Leaving Church

I read BBT’s Leaving Church in three nights. Her descriptions of faith and people and the ins and outs of ministry play with your mind and imagination. She has the ability to create a longing for another life as well as help you feel that that the life you have is so grand that it’s more than you could ever have asked for. My copy of the book came from the local public library, and I found myself dog-earring pages of the book, something I refrain from doing to even my own books much less one that belongs to the public. I noticed that previous readers had done the same, and I found myself turning down the corners of pages that had already been folded once before, smoothed back leaving  a faint crease. Soon I began to look for these invisible lines. When I found one, I would search the page trying to discover what caught another’s mind. Here are some of my, and Nashville’s, favorite sections.

When discussing the visibility of being a minister, her husband Ed says,

‘You probably won’t be much worse than other people,’ he said, ‘and you certainly won’t be any better, but you will have to let people look at you. You will have to let them see you as you are.’

BBT gives some quotes by Christian mystics on revering God’s “big book” of creation alongside the “little book” of scripture.

‘I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks,’ Bernard wrote in the twelfth century, while Julian (of Norwich) recognized the love of God in a hazel nut in her hand. Hildegard of Bingen coined the word viriditas (“green power”) to describe the divine power of creation, while Francis of Assisi composed love songs to Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars; and percieve yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.  – Travis Traherne

On church people fighting over the Bible,

What I noticed at Grace-Calvary is the same thing I notice whenever people aim to solve their conflicts by turning to the Bible: defending the dried ink marks on the page becomes more vital than defending the neighbor. As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.

People of the Book risk putting the book above people.  – Arun Gandhi

On the difference between believing and beholding (‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of joy…,’ ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock…’)

I wanted out of the belief business and back into the beholding business. I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything.

On church,

What if people were invited to come and tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?