Archive for February, 2009

Today is the first year that I'm attending an actual Ash Wednesday service.

Growing up in the Charismatic Church tradition, I never heard of the liturgical calendar before until sometime in late 2002, a friend from the Roman Catholic Church told me that she was preparing herself for the season of Advent. At that time I researched Advent, but for some reason what remains in my mind now is the memory of labelling advent as a Western excuse to make pretty online designs and expensive candle holders and candles to charge buyers money.

Of course a few years on and now that Eric and I are attending a traditional church (we're Lutheran), we look at the liturgical calendar from a very different point of view now. I think it was about a year back when I told a friend (Brethren I think, but she didn't know of the liturgical weeks), that I really appreciate the church years and was glad to know about it, and I wondered why the Charismatic churches so deliberately avoided using Years A, B, or C that her response struck me in my toes.

'Oh we're not like that, my church, we don't do what liturgical nonsensical stuff like you say. We just do the stuff that's straight from the Bible.'

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You know these days' there's so much on my mind that each time I do get the time to come on board to blog a post, I tend to ramble on into my tiny space of oblivion. Other times because there's so much conflict and confusion struggling inside my brain that I choose not to log on at all, and just surrender into the peace of just being. Last night, I thought about my past, how the confusing memory of growing up in a very charismatic and also very traditionally Chinese ancestral worshipping family made me such a keen observer of the damaging effects of religiosity. I recalled my little spats with that crazy Muslim activist called MENJ (God bless his little soul please), and how I used to be so angry at Christians who were obsessed with the concept of a burning hell. It wasn't until a bit later that I realised that all these labels of Catholic, Lutheran, presbryterian, Methodist, Pentescostal, AOG, Charismatic, Spirit Filled, you name it, were just litte human shields of protection seeking to correct and all too human concept of who a transcendant God is. The point is, I don't believe that we can ever encapsule God into a tiny vessel of understanding, or at least, I am unable to accept that God is a 'concept' that we can ever grasp, at least, not unti we die and cross over anyway.

That's probably the reason why I won't go so far as to accept an atheist understanding of God as not existing. Because to me, the signs are everywhere, or at least, I am sensitive to the concept of a higher understanding hovering in and out of us. I can feel it, and the science materialists will like to call this 'superstition' and obviously the Richard Dawkins purists will call us religious nutheads.  But all these derogatory labels can't take away that significance of Eric and I embracing the understandability of the Christian Liturgical Calendar anyway. (if you're attending a charismatic Church and you have NO IDEA what I'm talking about go google 'Liturgical Calendar'). I think it's crazy that churches who seek to be so far apart from the traditional church just because they believe that they are more Christ-like than these have to even seek another set of 40-days of fasting. I think its crazy that they ignore the entire season of Lent and then suddenly converge on Good Friday to celebrate the resurrection come Easter with a huge stage presentation of The Passion. You cannot take away the educational meaning of the church seasons. And the flow of the liturgical calendar has made reading the bible a whole new experience. Being in a Lutheran church, in particular, has made it exciting because we can now compare texts from all faith traditions in a heathy way, without having an intention to swallow up the tenets of another belief, such as Confucianism, Taoism and Islam. We can co-exist and still learn to love our neighbours, just as God planned.

I'm writing this because I know many people in the Charismatic and Pentecostal traditions who believe that they are chosen, that they are better than all of us, and that the rest of us are all going to hell (yes even those of us who attend church) simply for 'facts' like 'you were not immersed at baptism', or that 'you can't speak in tongues', or 'you visit a doctor when you're sick so where is your faith'. I think its time I just say it: what nonsense and how un Christian, wait.  I stand corrected. How INHUMANE of you to say such things. So I go into Lent seeking a rebirth and a reboot, and with this little vow to be as honest as ever, to speak my mind whenever I can, and most importantly, my little act of consecration: to abstain from any form of fowl or land walking beast for the 40 days of Lent.

Or at least, I will try to do all of that.