always thought that some sort of Thursday night TV drama would have loved to get a script out of the thoughts (and actions) of those dorm room hours…Yeah, THEY’RE the ones offering moral leadership in our churches now…:0!

But I digress. The point here is that I think there’s a whole new generation of excited young, faithful people in and OUTSIDE of the church who are aching to change the world. Those who hate the war we’re in; sickened by the pain our nation has caused; helplessly sympathetic to those who we’ve wounded and killed. And that’s not to mention global warming, growing economic disparity, child abuse and neglect…

We’re people who want a tide of change but who don’t see being “Yes Men” to “The Man” to be the way to do it. And I can see that…as I am clergy of a mainline denomination-- I am the Man (or Wo-man?!…) and I’m not always pleased with myself, where I am and what I’m supporting by being part of the status quo. I feel a tide, too. But it’s more often a drowning, not a “ride the wave,” sensation. Things are going the wrong way in the church and yet…. the emotional, physical, communal energy to shift it is like…yikes… just about too much.

So I declare myself irreverent to the need to be reverent—at least to the stuff that does not need reverence--the way things have been “just cuz” or because that’s the way things are “supposed to be”-- the systems that sustain, the meetings and institutions that kill—anything that just constantly deadens mind, energy and hope. I want to be reverent to the big stuff. Ya know-- like God. Like Jesus. The rest needs to take a back seat.

And now that I look at the clock…it’s past midnight, so…

that’s all I have to say about that.