Friday, July 17, 2009

sacred vs. secular

Sacred and secular: I absolutely hate this dichotomy. I know I’ve written about this before, but things have occurred this week to remind me how much I hate it. To create this dichotomy means that we are vastly limiting god, and ourselves.

It seems to me that this distinction is more about giving ourselves boundaries. If we make a separation between sacred and secular art, or music or film then we can prohibit our children from being “harmed.” We can create walls to keep ourselves, families, and churches from experiencing risk. Unfortunately what we often get instead is poorly produced “christian-ized” junk, or plagiarized products like pseudo vans shoes with jesus written on the side, vastly overpriced and made by children in the third world (I know an exaggeration). What is the matter with simply having vans. We wall ourselves up and create our own Christian ghetto and for what? What safety are we giving ourselves. People still fail, priest’s and pastor’s still destroy lives and communities, our divorce rate in the “sacred” world has more divorce than the “secular” world, and our people still hurt, suffer, and live in addiction and pain. The walls of separation between the sacred and the secular don’t work. They don’t protect our children and they don’t truly create safety.

Why because this distinction isn’t real in the way we understand it. God is present in all. God is present in the world which is profane (the actual opposite of sacred) and that which is sacred. Trying to make the world a better place shouldn’t mean we create our own ghetto. In my understanding of what the way of Jesus calls us to, we should live in the fullness of the world bringing love, hope, peace, grace, creativity, passion, vision, etc. that abiding in that which is “Wholly Other” (Eliade) draws the world to god because he makes us more creative, more loving, more hopeful, more passionate, etc.

Enough with this rant. I’m going to a “secular” restaurant tonight while driving in my “secular” car listening to “secular” music, and if you make it to church on Sunday or catch us on-line you might think I am a “secular” pastor but be careful if you hope this offends me because I might take it as a complement. :)

Monday, July 13, 2009

turkey sloppyjoes

so i know all my vege-friends will find this utterly disgusting, but last night I ate something that took me back to every mission trip I ever did as a child or youth...sloppy Joes. I switched the beef for a healthier alternative (turkey), but it still tasted so good.

Isn’t it amazing how the taste or smell of something can bring us back to early memories? I was eating my sloppy Joe thinking about our mission trip to the reservation in New Mexico (i think red rock). Some of you will remember the one i was thinking about. Let me jog some memories….The trip where we were climbing the coppery red plateaus and Jacob’s sister pushed a huge sharp rock off onto his head and blood went everywhere, and Ryan and I had to carry him for about a mile back to camp. Crazy...... The same trip where we had our own church services because the church had some odd things going on but some of went to both services (a true lesson in differences within the same faith tradition)... the same one where I got in bad trouble for sticking ketchup covered maxi pads all over the girls tents (ya I know horribly immature). the same trip where we stood on top of the plateaus and showered in freezing water with the cold air ripping across our wet bodies… its amazing what we remember. I can still feel the cold air, the tiny church class rooms, the huge dirty white tent in front of the church with the fake grass carpet covering the stage, my dad and his two brothers singing songs for about and hour, the precious kids that wanted as much love as we could give. Fun times!

As I start this week of VBS, I remember countless VBSs done over the years. One thing is certain children need love. they need to be hugged, nurtured, cared for and about, they need to know that they matter.

Nothing like a sloppy joe to bring back good memories.