I frequently feel like Abby Sciuto from this week’s episode of NCIS when it comes to faith. Being as inwardly focused as I am, my faith and my spiritual ponderings tend to be chaotic in my brain and like Abby, I need and want to make sense of the chaos. (In her case, it’s chemistry. In mine, it’s chaos in my soul.) There are some things that anchor me spiritually and those are what keep me in the faith. Those are the subject of my quick takes this week. And yes, I do wish I could rock the Goth look like Abby does. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when one is married to a pastor — parishioners tend to prefer their pastor’s wife without excessive tats, clothes from Hot Topic, and piercings.
Liturgy. I’m a super-strong J on the MBTI. I crave order and liturgy provides that for me. I’m an Episcopalian by background (and truthfully Anglican by preference — I’m Lutheran partially because I’m married to a Lutheran pastor) and there is also just something really amazing about knowing that people around the world are using the same words as I am and praying the same prayers.
Hymnody. Given a choice in my church music, I prefer traditional hymns by far. It’s not to say that contemporary worship music does have its place — it’s not what anchors me and feeds me. I also find the words of the old hymns to be more spiritually fulfilling than that of modern worship music. This is what is stuck in my head right now.
KLOVE. KLOVE is a national Christian radio station based in the Sacramento area and it’s what I listen to when I’m out driving somewhere. I don’t love all the music on there (I tune out when it’s a song I can’t stand) but it’s free of all the obnoxious talk shows that pervaded the Christian station that we got in Montana. (There was a point at which I had to turn that one off and put on my iPod because I would be tempted to vomit from all the Focus on the Family crap and the pop-psychiatrists who espoused a much different view of Christianity, gender issues, and grace than that in which I believe.)
Creeds. The late great Christian theologian Jaroslav Pelikan was on the public radio show “On Being” (formerly “Speaking of Faith”) in 2003 and discussed the “need for creeds”. Quoting him (because it encapsulates my feelings perfectly): “My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morning, ‘As of 9:20, what do you believe?’ And then you sit down with a three-by-five index card saying, ‘Now let’s see. What do I believe today?’ No, that’s not what they’re asking me. They’re asking me, ‘Are you a member of a community which now, for a millennium and a half, has said, we believe in one God?”
Church Seasons. The church year starts in late November/early December (for those of us in the West) and ends in November with Christ the King Sunday. Its seasons follow the life and ministry of Christ and the establishment of the Church. For me, Advent is necessary for me to really celebrate Christmas (which is 12 days long) and Lent is necessary (with Holy Week) for me to really feel Easter. I’m a bit odd in that I love Advent and Lent. Holy Week is another part of the church year that I love in a strange way. (Is it completely wrong to enjoy the pensiveness and all of Good Friday?) Before I had Daniel, I had a much different experience of them. In the last two years, it’s been harder to have the experience that I had before because so much has happened. (Daniel was born during Holy Week in 2009 and I haven’t actually gotten to celebrate Holy Week since.) Still, they are central to how I live my life.
Quiet for Prayer. I am a bad pastor’s wife because I hate praying with others. (I *should* pray with Jon every night but it’s just uncomfortable for me so we don’t.) Part of it is that I’m moving away from having verbal diarrhea when I pray to just wanting to sit and be still. I think it may be that the two years since Daniel’s birth have been tempestuous for me and there are just some things that I cannot vocalize. Thankfully, the words of Romans 8:26-27 are true: In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (NASB)
Luther’s Words. While I could actually pick something else for #7 if I reverted to Anglicanism or became Antiochian Orthodox, one of the reasons I became Lutheran in college was that Luther made sense to me. He bridged my Baptist sensibilities about Scripture and my Episcopalian love of liturgy. I’ve only been a Lutheran for 10 years but I find myself answering faith questions with pieces of the Small Catechism and the Augsburg Confessions. (I am not, however, anti-Semitic and I do not believe in the myth of the Roman Catholic church being the “whore of Babylon”.) I also have a strange desire to end statements with the phrase “this is most *certainly* true.”
Fernando Ortega’s music. I became acquainted with him through a random recording of “Give Me Jesus” and found other examples on Napster. His last two non-Christmas albums have been music based on the offices in the Book of Common Prayer and as a liturgical Anglican-Lutheran hybrid, it soothes my soul in ways which cannot be described by words. His piano arrangements are heavenly (though frequently, I wish they were pieces that he would *sing* because they are some of my favorite hymns) and he does all the verses of hymns that deal with the Cross instead of glossing over them. The Cross is central to our faith as Christians and while I do not expect artists to sing all their songs about the blood and gore, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge its importance.
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.
Thanks Jen for the link in #7 on that particular myth! It’s a historical thing I never heard of before becoming Catholic and I doubt very many modern Lutherans have. On the other hand, some non-Lutheran communities have picked it up and its very much alive in them.
I can relate on order through liturgy (#2). It’s comforting to me and leads to deeper involvement. I have to keep myself in check from joining the “liturgy police” when I notice any small errors (my wife helps with that when I point something out to her).
I’m loving your theme 7QT’s. You make me feel better by wanting to pray by sitting and being still. We really struggle with praying together; it’s so easy for prayer to feel stilted and like a parade instead of prayer, when you do it with others.
Thank you for that link in number 7!! I love liturgy, too, and one of the strongest reasons is because I know people around the world are praying the same thing.
That link in 7 is very interesting! I am a Lutheran and never knew that. My grandfather is actually a pastor, but I’m converting to Catholicism soon! I love Holy week as well. I went to the service on Good Friday and it was just amazing. I am so so glad I went.
Wow, this is me. As a current Baptipalian (been American Baptist my whole life, but currently, due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve been attending the Episcopal church with my husband) I am finding that I love the liturgy, and the ritual, and the vestments (esp. when Fr.Seth wears his sunshine yellow Converse sneakers under his vestments on Easter!). Some of it I am still working through – praying for the dead I will not do, as their fate is settled once they die, but I will pray for their families and friends during that part of the service.
I’m still learning the church calendar and the BCP, but I’ll get there. I’ve yet to go through a whole church year as an Episcopal. It is odd for me that Christmas starts on Christmas day, not the day after Thanksgiving. But I have always felt drawn to mark Advent as a time of reflection as well as celebration, and I have kept Lent, in one form or another for as long as I can remember. I miss some of the music of the Baptist church (Dean jokes that if a song is on KLove for 3 weeks, it becomes part of the hymnal) but I’m really digging the OLD hymns. Looked down at the hymnal a week or so ago, and the song was written in 865. Not 1865, 865. So some of the stuff is very close to Gregorian chant, and it soothes my soul.
When Dean was confirmed a few weeks ago, I did want to laugh when the bishop put his miter on, but I restrained myself. I thought about being confirmed at the same time, but am still sorting out where I fit in, as I’m still involved with American Baptist Women’s Ministries, and don’t want to lose that.
I used to believe that Catholicism was TGWoB, but some of my Baptist traditions – not from “the church” necessarily, but from family members and Sunday School teachers – was that when a Catholic died, they put him in a chute in the church basement and he went directly to hell. EEEP!! No longer. And not for a long, long time. But being in the Episcopal church has been good for me. It’s greatly broadened my horizons.
Thank you for this post. It has helped me put things into perspective.