Returning to your first love

 i became a Christian many years ago. i've been to countless meetings, services, conferences, seminars...and attended seminary. meanwhile, i studied my Bible and determined that there was- in reality- a wide gap between how the New Testament described the body of believers on Earth and the way the "faithful" gathered and did business in America. That fact became the proverbial elephant in the room, even when I found myself in the pulpit, invited, on Sunday morning.

 the greatest group of believers i met with in my Christian "juvenile" or formative years was when i was an undergraduate. they met on Friday nights, at the beginning of the real Sabbath, and "did church" more like what i read in the New Testament. While there were elders, who, like those in the Bible were actually those who had more experience as a Christian, the gatherings never felt or reflected a modern American church service. Worship was central, fellowship essential, the Word and presence of God always there, and all the members of the body participated. 

 There was no need for elaborate miracles to create shock and awe. There was no need for someone running around the perimeter of the building. in fact, the group rented the space in the building they used and never owned a building. the community was active, interactive, and met freely wherever and whenever to fellowship, study the Word, and meet the needs of the community while we also met corporately.

 After I graduated, I searched for a fellowship of believers who met like the early church, or at least like my undergraduate fellowship. No one  came close. Not one group. Too many resembled the antithesis of what the Word preached. Too many, especially those who called themselves "Protestant," were steered by a mini-pope who made all important decisions, just like a priest. There was no community, no gathering apart from Sunday and/or Wednesday or Thursday. There were an extreme amount of assumptions in such organizations, with little to no Biblical basis for those assumptions. Many of these traditions were rooted in some other organization's operating procedures. The faithful were, therefore, clueless why we sang "Don't forget your family prayer" every Sunday night at the end of the service, or greeted one another with strange, archaic words following the service. 

Meanwhile, I prayed to God alone or with family, sought the Lord outside the building, and certainly worshipped the Lord outside the box. The box was suffocating, draining, and even depressing. Money went for an elevator, new roof, and expansions, while countless congregants had to go on welfare and died poor...because the church was about the building, not the body, not the Lord.  

Because the church did not reflect the Eklessia, the community of believers as described in the New Testament, I stepped out and followed the leading of God, which sometimes meant going to specific places He wanted me to go to...including those who needed a pastor that Sunday morning. I cannot count the times God did this. So, it did not surprise me when God did miracles, like saving a soul, or bringing in a drunk from off the streets. Instead of living in a building on Sundays and Thursdays, I was ready to move anywhere anytime at the Lord's leading. 

By that time, I was writing more, had finished three plays, with performances of all three, and was enjoying success. But God had other plans for me, even though I did not really want to move. Still, I knew it was God's will, even if it was certainly not mine nor my employer's will. When you have been a follower of the Lord for years, His leading is unmistakable.

So, I moved. In the first few months I hunted for a dynamic church where I could settle in and just enjoy the worship, sit back and relax.

I was minding my own business....but was on youtube one night...when I saw a bald-headed Danish man teaching about the history of the Church. Of course, having been in seminary, and having studied extensively the early church and early manuscripts, what He spoke was all I had been saying for years. It was all scripture, but in context in time and place. 

The megachurch was the antithesis of this. It resembled a KISS concert with scented fog, an elaborate costly light show, and extra-biblical worship that often originated from questionable Christian musicians. I put up with it, hoping to meet some fellow Christians even in this venue. 

When the pastor called for help developing a play, I met with the group, explaining who I was and what I could do for them, even as just an advisor. It was there that I learned that some megachurches are simply extensions of the pastor's ego and if you were not already his friend, you might as well leave. Which is exactly what I did during the meeting. 

Meanwhile, I was listening to this interesting Danish brother on the internet, and my heart felt God's tugging to return back to the Word and what it said about the gathering of believers as the early "church" met.

No matter where God has led me, I have looked for the real body of believers. I have met one on one in homes, and I have met with others in a parking lot. I have met others over a meal. In each setting, two or more were together meeting in His name, where He was with us. 

I have returned to living like a disciple, like an integral part of the community of the saints, not as a man wed to a building fund and a heretical way of living. I have returned to living in fellowship with believers committed to loving God first and foremost, in a life that I hope reflects worship every day.

like a bicycle with training wheels...

 Here in the hills, Autumn is rolling in, like a little girl on her bicycle with training wheels. Nothing is overly dramatic, nothing officially disastrous. The leaves don't know which way to go, whether to stay green, turn color, or fade into dust in the gentle air. While the corn is brittle in a blowing wind, the latter seems to have gone on vacation. 

 It is that time of year when it feels right to write in passive tense, as if now we can show more sentimentality, yet tell the story in third person. And while autumn tends to stir reminiscing, it leads into a season full of stories, including the greatest of them all. Such a time culminates in A Christmas Story and It's A Wonderful Life, reminding even the Pagan multitude that Autumn, though a slow-going story, transforms into winter, and ends in a celebration of the climax of all events in history.

 In my life, autumn has brought such clarity during reflection that it usually brings heightened creativity. It was during an autumn that I first wrote the opening lines to my first novel. It was during an autumn that I wrote my first play. It is, as they used to say, a season for inspiration, as all the world around whispers the coming of the dramatic, when winter comes calling at the cabin door... 

A helpful note for "your other history"

 Last night I wrote a slice-of-life fiction piece, your other history, that cannot be appreciated fully without incorporating the sounds contained therein. If you have heard Martucci's first piano concerto, listened to the sound of an old man's labored breathing as he is "out of it in his chair," and are familiar with the sounds of a computer update, the spin cycle on a washer...then you will be able to imagine more clearly the cacophony, the jumbled discordant symphony of life's sounds in a moment in time.

While sound is a powerful mnemonic link, smell is even more so. It is, scientifically, the most memorable scent. So, I threw in the old man's attachment to his "love," the woman he has lost, to add to the mixture of emotions encapsulated in that time frame.

I encourage you to listen to a rendition of G. Martucci's Paino Concert # 1, and at the same time, read "your other history" and feel what i felt when i wrote the piece...the crescendos...while the old man's functions faded...and, like the computer that suddenly goes into sleep mode, the sound dies within the room, and another steps in, and the old man slips into the eternal. 

your other history

He settled in, in the Lazy Boy. The crisp November night dipped into freezing, the windowpanes glistening...while a pattering of piano and strings emanated from a laptop on a nearby table. The pianist's punctuating crescendos like the long, then short, breaths of the old man... Martucci's Piano Concerto # 1...was now a symphony of life as he slipped into sleep.

A fiberglass cane lay on the floor next to an old Plat book, a 2013 road atlas, and a heavy old Dyson... full of fluff. Toothpicks sat in an ashtray near the old Victrola, the cabinet beneath with 78s from the 20's and 30's, their musty record covers deteriorating.

He'd forgotten to take the old Mason jar...the one he used as a drinking glass... back into the kitchen. He remembered how "she" would throw a fit every time he forgot to "put it away," as if this single episode would stop the clocks from running. 

But she was no longer here...while her scent fragranced the air for a few weeks...her clothes grew stale, and he found the longing to touch them dying from within. 

He still heard her in his mind, somewhere close to his ears...but her voice was fading.

Her clothes lay piled like an old forgotten reminder on their bed upstairs... in the bedroom he passed by every morning, content to leave the contents as they were. They were history. A tangible reminder.  Alone.

The Grandfather clock struck 12. A silence filled his ears. A soft silence...

And as the dawn crept in through the cracks in the curtains, the figure stiffened, and the electric meter turned and turned, oblivious to the world of flesh and bone. 

The school bus, like clockwork, passed by at 8:12, followed by the 18 year old girl, who lived next door, and drove her little white car the two blocks to the parking lot every day...like a child reciting a rosary, she lived life without thinking.

In the alley behind, the garbage truck stopped to empty the big blue plastic bin. 

Next door, the neighbor opened the back door, tapping down the steps like a dancer, his heart racing abnormally fast, coffee and chocolate blessing his veins.

Across the street, the newlyweds lingered on the front porch where the new Daddy-to-be said goodbyes two or three times and tried to forget how long he'd be away before climbing into his bright red truck.

The UPS truck, an exquisite brown, stopped in the street, and the driver removed an item from the back end. He shoved it onto the old man's front porch, then left.

As the kids came home from school, the white car returned to the curb out front. Later, the slightly pregnant Mommy met her new husband on their front porch. And the high-strung neighbor, running low on caffeine, slowly climbed his own back steps and hid in his own little house.

But in the house next door, where the lights burned bright, the freezer thawed, and the laptop did an update, a whitened old man, his mouth open like a flounder, left his birthday suit in the lazy boy chair and headed for another history...