words

i likely will never tire of words and what they can mean, what they can do to change everything. the same words, used in a slightly different manner, some slight change in context, can make all the difference in the world.

yesterday morning we visited a unitarian universalist church. it's an idea with which we had been toying for a long, long time, and we felt that maybe, jut maybe, the time had come for a change. no conclusions have been drawn as yet, no cause for alarm among the faithful who will read this, thought those who know me personally will be aware already that i don't exactly tow the party line of my methodist faith these days anyway. regardless, i came away from this visit angry. not 'rage against the world' angry, but just somewhat...pissy. grumpy. unsettled and cranky, like some old man who saw something in the world that he didn't like. it was odd. i'm frequently that cranky old bastard, but i couldn't remember coming away from church like that, not from what was essentially a positive experience, even in a minor way. but i think i eventually figured out why.

there are a couple of components to it. one is what B pointed out, and that is that i usually come away pissy from situations where i am confronted by large groups of people i don't know, especially if i feel that i might be required by social convention to carry on a conversation with them, shake a lot of hands and generally be 'friendly' with people whom i feel no connection to other than that they want something from me - but that will wait for another day. the thing that struck me is pure, unadulterated disenchantment.

i realized yesterday morning that i was spoiled for a long time in our little newborn church. there was a service that excited me and of which i felt i could be an integral part, but in an environment and with a leadership that i felt was coming from a place of inclusion and acceptance, and that made me comfortable with this particular corporate worship. but the leadership was changed out, and things have changed along with it. and i realized yesterday that it may be very difficult for me to find corporate worship that has that same level of excitement to which i am accustomed that also carries with it the level of acceptance and universality i require. the service we attended was, frankly, boring, and that will not do. but with the changes in my home church, there is seems to be a change in the level of universality that is disquieting to me. i hope i don't portray things here too strongly, for i believe wholeheartedly that our new pastor is coming from a good place and is trying to do good in the way he understands. but it's the words. the words are changing things.

there is a language that goes with traditional christianity that reinforces its traditionalism. part of that traditionalism is the exclusivity of the religion itself. it's the idea that christians, in spite of tens of thousands of years of history prior to the existence of their beliefs, have the only tickets that are punched through st. peters pearly gates that rubs me the wrong way. it makes little sense to me, no matter how one slices it, that any god who would create a universe solely out of being lonesome would also set up a system of morality in which those created to keep him company are doomed to eternal separateness from him unless they believe in one man's sacrifice - and then wait for 20,000 years before sending that man to save them. even if we should take the wingnut version of history and accept that the earth is only 6000 years old (!), that 's still 4000 years years worth of misery accomplished before god acceded to allow christ to come to sacrifice himself for us. seems too long a gap for my taste, but i digress. WAY too big a discussion for this morning. that exclusivity is what makes me uncomfortable when there are relatively modern religions (meaning not those involving a pantheon of gods painted on cave walls, but i'm not likely to invalidate even those) that are thousands of years older even than the judaism from which christianity was born, and there are phrases that reinforce that exclusivity through their connotation and context that i am hearing, and those phrases do not make me feel welcome.

the amazing thing is that all in a single breath one can speak of god's love, the beautiful acceptance and forgiveness that is the almighty divine, the oneness that is all of humanity when united together with god, and then destroy all that with one simple turn of phrase. the second coming. the return of the king. the kingdom will come. born again. Believer (you know what i mean when i use the capital b). The Faithful. our god reigns. these are all phrases that carry with them the weight of 2000 years of misapplication of a peaceful man's words and meanings. i don't pretend to know that i am right about what christ said. but i am certain that my experience of the almighty doesn't jibe with the crusades, with the idea of god hating fags, with satisfied grins at the idea of conflict in the middle east, with those who do not accept jesus as the messiah burning eternally in an unquenchable fire. but there is no avoiding the notion that phrases like the ones above carry with them those very same motivations and meanings, and those who speak them have a tendency to see the world as colored by the same sentiments that produced that list of atrocities above.

and what blows me away about it all is how just one of those little collections of words can undo an entire battery of beautiful words of acceptance and tolerance. all it takes is one 'the kingdom is at hand' to undo all the 'we are all welcome at the father's table'. the words can create the context, the context can create the words. my great and wonderful friend who used to pastor us could say 'the kingdom is at hand' and simple mean and end to the suffering of the human experience. he is a great human being, and his heart is large enough to allow for even those who do not believe the same thing he believes. that saves those phrases. and he uses such phrases sparingly, whether consciously or unconsciously, i believe because of the weight they carry. he is wise a and loving, and i am beginning to see, i think, that he is rare even in his own denomination. a shame, i submit, but then i'm not running that show, and probably for damn good reason.

suffice it to say in the end that i grew pissy because i fear now that my window has closed, and that i'll not be able to find again that peaceful acceptance i require without a druidian blandness required by a paucity of specific religious language, and i'll not be able to find again a worship that is charged with the fire of divinity that does not come attached to what i see as an arrogant requirement of admission into a special fraternity.

this post is a disaster. i hope no one else's head hurts. if this has created any migraines in trying to keep up, i apologize!