hippies, latino family meals, and fairy tale dreams

I came to a realization on saturday, well...a few actually. For instance, i decided i like modern hippies because they are into people regardless and often put us christians to shame for their giving hearts. Another realization i came to is that subway seats stink for 1.5 hour rides...they get a little uncomfy. but i think the largest realization i came to this weekend is still ringing in my heart today. for many of you this won't come as a huge suprise or shock because you know the path of my struggles over the last few years, if not life time. And thinking on it, i can see now so many elements that played a role in this being "born again...again" experience, there's the obvious things like how i was reared, my wife, God (duh!), the move to NY, but i seem to see the ochestrations of the Divine Hand through the smaller events in my life. Some things stand out in my mind such as my 3 years at seacoast, books from my chicago seminary graduate turned coffee cafe manager friend kaite, emails and discussions from my buddy carl, venting frustrations and seemingly idealistic views to my honey bunny tammy while laying in bed, and theologically shaking moments with mentors like my mom, Dr. Kebede, Mac, G-money, my Christian ethics classmates and their passion to change the world...and after saturday i see now how i will never be the same. it wasn't a grand marching band chorus of angels kinda moment, it was a sweet release after years of struggle and fighting myself and my presuppositions, it was tears for people i don't know in body but i know in spirit that released me, it was wrapped in the tales that paint hope in my mind for the Body on the long train ride to Coney island for free music with mordern hippies. i have finally come to the precipice of choice and fallen free. but with these as of yet still unstated words, i feel intimidation and fear of the significance that lies behind them...

Today, well saturday, i realized...i'm through with the american church. i'm through with religion and the way i was shocked to see i believed "it" is supposed to be "done." i'm finished with the arguments of theology, i'm through with the arrogant assumption that the salvation story will "make it better," i'm through offering canned jesus and being concerned with the afterlife and ignoring the realities of this one, i'm through thinking religion and polotics don't match and being afraid to be "liberal" or thinking that social justice is immoral. i'm through with the polotics of the American church and the consumerism of American Christianity. i am through with the ideaology and priorities of the mega-church, i am through being angery and complaining about everything but never being something to change it, i am through with being satisfied wanting.

i want Jesus to walk in my shoes, give through my hands, speak through my lips, love through me. now i'm sure you may be thinking, "well of course so do i, don't all christians?" But now i am beginning to see that living in Christ entales so much more than the standardized self-consumerd fluff we have called Christianity. i can no longer live for me and my priorities while 150,000 orphans reside unloved in short term care, while countless unique and beautiful people go homeless and hungery while everyone on the train and street turn deaf ears and hide behind iPods, freshly brewed starbucks, and designer clothes with the tags still on them. i welcome the conflict of self fullfilled and self righteous people who satisfy themselves that a "coin in the coffer rings and a soul from purgatory springs" mentality about their role in the church coming to wrestle with a greater calling than our own comfort.

i desire beyond all things in me for the church, the True CHurch, the Body of Christ, to live again in this world. to me it looks like no more homeless individuals, no more degrading of people because of their ethnicity, educations levels, or orientation. it looks like no more orphans. it looks like community where we look out for our neighbor, not because we feel it's the "right" thing to do, but because we are involved in their lives and love them for who they are, not what they can offer us. it looks like social justice, like conservation of our resources and healthy responsibility in their use. it looks like bi-vocational people in the ministry, not relying fully on the "church" to support them so they can be cloistered away in their church office from 9-5, but that they have another job, in the community, where they can "labor with thier own hands so they will have something useful to contribute to the community." it looks like church organization's that don't use only 30% of their annual 16.5 million dollar budget for the community. it doesn't look like misappropriation of funds. it doesn't look like pastors with $80,000 salaries.

it is a community founded on and bound by love. a love that is genuine and that exists deep within the individual, elemental to who he or she is. not to tack on another salvation knotch on the belt. but a love that dares to say, i love you for no means of my own, for no goal of my own, for no qualification of my religiosity. i love you because i am so loved i want you to be loved. a love that says, dangerously, i will give all that i have for you. i want to know you. i want to be known.

i do not put this before the digital world lightly. i have thought and wrestled with this these last few days, so much so i started this post sunday morning and still am working to finish it today, tuesday. but i place this as a call, for you to discover the Christ that activly loved and whose greatest accomplishment was not going to a cross and raising from the dead, but whose legacy is that of a love for a people regardless of station. my friends and brothers and sisters, this is a hard path that i have come to. this life is something so foregin to me...but deep in the resounding depths of my being, i know this is right.

if we as an organic and holistic movement of love accept that we will all never agree on everything, but the major point is Christ and his love, then we, the Church, can forever do away with "how to become a relevent church" seminars and pop christian culture, and change the world. i once was told fairy tales aren't real, things are impossible, you'll never change the world. and now i know i don't have to. all i have to do...all i want to do, is love the person next to me on the subway. that's all i was ever asked to do. and if we do, we can change the world, we can make this world better for our children, and they can know that fairy tales do come true...