New Time Religion

While visting my Mom in rural Virginia, we attended her Riverside Community Church. It wasn’t what I expected.

The church meets in a new movie theater in Farmville and makes good use of the space, with a band (electic guitar, bass and drums) and video projector displaying the words to the songs and quotes from the sermon on the big screen. Lead guitar and vocalist Bruce did a great job making inspirational music fun. Pastor Frank centered his sermon around the book of Habakkuk–a short book told by the prophet as he questioned the despair wrought upon Israel in the time of the Babylonians.

I’ve written about religion here before when we joined the Unitarian church last year. After attending for most of the year, we made the difficult decision not to join. We visited our local Episcopal church in Westwood several Sundays and were going to consider the First Parish UCC church in Westwood as well, but we feel we have our hands full this summer–getting out of the house on a Sunday morning is just a real challenge right now with the new baby and 2 toddlers.

One attendance at a church cannot tell everything–but I was happy to see what this church is doing and am glad my parents have found it and the community around it. The music is done very well. It’s not just that they have a band up front. The songs are “psalmic” and modern at the same time. I don’t know if you’d really call it Christian rock–it’s more like modern hymns.

Pastor Frank’s sermon was thought-provoking as well. It was interesting to see faith discussed in a manner I found similar to the liberal view described in Marcus Borg’s book, Heart of Christianity. I am almost certain the Riverside Church would not agree with the liberal themes of that book, but at the core of both liberal and fundamentalist belief is a concept of faith as much more than belief. Faith is based on a “real” relationship with God more than belief in specific facts–faith is more than the faith of Assensus.

In our organized, hyper-rational world, we can be trapped by our own rationality into belief systems that are not fulfilling to us. When we hear that faith can move mountains, we automatically discount it as a metaphor. We presume the superiority of reason over faith because our work and so much of our lives depends on our ability to apply the tools of logic and reason to solve problems.

But the things that really matter in our lives are things we often solve in our hearts, not in our heads. Frank described the story of meeting his wife; that God had meant it to be. And I thought to myself how in my own life, the most important decisions–the ones that really made my life–were ones made on a leap of faith.

My wife–the church would certainly not approve of how we met in a bar, dated a few weeks, then moved in together. But I felt I was guided by some kind of certain feeling that this was right for me. I did not wrestle with questions of “could I do better?” or “am I ready?” or “is she really the one?” I just felt it was right. And it was.

In starting our family…it went against every rational impulse in my memory. Neither of us had planned to have children when we married, but after many years…we began to change our minds. Still, I was not ready. But the rational arguments in my head just didn’t feel right. Ultimately, we just did it. Then we did it again and decided to stop. Then, we kept on, so now we have 3 kids under 4. I was looking at a photo of those three last night and realizing how it was not something I had planned or scheduled or even really decided upon–but really how miraculous it is and how grateful I am for it. Sometimes you have to just let great things happen.

I also thought about how faith is an ongoing process. The kids changed our lives and every day, you have a choice of how you perceive things. You do feel frustrated at times and wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into. But you have to keep letting it happen…faith in the decisions you made, faith in the life you will live–you will find a way…and you do. But if you start analyzing and second guessing and worrying…you sabotage yourself and your life.

I was also reminded of a darker time in my life when another type of faith saved me. In a terrible relationship, I was trying to end, but trying not to be the “bad guy,” trying to do the right thing, but making a mess of things. A friend came to visit and I realized how weak I must look to him, and it shocked me into realizing that all I really had to do was let go. Stop trying to do the right thing whatever that was and just stop caring. That does not sound like a great model to live by, but it was really the recognition that FEAR was the enemy that was destroying me…and FAITH…at least in myself…was what I needed to walk away. No amount of rational thought was ever going to get me out of the mental traps I had set for myself.

I’m not planning to join a fundamentalist church anytime soon. And my take on faith is a very secular one. But there is a core of truth that speaks to us, if we let it, and which can truly save us and/or raise us up to things we did not believe possible before.