Where the road leads next

I hesitate to post about this.

The simple reason is that posting about religion is an exercise in futility. Most people that know of what I speak are already turned off to the institution of the church, so this is a case of preaching to the choir.

This is the oldest Gothic church in the US. I took this picture last year while on a sabbatical after the loss of our pregnancy. This church is basically a museum now. In fact I had to go to the gift shop and request they open it.

Let that sink in a bit.

This church witnessed and housed soldiers of the Revolutionary and Civil War. It was actually used as a stable for one of those occupations, a telling condition of the state of a country during war.

Which brings me to my point.

Somewhere along the way we have lost sight of who we are supposed to be as the church. We are the peace makers. The earth groans waiting for us to bring peace to the earth. The earth literally waits in agony for the return of the princes and princesses of peace. I know that sounds spiritual and dramatic, but take look around at the unrest of storms and earthquakes and hurricanes and global warming and war. The earth is in agony and even if you dismiss the spiritual, Al Gore has pointed out that we are responsible for the condition of the planet.

I think he is absolutely correct that we are responsible, but the solution is not in government policy, it is in the church rising up and doing what it right.

The condition of the world is the fault of the sons and daughters of God. God has given us dominion over this place, and we messed it up. We keep messing it up by killing our brothers and sisters. We keep messing it up by separating fathers from sons and mothers from daughters. We have blood on our hands and blood in our gas tanks and blood on our iPhones. We have blood in our wombs and blood on the House and Senate floor and blood in the Oval Office and knee deep in the Supreme Court.

And we sit asleep and lock our churches and fill our marquees with marketing slogans of what God can do as our world spins out of control. We segregate ourselves Sunday morning by doctrine and color and culture and teach our people to rely on the pulpit instead of the Father. We preach about peace and vote for war. We endure the sanctuary and revel in the stadium. We celebrate the institution of our fathers while losing the heart of our sons. We pray for the purity of our own daughters while willingly watching the degradation of another's. We call bondage freedom and restraint stifling as the poor die alone, the orphans sleep unwanted, the oppressed cry out for justice and the widows weep in utter loneliness.

And we sit asleep, acutely aware that as we slumber the authority we once had is being drained away. Drop by drop, year after year, generation after generation. Until all that will be left is the shell of what could have been as the earth groans in agony waiting for the sons and daughters of peace.

Wake-up Sons and Daughter's of God, let's restore the Church, let's start at home.