OK, it's been so long since I've posted anything that I'm thinking I need to put something--anything--on this blog! Although, I have to lead contemplative prayer pretty soon, so I'd better make this fast!
It's almost Holy Week, so it's time (actually, it's beyond time) for clergy to be hyper-focused on liturgical preparation. All the more reason why I need this quote to remind me that the purpose of all of this liturgy we will be doing over the next 11 days or so is to provide an opportunity for people to meet Jesus, not for me to glorify the church.
"I sometimes feel inclined to wonder why God hides himself so inscrutably from our experience. Or is it that the church has taught us for so long to look for him in the wrong places?"
This is from the Rev. Oswin Creighton who was a Church of England chaplain to the 86th Brigade of the 29th Division during World War I (it comes from a book titled, With the 29th Division in Gallipoli--no, I haven't read the book).
I guess this is a great example of "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Perhaps Oswin was ringing this hands as much as many do today about the paradoxical ways that the church tries to be the Body of Christ while also upholding the institutional "stuff" that seems so very important.
More on that another time. For now, it's time for contemplative prayer.
Time to worship. Time to pray. Time to find Jesus . . . hopefully in the right places.
