Answer to the question, "What is Christian Practice"

As a Methodist and Benedictine I grew up in a much more conservative household and so I know a bit of what some ex-fundamentalists are dealing with. My father was Methodist but some of his family was big in the Assemblies of God in South Carolina. I think when they heard I was going to Emory's Candler School of Theology they went into fasting and prayer for my soul!

I have used the metaphor of a love relationship leading to marriage before to explain what I think we are talking about. By the way, I never heard that anything in scripture might be metaphorical before either! Our developing relationship with God is a lot like falling in love here on earth.

I think of Christian practice as the growing relationship between each of us and God. Just like when we fall in love in this life, along the way we become intentional about seeking one another out, about learning what pleases the other, about enjoying time spent together. So it is with God. We "practice" our faith first by acknowledging this developing relationship and trying to learn all we can about our beloved.

I tend to see that in three ways of approaching God, first, in prayer. Just as I would call my wife many times a day and my world would light up when she answered, so it is with God. Prayer for me now is not nearly so much about composition, form, and structure as it used to be...now it is a lover's conversation. Think of your own beloved in this world, remember late night conversations where dreams flowed like heady wine?

The second way is through study. I can remember getting a letter from my wife when circumstances separated us for a time. How I hung on every word, how I looked for the nuances beyond the words that would give me an insight into her feelings as she wrote, how important it was to savor each word, not to go too fast, but to reflect on the word and the writer. So it is with scripture. I am a big fan of the Gospels and the Psalms. I remember growing up our reading of scripture was always "goal oriented." If we read a certain amount we got a gold star on the Sunday school wall. I was reading to get through reading, to conquer each page and count it done as quickly as possible. That's how I learned to read in school as well. God has taken me out of the "reading to finish" mode and shown me the reading to know the beloved mode. Slow, savoring, open to meaning not immediately clear, let the beloved speak through the words. A fancy name for this is Lectio (it's pronounced "Lexio") Divina or "Divine Reading."

Now for the third part, remember how special dates were? Remember hours spent in front of the closet trying to decide what to wear? Remember the thrill that ran up your spine when your date drew close in a dance? So it is in part three, worship. When we worship God we let go of this world and center our heart and mind only on our beloved, we come into his presence with love and thanksgiving, we sing praises from the depths of our heart and soul. Worship is our date with God, the time that we are most aware of his presence, when we respond to him in giving of ourselves as much as we are able.

And then there is the marriage. The giving of the self to the other completely in self-surrender. But that is not the end, it is only a beginning. I have tried to practice, to live out, my love for my wife thirty five years now, and every day we must begin again to love one another in some way. We are so much different now than we were back then, we have grown, we know each other in an intimacy that is so much more than the physical alone. We can finish each others sentences and thoughts. So it is with practicing our love for God. The more we seek, the more we find. The more we find, the more we know. The more we know, the more we see there is to know.

To me, practicing my faith is an unending quest for God. The more I seek him, the more I become aware of how immense this God of ours is, and how little we try to make him sometimes. I think this is the meaning behind the conflict of knowledge and mystery. As a fundamentalist, I felt I could know all there is to know about God. That by diligent effort I could become "the perfect disciple." I am afraid that is forever doomed to failure. God inspired the Scripture, but it is not always literal nor is it all there is to God. By abandoning ourselves to the mystery we find a God whose love is not earned but freely given, who wants to know us as we are, and not as our impression of "someone we think will please him." Here I can come to terms with the fact that I am not perfect nor will I ever will be. I can let go of the assumption that I can have perfect knowledge of God and of his will and can approach him not as a stern school teacher or absolute judge, but as one who genuinely cares about me as I am. Does he want me to follow him? Of course! Are their things I have chosen to let go of along the way? Sure, day by day I set down excess baggage, by that I mean those things that would come between us. In my relationship with my wife, the same was true. In order to have a close relationship with her, there were things, behaviors, that I had to let go of. I was willing to do it, because the love that we had for each other was worth the cost. So it is with God.

So, relax, take a few deep breaths, and begin to follow where your beloved leads. Let go of the idea of goals to achieve, and nurture the relationship he offers to you. Don't be too hard on yourself. We all fail, he expects us to, he made us after all. Like the old monk once said, "We fall down, we get up again. We fall down, we get up again." and so forth on and on. And then one day off in the distant future we see our beloved as he is, stretch our our hand and take his, and together we go home to be united forever. Works for me anyway. Peace. David