Are you there, God?: Calling God Without a Phone

I was raised in the Pentecostal tradition. I know people that can do the arms raised, dancing in the pew thing. I've seen someone speak in tongues at church, and a couple of my friends have used the phrase "slain in the Spirit" on more than one occasion. While the church I grew up in wasn't all that charismatic, I thought that was how you experienced God. Even now, among my evangelical peers, fervent worship and prayer are the exclusive methods used to connect with God.

I wouldn't have been able to articulate this at the time, but beginning at about fifteen, church started to not make sense. I didn't feel God's presence when I entered the sanctuary, when we sang worship songs, or when I prayed. While my church gave me a way in which to talk to God (a phone, if you will), I kept getting disconnected. There was an absence of God in my life not because I had deliberately chosen that for myself but because, despite attempts, I could not feel God, particularly at church, where I thought it should have been the easiest.

Today, when a worship leader asks the congregation to lift its hands, my discomfort level goes through the roof. I get self-conscious, and I can't imagine being more disconnected from God. I don't like praying because I can never articulate my thoughts, so most of the time I end up just repeating a word that in some way captures what I want to say (and if that sounds a lot like meditation, that's probably because it is). Other times, I find the most peace in saying the Lord's Prayer over and over again.

And yet what I hear is that more traditional worship is for the apathetic. Tradition and liturgy are safe and lazy, and that is not where you encounter God. What I hear is that practices like meditation have roots in eastern religions, so it is wrong to meditate even though Paul instructs the Philippians to meditate on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, etc" (Philippians 4:8, NRSV).

I don't want the ten-piece band, the elaborate strobe light shows, and the Hillsong music blasting in my ears. I don't need to feel like I'm at a rock concert. The kingdom of God is not on the stage but within me (Luke 17:21), so why does it matter that I'm in the woods instead of the pew on Sunday morning?

Everyone's spirituality is different. Doesn't that make sense, though? After all, everyone's spirit is different. The National Interfaith Conference on Aging defines spiritual well-being as "the affirmation of life in relationship with God, self, community, and environment that nurtures and celebrates wholeness." Which means you can feel God's spirit singing "Give Me Jesus" or a Latin hymn, in song at church or in silence at the top of a mountain. Awe and wonder can happen whether you are physically prostrate or not.

Growing up, the one service at my parents' church I looked forward to every year was the Christmas Eve service. It was the same every year. We heard the story of Jesus' birth. We sang the traditional Christmas hymns. We ended the night with candles and Silent Night. That was when I felt most connected to God, and honestly, when I felt the most connected to the rest of the church. Stripped down to a simple ritual, God becomes known. At least, that's how it is for me.

The phone doesn't work for me. Instead, I'll speak to God using a hairbrush. And maybe for someone else it'll be a shoe. When we stop forcing the phone into others' hands and asserting one spiritual hegemony (even when it's not on purpose), they can live more fully spiritual lives without feeling they have to completely leave the church or their faith.

Real Life Radical.. and When We're Just Pretending

As Christians, we like to think of ourselves as radical. Often, we hear the word thrown around at church camps and campus ministry retreats. Mostly it's at times in our lives when there's a lot of pressure to conform to whatever the dominant culture is. Thank God we have these strong disciplers to remind the youths that we don't need to be cool or fit in because, after all, we have Jesus.

In the spirit of rejecting dominant culture, the guy on stage at these shindigs typically sports a youth pastor beard, skinny jeans, and a Jesus is Dope sweatshirt, and boy, can he use the word countercultural in a sentence (or four)! And when he starts talking about how radical it is to do this and not do that, we get PUMPED. We're thinking, if this is what radicalism looks like, it is hella attractive.

The thing is, underneath the alluring rhetoric, what that guy's describing is not all that radical.

First, a vocabulary lesson: radical is the "fundamental nature" of something; it gets back to the reality at the root of things and does, in fact, also refer to what proceeds from the root of a plant. Radical can also relate to social and political reform. It is always complete, comprehensive, thorough.

So let's set the record straight.

We are not radical for hosting Bible study on Friday nights--even while our peers are at the bars. We aren't radical for sharing the gospel with ten of our non-Christian friends, relatives, coworkers, and the rando we just met at Kum n' Go who really needs Jesus. We aren't radical for abstaining from sex until marriage. We aren't radical for going to church every Sunday or for memorizing Bible verses. We aren't radical for listening to Christian radio instead of rap, for confessing to and praying with our accountability partners every time we use God's name in vain, lust, or cause our brothers in Christ to stumble.

All of the above are things we may choose that others in our culture do not, but that doesn't make us radical. These are things we do that the rest of the world understands (and frankly, doesn't care about) because they are the "Christian things to do."

Radical is when we do something that the rest of the world does not understand. Radical actions are those things that make the world ask, "Why?" They are actions that provide the opportunity to explain with hopes to transform. And when those transformations happen, they are complete, comprehensive, thorough. Radical actions that lead to transformations are not localized and confined to personal purity and morality. They are global.

Indeed, radical Christianity* is not when we participate in systems of individual purity but rather when we participate in systems of social change. Because radical has to do with the roots--or the basic realities--of the world, truly radical actions--rather than maintaining a distance through absorption with self and self-morality--confront those realities. They demand a complete overhaul of the world.

When we live in community, sharing our cars and washing machines with those around us even when we don't have to, that is radical. When we give up something simply out of solidarity for those who go without because they have to, that's radical. When we share our presence with the sick and dying who would otherwise be alone. When we mindfully consume because most consumption comes at the cost of fairness. When we challenge our communities to talk about (or better yet, listen) racial injustice and gender inequality instead of pretending it doesn't exist. When we acknowledge the privilege we possess, we open up space for and redirect attention towards those who don't, and that is radical. When we extend grace to everyone. When we take up our crosses and follow Jesus. But most importantly, when we open our eyes to the crosses that others bear, choosing to see Christ in the least of these--that is radical. That causes change at the roots.

*Christians do not hold a monopoly on radicalism.

Covenant

Isn't it good to know the worst is over? Isn't it assuring to hear the promise that it's downhill from here on out? It's why the story of God's covenant with Noah is told over and over again, starting in the early years of Sunday school. God is good, we teach the kids. Look at how God made a covenant to Noah, promising to never flood the earth again. It was like God said, "The worst is over," and here's a rainbow to prove it.

"When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh" (Genesis 9:14, NRSV).

I want to know that the worst is over. And unlike Noah, God's probably not going to give me a sign and a promise that whatever I dealt with six months ago, whatever my best friend or brother went through last week, whatever--that was the worst of it. A rainbow still just means that the storm is over, that God will never flood the earth again, and I'm left unsure about whether or not I'll ever have to experience as much pain as I did that one time, during that one season.

And that sucks. Because when you endure your own version of Noah's flood, you want to believe that that was the worst, and you can't imagine there could be anything worse. We yearn for a promise from God the way Noah probably would have had God not provided the rainbow. Instead, we have turn to God's grace. We have to trust that no matter the darkness we experience, God will extend grace--to us and to anyone that contributed to that darkness. And while that may not feel good like a rainbow, it's still a constant and in its own way, a promise.

You Really Need This

You Really Need This.

Right? It's oh-so-convenient and only thirty dollars. Thirty dollars!

Sure, you could spend thirty dollars this month on another pointless kitchen appliance to add to your Slice-o-Matic vegetable slicer and your iced tea maker. Or you could get a manicure or a fancy set of earbuds that will break just as quickly as the ones you bought for four dollars. Or you could treat yourself to a steak at your favorite place instead of getting the pasta like you always do.

Or you could donate that money to a charity. Find a cause you mildly care about and give your thirty dollars to it. You'd feel good about that, and you'd be helping make the world a better place. Right? And you wouldn't use your charitable act as an excuse to continue to live a life of privilege.

But then again, maybe it would be just a one-off thing so you don't actually have to think about the hard issues. Because when you're that disconnected, you don't have to believe that children are abandoned by their parents, people with curable illnesses die because they can't get to a doctor, and clean water isn't available ten feet away from everybody with a turn of the faucet handle. Those things don't have to be real when you're that disconnected.

Or you could give your thirty dollars to a child this month. And then do the same for that child next month, too. Do this every month so that the child can have shoes and books for school. So that their birthday isn't like all the other days in the year. And you could send them a letter, too. Ask them what their favorite color is and what they like to do during the summer. And a card for when they turn ten. And when they write back, it's like you'll actually know that child, have a relationship with him or her.

Maybe someday you can even go to Bolivia or Uganda or India to visit your child. Because you have the means to make your support mean something.

Don't buy the breakfast sandwich maker. Sponsor a child through Unbound, Save the Children, or Compassion International.* Do it because you won't simply be helping change someone's life; your life will be changed, too. And if we're being honest and if you were actually thinking about buying the sandwich maker, your life probably needs to change.

*All three organizations were graded at least an A by CharityWatch.