Faith Fatigue

It was not the cheapest hotel in Redding, CA, but, it was close- and I was there for an entire week, while teaching a class at Simpson University. Redding is a pretty little town-tucked at the foot of Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen, near Lake Shasta-I even hear that there is an amazing bridge nearby, but, my teaching shedule never allows me any free time in the daylight. The breakfast at the Amerihost Inn and Suites includes a "make your own waffle" bar, and, it's worth waking for that smell alone! So, I made my own waffle, poured my coffee, and sat to watch the Today show on the small TV in the upper corner. BUT, I was near a table with a woman and 3 men. They were all in their early 40's, I would guess, but, had the voices and demeanor of people much older. The men were wearing short sleeve shirts-- with ties-- and pocket protectors with pens-- AND, tie clips. I turned and looked, thinking that maybe they were remedial Mormon missionaries, who had become lost on their bikes some 30 years earlier and had just arrived at the Amerihost-- led to the light by the smell of waffles-- but, no, they bowed their head--- and prayed-- loudly, openly, and fervently. The room stopped-- full of families, and business travelers, and people just stumbling into being awake. Now, I believe in prayer, even fervent prayer, and I've been known to bow my head in public, and even to pray aloud in public-- but, this was different. THIS was a display-- in BOLD CAPS. They prayed for their food, for George Bush, for their churches, for their families, and that God would show them how to "win the unsaved." I intentionally did NOT bow to pray- I figured that God had heard enough from that room at the Amerihost, if He was paying any attention-- and I was reminded of the Gospel admonition to pray in your closet-=-not as the man who made a show of his prayers at the temple-- but, this was no temple, this was a low cost hotel breakfast room with the smell of bad coffee, burned waffles (it is true, that some people CANNOT make their own--even with instructions in spanish, and oddly, Braille) Yes, I believe we can pray at any time, any where-- but, they had just made a spectacle of their prayer, and made an entire room a bit uncomfortable, interrupted Katie and Matt, and caused others to look up from USA Today and the Redding paper. I am a christian, love God and the church, and I was embarrassed-- and a little angry, that they had talked to my God in that way. A bit like hearing someone speak to your parents in a disrespectful tone. I wanted to make them apologize, not only for their bad fashion sense, but, for their choice of language, and timing. Who were these "unsaved?" What were the odds that these "unsaved" were sitting near them-- overhearing what should have been a private conversation. Their post-prayer conversation was full of the same- labeling people as saved, unsaved, under-conviction, backsliding--a personal favorite, heathen, and then the ultimate: liberal. I could not tell which was worse- unsaved, heathen or liberal, because they were all spoken with such veracity, that they all sounded evil and shameful. I know that language-I was raised with it- we talked about unsaved people at church, at home, on "visitation." We cared where people would spend eternity, we said. We did not want strangers to go to hell, we thought, we said. We were sincere-- and, hearing that language again, after avoiding it for my own 30 years, rolled it back in my mind, and I found it disturbing, and disgusting. The quartet then turned their attention on the room- and I realized that they had determined that I, too, was unsaved-- since I had not bowed and prayed over my waffle and coffee..Now, never mind that I have a practice of a daily quiet time, with a series of scripture readings, prayers, journaling: obviously, without the public display, I had joined the ranks of the heathen/unsaved/liberal. Yes, there I was--blatantly all of those. The woman commented that I was not wearing a wedding ring. Now, jewelry is involved in their appraisal of my faith. Hmm, a single, male heathen. "He looks homosexual," she whispered, and the man in the black tie concurred, "look at his fingernails- yep, he's not saved." Almost as much as I found this bringing my anger to a boil, I found it amusing. I considered beginning to hum show tunes, limping my wrists, and maybe raising my pinky as I drank my coffee. Then, no, I thought, they have enough with my "clean cut look, clean fingernails and no wedding ring." What struck me, sadly, is how tiring this was. How small minded, yet, tiring. What year is it? 2006? What country are we in? What state? What was I doing in Redding in the first place-there to teach in the Graduate School of Ministry. How dare I have clean fingernails (I promise that I haven't had a manicure since I was in the hospital last!) And, how dare I not wear a wedding ring- or, many, many married men who have found that the rings had gotten smaller as their bodies got bigger- that's not my reason at all- I don't have one- I've never had one, and I probably won't ever have one. Yes, it made me tired. I call it "faith fatigue." Those practices of dogmatic fundamentalism, with quick visual-based decsions on "who is the enemy." All day, I debated internally about my own "judgmental" attitude about this group- the way they were dressed, their public expression of prayer-- and, I admit that I hold some of the same instant appraisal of people- fundy, right-winger, conservative-- I can become tiring to myself- I try, however, to live more tolerantly-more openly-- if this group had been in traditional turbans, or African dress, I would have engaged them in polite conversation- if, in those clothes, they had bowed in prayer, I would have asked politely about ther content of the prayer, to whom, memorized? read? daily? a special meal prayer? My own faith fatigue of the hyper-fundamentalism that impacted my youth, and my family, seems to be the group with whom I expend little tolerance, understanding, forgiveness. Like a beacon in a dark night: I SEE it, I don't like it, but, I pray, that over time, I will be able to engage the language/theologically/mindset/fashion challenged, as well as those that are much more different than me.Maybe they experience faith fatigue as well.

The Door is Open at Fermata--

There is something cleansing in the simple acts of "cleaning up." A group of 13 people came over for dinner, including baby Nathan Santiago Watson, and the house was full of life and conversation-so different from the quiet that Taffy (also known as Miss T., the cat) live in daily. All of the chairs were in use, and although I was participating in the conversations, I was also thinking "this is what the house is FOR! This is exactly what I had prayed for!" The conversation was about "relocating," which is code for white, middle class people moving into impoverished, non-white neighborhoods. We put a biblical spin on it, John 1:15, it reads well in the Message translation, and, we relocators DO have a positive effect on our neighbors and neighborhoods- we can find access to the power in city government, get things done by our council person, articulate the needs that have often been ignored-- but, never in the same way and to the same extent that THEY influence and change us. We start to see our priorities change, and begin to look for ways to have real, authentic conversations with our neighbors, but, we soon see what divides us--race, the most obvious (because relocation just isn't done by African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians) but, the division of education, possessions, politics, access to services, leisure time, family, family "values," and faith. We relocate with mostly good intentions, and the benefits of affordability and the pleasures of restoring an older property, are usually augmented with our heartfelt desires to be salt, light, and fragrance to the disenfranchised. STILL, we are the receivers of this neighborly grace, we become the student to the under-educated, and we benefit from the saltiness in the lives of our neighbors, who soon become our friends. We may be the "relocators," and it is our blessing to be invited into the lives of our neighbors.