5.05.2009

Tradition

I'm thinking about traditions a lot lately-- it's a subject that's coming up all over the place.

Traditions-- particularly in worship-- are important to me. Not because I want to be rigid, or because I don't value creativity, but because they immerse me in the timeless "communion of all the saints." It's mystical and sacred to me to share a rite that binds me not only to God with those present, but also to God with generations who came before. God's love and eternity somehow become cozier and more immense to me in these moments. It's part and parcel of the way that Theresa of Avila and Thomas Merton feel like kindred spirits, though they're not my contemporaries. The sacred saturated in this timelessness and transcendence for me.

When I can slow down, and breath deep yoga-breaths full of all the faith, hope, and love that precedes me, my bones themselves get goosebumps.

3 comments:

  1. I agree - particularly about Liturgy. And I'm in a Haugian Lutheran congregation that doesn't have much time for liturgy so I'm slowly and patiently trying to teach them to appreciate it --and one of my points is yours - that it joins us the the saints from all times and places.

    I think it was a church historian who said this about the trend of making up your own creed that he was not interested in confessing a creed that others hadn't died for.

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  2. Once at a funeral, my priest said, "the communion of saints is a long, long, long table, and Janet (the deceased) is sitting at it now with Jesus, and so are all those who have gone on before us. And that communion joins to our communion table, so that in this meal we are ALL "at table sat down" with God."

    Gives me goosebumps to write that.

    Thank you for the reminder. Thank you for your friendship. I'm grateful for the fact that when you and I take communion in our separate places, in what-ever traditions, we are together in Christ.

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  3. maybe you have said, but I am curious ... what church you attended as a child????

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"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
-Saint Molly Ivins