Tuesday, December 7, 2010

He ain't Northern Plains, and he ain't a wacko...

...he's just a young Anglican sorting things out in Waco, TX and environs.

Have a look at his blog.

On first skim, I already liked this bit of Anglican treasure excavation:

"As my faith has grown over the years, I’ve acquired both an increasing yearning to be more worshipful around the holidays and directly proportional frustration. It bothered me that my churches did so little to facilitate a sense of spiritual “otherness” that time of the year. Their concern about not divorcing “real life” from “church life” produced a leeriness about overtly religious rituals, which resulted in a lack of build up. Sure, there were seasonal songs leading up to Christmas and maybe they celebrated Palm Sunday before Easter, but this did little to prepare my heart. Every year Christmas and Easter somehow seemed to spring from nowhere, and it was exceedingly difficult to instantaneously establish the right frame of mind during the special services. It was like attending a sporting event with a group of rowdy guys, then coming home to your spouse watching Schindler’s List. Clearly it’s a time to be low key and meditative, but it’s borderline impossible to emotionally turn on a dime. I find that this is especially so in our own society where holidays are the most hectic days of the year. This is where the christian calendar’s value comes in. From the season-specific colors to the specific prayers, there’s a process that cultivates anticipation, contemplation, reverence, awe, and thankfulness. I’m new to Anglicanism and this is my first time through so, honestly, I don’t write about this from experience. What I can say is that I love the theory. We’ll see how things play out."

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