A discussion with another friend led to the topic of fear of change…of the uncomfortableness of uncertainty.  In the midst of a dialogue, the words of Christ come through.  Uncertainty, fear and anxiety belong.  I am uncertain of tomorrow…I have no control, I have no comfort. Yet, right now I respond to Christ…and my response is a letting go, a surrender.  Doubt and anxiety are not weaknesses to hide from or cover over with righteous thoughts…they are gifts, for they call us to surrender again and again to the present.

I used to wonder why God seemed to speak so loudly to certain people, and not to me.  Now I realize certain people just speak loudly, and maybe they’re hearing from God and maybe they’re not.  For me, hearing God has meant stepping into my own life.   I used to relate to my own spirituality as though I were a third person observing.  “Right now I’m praying…good”.  “I went to church today…I feel good now”. ” If I were to pray with these people, what would I say?”  I still slip into this sometimes.

Its as though we’re constantly watching ourselves, measuring our own spirituality against some standard…observers of our walk with God, instead of participants.  I think this habit is easily picked up in the western church, where spirituality can easily become an exercise of saying and doing the right things, instead of a relationship.

Stepping into our own life with God means acknowledging the reality of the present moment, moment by moment, day by day.  It can be raw and real…we’re not always saying and doing the right things, but God calls us to be known anyway.  We don’t always feel spiritual, but acknowledging this is true spirituality.  God doesn’t always do what we want Him to do…and surrendering to this is as real as it gets.

As I’ve stepped into my own life, I’ve been able to respond to God in the present, even when He seems to be silent.  I’m come to accept silence…and as I do, I begin to hear His voice and see His presence in the words of friends, in a dusty crowd of humanity in a foreign world, in the mundane drive to work, in soft moments with my spouse.  Christ is here, and He is not silent.

Cross Emerging from a Lotus Flower

I came across an interesting article by Phillip Jenkins, entitled “When Jesus met Buddha”, and printed in the Boston Globe. It is a poignant discussion of the contemporary collision of Christianity with the other world religions, and what its future might look like in an increasingly global community. Jenkins spends a great deal of time detailing the move of the early Christian faith into Asia and Africa, relatively detached from the main body of the Church which developed in Europe. The Church of the East gave rise to vibrant communities of Christ followers in China, whose cultural expressions of faith naturally commingled and cooperated with Buddhist thought and Confucian culture. The church that emerged there adopted the symbol of the lotus cross, a cross emerging from a lotus flower, two symbols representing liberation and redemption brought together.

The article is a good read, and raises interesting questions about how the predominately European-influenced Christian Church of today will be viewed 1000 years from now. Will it be seen as the righteous holder of Truth it views itself as? Or, will this time in history be considered a dark time in the Christian church, where the essential message of Christ was overshadowed by fundamentalism? I don’t know the answer to this. I do often recognize a great difference between the Christ I encounter in the Gospels and the Christ being proclaimed to the world by the church…the ‘Good News’ doesn’t always sound that good.

Read the full text of the article here –> or  here–>
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