Liturgical Explorations – A Prefatory Autobiographical Rumination (Part 1)
I have already asserted my desirous intention to share an aspect of my life in God that is quite current, that is, my recent experiential investigations into the rich liturgical tradition of the Church. To begin this ongoing series of accounting and reflection, the contextual situation of my present experience is quite in order. Though I certainly did not plan my current near obsession with the Church’s liturgical tradition, it does come as a logical step in what will soon seem like an apparent progression. To explicate the context and logic of this phase in my life it will be fitting to embark on some autobiographical rumination (albeit, vastly filtered and condensed).
Recently, I have become fond of saying that I have always been “saved.” By that, I am referring to the entire lack in my consciousness of any time I was not a Christian. Although I had repeated experiences in which I “asked Jesus into my heart” from a very young age, in retrospect, they hardly seem like conversion experiences. What was I being converted from? Youthful ignorance? The “selfishness” of a three year old who has no other means of survival than to draw from those around them? The condemnation of an infant with little to no capacity for moral reasoning? While I certainly value and recognize the need for complete allegiance to the lordship of Jesus, I also truly believe that people can be raised Christian. At each expansion of my ability for moral reasoning I was taught and lead by my parents and church leaders to give my heart to God. Of course, this is not excluding the misfortunes of teen years (which I term the Dark Night of Life), nor the ongoing engagement of sanctification. Nevertheless, I maintain that from my earliest memory, I had a conscious, voluntary, heart-felt and growing faith in God. Having set the conception of my spiritual life over twenty-six years ago, I will share portions of my pilgrimage that bear relevance to where I would like to lead this discussion. In doing so, I hope to highlight distinct phases of my life where I discovered and began to value and incorporate aspects of the major streams of Christian tradition.
I was always an odd child, in more ways than one, and in such I remember having an odd fascination with the Bible. My favorite book during childhood was the “Picture Bible,” which essentially was an abridged form of the Bible set as a five hundred page comic-book. When I matured slightly my favorite book became a Bible handbook my parents gave me as a Christmas present. It went through the Bible summarizing each section, explaining the history and background with pictures, timelines, diagrams, etc. I would often get captivated by certain topics, like the Tabernacle, or the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and make “books” about them on construction paper, writing about them, making charts and pictures, much like my Bible handbook. During trips to the library during grade school, my best friend (he being Jewish) and I would find the only few books on the Bible in the school library and check them out. I remember at that time, my grandfather calling me the family’s “young Bible scholar.”
Alas, my youthful zeal for the Word of God dwindled over time. Growing up, schoolwork came rather easily for me and likewise, repeating memorized Bible information was never difficult. As I entered high school, the combination of being both intellectually astute for my age and sincere in my love for God garnered me a reputation of being one of the “more spiritual” members of my youth group, despite unspoken inconsistencies and struggles in my walk with God. It was at this point in my life when I became a serious classical musician and devoted most of my time to musical pursuits, whether that be practicing my instruments, writing music, singing, participating and/or directing ensembles, etc. I grew increasingly bitter and judgmental, as I perceived that the traditional forms of music were the best and only way one should worship. It is amazing that I had such carnal confidence to judge others despite the fact that my own personal life was entirely devoid of vitality in the Scriptures and prayer. My overall boredom with God and spirituality (except for when there was the style of music I liked), lack of private religion and growing struggles with sin only added to the weight of shame and condemnation that energized my judgmentalism in the first place.
Sometime during the tenth grade, on Sunday nights, my parents introduced me to a Methodist church that was experiencing a renewal/revival of sorts, of which they had already been attending intermittently. The church’s style was markedly more expressive and passionate than the variety of staid spirituality with which I had grown up. The music was neither classical nor traditional in genre. I can honestly say I hated it. I thought everyone was crazy and could not understand what was going on. I never really wanted to go, but my parents kept taking me every other week or so. What I remember next is that a couple of months later I completely loved it. I wish I could have retain some of the intervening memories for that would have made this narrative more engaging. I discovered a dimension of freedom in worship that I had not known before. I found it liberating to express my heart to God with all the multifarious emotions it possesses. This was my first exposure to the Charismatic tradition, one of the great streams within the Christian faith. I learned much in those days about the importance of worship and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are not as the popular adage goes, “to seek the giver, not the gifts.” Paul exhorts us to “earnestly desire spiritual gives” (1 Cor 14:1), to zealously yearn for them. In addition, the passion and excitement from the worship services and preaching gave me the impetus to begin personal Bible study and prayer (though not always consistently). None of these points were emphasized in my churches growing up and I thank God for what I have learned from the Charismatic tradition.
To be continued…
