Dare to go beyond canonical interpretations, conventional observances
EMBRACE SPIRITUAL FREEDOMS
Daydreaming in church is not an altogether bad habit.
If practiced correctly and creatively, it serves as a time to reflect, to jostle old notions into new ones, and it provides a surprisingly refreshing diversion in the process.
You can cast off anytime, but I have found a good time to launch is about 10-15 minutes prior to a Sunday morning service. The sanctuary is quiet and relatively still, so that even the subtle movements of people getting settled count as fodder for thought.
On Sundays in my church, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Brenham, a small but interesting diversity catches my attention, as some congregants, generally the older ones, genuflect toward the altar and cross themselves before entering a pew, while others do not — about half and half. Although not all diversity around me is observable, it would be quite easy to discern if the 100 or so people were asked the same the question: “What is the nature of God?”
There might be a hundred different answers.
Recently, this bent to muse in church caused me to miss the pastor’s call for all to stand, and I was among the last to do so. No matter. As the service progressed, creeds and prayers said, hymns sung, peace exchanged, the time for the sermon approached, and a very serious-faced young man ascended to the pulpit and began to speak about a key doctrine of the church. He described true Christianity as being a religion firmly rooted in the Biblical claim that Jesus was risen from the dead. As he stated, the Gospels testify that Christ is not just the son of God and a great teacher, but He also is risen from the dead. This, in his words, is the real Gospel of the Apostles, the acceptance of which is a patent for true Christian thinking. Risen from the dead? Who can truly say? Does certitude define Christianity? Isn’t it possible to add pluralism, openness and inclusiveness to the mix? Possibly, there are people in this church today for whom Christ never died. His body, yes, but not His being as an indwelling entity, which is accessible at all times for the kind of ongoing, spontaneous dialogue that includes questions, plenty of questions.
Some pastors are excellent speakers. Their sermons are consistently wellmeaning, strengthening, even uplifting at times, but no matter how eloquent proclamations from the pulpit, for those in the pews, they remain someone else’s thought and are, thereby, “secondhand.” They lack the primacy and immediacy of “firsthand” insight,
at least for those listening, and this creates a distinct disadvantage for any pastor’s endeavor to project and generate a gripping spiritual moment, much less a lasting lesson.
I belong to a protestant church of diminished numbers, a microcosm of the larger trend of people moving away from organized religion, and I feel, as do many others, a sharpening pinch emanating from the myriad strictures and received issuances that are embedded in organized religion. Indeed, this encountered rigidity can severely stunt a person’s efforts toward open, simple perspectives that understand religion as being founded in feeling and in making proper connection with higher powers.
Yes, I keep a number of books by philosopher William James on my night table. They are amazingly energizing for anyone in pursuit of broader, more inclusive, perspectives. I recommend especially “The Pluralistic Universe,” “Varieties of Religious Experience” and “The Will To Believe.” These books, a heterogeneity of thought and feeling, combined with disdain for constraints of practically any sort, but particularly in religion, informs James’s repeated call of attention to the natural facts of religious experience that suggest vast realms of spiritual freedoms.
Interestingly, although James’ premises about instinctive belief in a higher presence and an inner turning toward divine companionship have nothing to do with organized, institutional religion, they mix exceptionally well with a reading of the Bible, especially the Gospels, that dares to go beyond patent acceptances.
In truth, isn’t the Bible, absent a literal take on the words in it, a compendium of stories, histories, covenants and a virtual storehouse of messages open to original, alternative interpretations? Aren’t all Christians on a quest to find that inner realm that enables one to care about others, and doesn’t it, ultimately, have to be a lonely quest?
I always come back to the openness of Jesus (Matthew 7:7,8) as he told his followers to ask, to seek, to knock on the door and to find.
This not meant to be a critical piece of writing, only a justification for one to question, to prize primacy and originality in religious experience, and to dare to go beyond canonical interpretations and conventional observances. Rather than be willing to receive indefinitely what was made by others, communicated by tradition and determined by fixed forms that do not always distill into one’s individual awareness of an indwelling presence, one may instead be willing to advance and knock on the door.
Or try daydreaming during a Sunday service.