These thoughts that are attempting to take the form of an insight have come to me in stages over the last few days... and they have come from a variety of sources. Memories posted by Facebook. An article written by one of my seminary professors. A CD of Belmont Songs of Praise that we sang back in the '80s in Nashville, TN. The CD arrived in the mail this morning and as we played it all these different memories and thoughts began to percolate in my heart... when I tried to express the insight to Thomas my voice broke and I probably should have stopped right then and wept for a while, but I just kept washing the dishes and wiping the cabinet... over and over again.
So, let me start from the top... and those who have known me since 1982 or before won't need any background... and for those who haven't, you are on your own. No background given at this point.
Facebook Memories. This new Facebook feature made me realize last night that some/so many/several of my fb friends from our Nashville days have unfriended me in the last few years! I don't know when and I don't know why, but I imagine they felt uncomfortable with my views of life and faith that I can now identify as 'left of center.' (I may have been left of center when I knew them in Nashville, but didn't have the words to express it... and besides that, Thomas and I were suffering 'Counter Culture Shock' because we had just returned to the USA after 16 years in Europe.) Back to the present, realizing you've been unfriended brings a temporary twinge of pain.
Article Written by a Seminary Professors. (available to read) A day or two ago I posted this article on my Facebook page, to be read later. I appreciated all my professors, those at Asbury Theological Seminary and those from Lexington Theological Seminary, and now, I looked forward to reading what Dr. Linn had to say. It was the next day before I read the article, but immediately after reading it, I deleted it! He spoke with disdain about people I love (i.e. Christians who hold a different view of Scripture) and I chose not to promote that on my page, even though I agreed with much of his analysis. As I deleted it, I felt sadness.
Belmont Songs of Praise CD. Recently one of our acquaintances from Nashville found an old CD of worship songs made back in the '80s, and had gotten permission to make one for anyone who wanted a copy. Of course we did! As the CD played this morning, the memories flooded back! We received the hospitality that the congregation had extended to us in Nashville in 1982 when we returned to the States! They gave us a safe place to heal from physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion as we adjusted to life in the United States. Various ones shared their lives with us, welcomed us into their homes, included us in their circle of friends, saw more in us that we ever saw in ourselves, and blessed us in various physical ways, as well.
They put a shelter over our heads until we were able to provide for ourselves. They outfitted our home with furniture, pieced together from hither and yon. One woodworker made us a set of beautiful shelves and another family, redecorating and discarding furniture, furnished our living room. In fact, I'm sitting in one of those Broyhill chairs while I write this blog!
I picture us as we were then, a middle-aged couple with three children returning to the States after sixteen years in Europe with little more than the suitcases we carried. The church gave us a shower... like you give newly weds! You know, outfitting our kitchen with pots and pans, dishes, baking utensils, etc. They loved us in very practical ways. Many of these people had visited us in Switzerland and stayed in our home there. Others told us they prayed for us regularly while we ministered in Europe.
The songs on the CD brought all of that back to my memory this morning... and I realized some of those people are the ones who have dropped me from their Facebook list of friends. And even as I write, my eyes fill with tears and I begin to weep.
Insights? On the happy side, many of those friends from Belmont days still claim me as their friend on Facebook. *smiley face* And some of those same friends have also begun to move in their thinking... so the distance between us varies. And regardless of what Dr. Linn says, we are all one in Christ, of that I am certain. I doubt that our friends from Belmont days would describe themselves as 'fundamentalist' as Dr. Linn did in his article, but they would no doubt bristle at what he describes as a total disregard for Scripture.
Insight: The lack of respect among Christians rips at my insides!
One thing I've learned to do is to respect the place of other persons in their spiritual journey... to accept their understanding and use of Scripture... and hope they will extend to me the same courtesy, even if we don't agree, because we are connected in Christ. As I reflect on my own journey I realize I have changed. Today I am certainly not who I was in 1959 when I came to faith in a fundamentalist church, neither am I who I was in 1974 when we met the Belmont congregation for the first time and began to explore the implications of the Holy Spirit at work in the world today. And of course, I had matured even further in my thinking and understanding when we returned to the States in 1982 and settled into the Belmont fellowship. By that time my husband and I had concluded people function in the church according to spiritual gifts, not limited by gender.
What I realize now that I didn't realize then, is that Belmont leadership and I didn't have a common hermeneutic (a seminary word meaning, a method or theory of interpretation). That got me in trouble when I applied for a ministry position at Belmont and was informed it was open only to men. Our interpretation of Scripture differed, but we did have a common love for the Lord--and that community of believers (Belmont church) extended God's love to us in powerful ways, healing ways, and in some instances, nurturing ways for the years we were there.
I recently read a quote attributed to the late Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky.
"If the you of five years ago doesn't consider the you of today a heretic, you are not Growing Spiritually." ~ Thomas Merton.I think that is what I'm trying to do when I say I accept people where they are, and accept them with respect.
Those of us who claim to be followers of Christ or disciples of Jesus are all on a journey, headed in a similar direction. However, as I write this, I know that many of my friends and acquaintances from Seminary days, 1989--1995 (professors and students included) and many of my friends from Belmont days, 1982--1989 (leaders and 'pew packers' included) could not/would not abide one another if they were to meet face to face or find themselves in a context of worship.
Insight: That realization of mutual disrespect breaks my heart, and as I think of it, I think it breaks the Lord's heart, too. Didn't he prayed that we all be one so that the world might believe? We'll never all be at the same place at the same time in our journey of faith. We'll never be united in our understanding of Scripture, but we can realize we are all on the same journey and the place of that journey is in Christ, who makes us one.
Sometimes when a phrase of Scripture comes to my mind, I've discovered to look it up because more often than not the greater context of the verse sheds more light on my situation.
"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world."
~ Philippians 2:12b-15Oh, if we could only be blameless children of God, without murmuring and arguing.
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