The intersection of the holy & mundane
Tonight I purchased The Cloister Walk, which I first heard of from
alissamarie, on a surprise and final Employee Appreciation Day. After loading up on gifts for the family (some bought on their behalf for others), I snuck in just enough cash to add Norris' work. I had ordered it Monday, praying it would get here by today, and was thrilled when it did. I relate so much to her--a Protestant who is attracted to the sanctity and power of the liturgy. I didn't even know an oblate existed till I read Alissa's entry, and I'm so glad to have discovered they do. I'm grateful an author chose to undertake this experience--and share it.
I've been thinking lately about the relationship between the sacred and the secular world. Some early Protestants feared beauty and its ability to draw a person to God; they felt comfortable only with the Bible as a means of glorifying and knowing him. Yet I think that we have all experienced the sacred in the natural world; as long as one worships the Creator, and not what he has made in itself, I think there are good and worthwhile benefits in the act.
In this vein of thought, Christmas has surprised me with its commingling of the sacred and the secular. I know the holiday has been trivialized with one too many Santa songs, and has some pagan roots (my Colombian friend is mystified by our Christmas trees), but the essence of the Christian faith begins here and reaches its climax at Easter--and for a month or so, the world somehow agrees. You walk into a store, and hear the name of Christ over the speakers. Jarring? Yes. But strangely, comforting, as unexpected as such a mixing of the holy and mundane feels at certain times.
In addition, the presence of the holiday remains a mystery to me. Just as God made the name of an obscure man known in all the earth as the ancestor of three major world religions, I find it amazing--and indicative--that an equally obscure Jewish carpenter is celebrated in a world that wasn't even known to exist when he walked on the earth. Many of us have heard this before, but to think that a person who never wrote anything himself, who died at only thirty-three, and who claimed to be the Messiah in an age of false christs, is the most well-known man on earth two thousand years later ... It takes some faith to turn one's back on that, and say, "Complete and crazy rubbish."
(I found it funny when I was caught between the two--on the one hand, many voices seemed to echo my own cynical and rebellious thoughts and doubts. On the other, I found the vast majority of the planet believed in some type of deity--and at that point, I already knew which One I longed to be true.)
So anyway, despite the fact that faith doesn't depend on the world to validate its substance, it intrigues me when the two intersect--even for a holiday we have every year.
alissamarie, on a surprise and final Employee Appreciation Day. After loading up on gifts for the family (some bought on their behalf for others), I snuck in just enough cash to add Norris' work. I had ordered it Monday, praying it would get here by today, and was thrilled when it did. I relate so much to her--a Protestant who is attracted to the sanctity and power of the liturgy. I didn't even know an oblate existed till I read Alissa's entry, and I'm so glad to have discovered they do. I'm grateful an author chose to undertake this experience--and share it.
I've been thinking lately about the relationship between the sacred and the secular world. Some early Protestants feared beauty and its ability to draw a person to God; they felt comfortable only with the Bible as a means of glorifying and knowing him. Yet I think that we have all experienced the sacred in the natural world; as long as one worships the Creator, and not what he has made in itself, I think there are good and worthwhile benefits in the act.
In this vein of thought, Christmas has surprised me with its commingling of the sacred and the secular. I know the holiday has been trivialized with one too many Santa songs, and has some pagan roots (my Colombian friend is mystified by our Christmas trees), but the essence of the Christian faith begins here and reaches its climax at Easter--and for a month or so, the world somehow agrees. You walk into a store, and hear the name of Christ over the speakers. Jarring? Yes. But strangely, comforting, as unexpected as such a mixing of the holy and mundane feels at certain times.
In addition, the presence of the holiday remains a mystery to me. Just as God made the name of an obscure man known in all the earth as the ancestor of three major world religions, I find it amazing--and indicative--that an equally obscure Jewish carpenter is celebrated in a world that wasn't even known to exist when he walked on the earth. Many of us have heard this before, but to think that a person who never wrote anything himself, who died at only thirty-three, and who claimed to be the Messiah in an age of false christs, is the most well-known man on earth two thousand years later ... It takes some faith to turn one's back on that, and say, "Complete and crazy rubbish."
(I found it funny when I was caught between the two--on the one hand, many voices seemed to echo my own cynical and rebellious thoughts and doubts. On the other, I found the vast majority of the planet believed in some type of deity--and at that point, I already knew which One I longed to be true.)
So anyway, despite the fact that faith doesn't depend on the world to validate its substance, it intrigues me when the two intersect--even for a holiday we have every year.