times

You know those times in your life when you are full of thoughts and ideas and crises and beliefs and doubts and hopes and fears and everything all at once but you don't have the strength or desire to deal with any of them?

That is where I am.

So...last wednesday I attended the Thanksgiving Conference at New Hope Baptist Church. For most people, this means nothing. You have no memory of hours of pew-sitting and fiery preaching and endless cheek-pinching. This conference is a three day event that boasts the best preachers that the independent Baptists can wrangle, an endless buffet of food, and an evangelical agenda. I can remember the childish awe I felt as I listened to the blending voices singing the approved songs of the faith. The pews were full then. It has been many years since the pews have buckled under the weight of the masses. The pews have had decades of rest now.

If you spend any significant amount of time with me you will undoubtedly be subjected to at least one of my frequent rants on the evils of legalism. I grew up in a culture of rules instead of grace. I often say that, "Jesus died for me, and I refuse to live as though he did not". This passion rises from years of observing the oppression of grace, and women, and sinners. given my angst, I was a bit worried about again visiting this church that represents my past.

I suppose a part of me expected to explode upon crossing through the doorway. I was convinced that I would not be able to handle the hypocritical, oppressive, blind conservativism that I have come to despise. Much to my surprise, I did not explode. I did not feel oppressed or angry.

I felt love. I felt sadness.

In my righteous anger I had forgotten that the system I resented was full of people who are dear to me. I love the people who are entrenched in the Baptist tradition. And more remarkably, they continue to pour out their love to me. I am horribly undeserving, but they are the embodiment of Christ to my wretched soul.

So these people, my famiy in Christ, have torn away the elitist, judgmental attitude that I never knew existed. I find myself still distrustful of the institution, but full of love for the people who embrace the institution. Perhaps I am not always inherently right.

Then I looked around the sanctuary and I counted perhaps fifty people in the crowd. Scarcely any soul under the age of fifty. And I asked myself, where are the people that used to fill every pew and even spill into folding chairs? It is a dying subculture. It certainly left me scars, but it also gave me the gift of Jesus. As I sat in one of those mostly empty pews I wrote this:

Cavernous

rows and rows
pews and pews
warping wooden cage
scratches and scrapes
hymnal's truth in
happy? harmony
melody
silence
screaming bloody muddy red
comfortable cushion
crossed legs
lying lips
empty
but full
of bald white heads
suit coats
neck tie nooses
lacy, flowery mask
A-effing-men
preach it true
young and old
and old and old
and older...
dead.

This conference, while perhaps not well attended by human standards, managed to raise $25,000 for mission work in various countries. It is not, as I may like to believe, a pointless practice of out of touch, nominal Christianity.