Here We Go Again/ Same Routine Again/ Marching Down the Avenue/ One More Year and Ill be through

Tomorrow I pack up and leave for my Senior Year, which starts in about a week and a half. I have my own apartment this year, about half a mile off campus. For the first week or so Ill be cracking away at the school news paper, getting some ads sold (I’m the Ad Manager), and looking for a job (your prayers on that front would be most appreciated). This post is, if anything else, just something I can look back on in December to see if I got what I expected.

This semester I’ve an exciting load

• Music for Non Majors
• Reformed Theology – Calvin and Barth
• Bible, History, and Archeology
• My Senior Thesis Class

Im hoping to get a lot out of it. If I learn anything nifty, Ill post it.

Likewise, I have an extracurricularific life outside of class. Things Im looking forward to:

• Reconnecting with Friends
• Getting further involved in my Church
• Getting frustrated with my church
• Working on the paper
• Nykerk

Likewise I have a few goals

• Start a Daily Liturgical Prayer Group on Campus
• Grow Closer to friends
• Explore a few seminaries (Wycliffe and Regent in particular)
• Apply to a few seminaries
• Develop and cultivate a world view (this blog will assist with that)
• Have a good time

Thats about it

Fair Winds

+Alex Resurgent

Bishop of the Resurgent See

Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

My Struggle| Legitimacy

Lately I have noticed a very serious presence of arrogance. It started around my confirmation, and is getting stronger every day.

Most noticeably, it turns up when I’m (usually reluctantly) talking theology with people. I go to a Dutch Reformed school, dominated by Catholics, and am in a Wesleyan family. Usually in these discussions I am the one defending things like apostolic succession, episcopal governance, the sacred nature of the sacraments, or why I don’t recognize the Pope as the end-all-be-all of church authority (but still think of him as a swell guy). I try to be diplomatic, but in the back of my head and heart I am secretly thinking “give up your Presbyteries, come back to the true church”

More Dangerously though, my arrogance turns up when I’ve been meeting with people to discuss and discern possible paths for ordination. I’ll ask  my questions and listen to what they have to say, and then something along the lines of “There is no way I am going to be a pastor in the Reformed Eastern Anglo-Catholic Church – Lutheran Rite, they are not truly of God” Usually my reason for thinking this is rather stupid to.

That is very dangerous. In the first example, its a simple disagreement, we all have them; Coke vs. Pepsi, Obama vs. McCain, AFC vs. NFC. Life moves on. But in the latter, Im not just waging a debate, I am dismissing an entire demographic as not being of God, dismissing their faith as a sham, dismissing them as people.

This is my struggle. If I do enter the ministry, I should go into it thinking that my tradition is the most holy way to be in communion with God, meaning that I have to denounce other traditions as insufficient faiths. How can I take this position, and still see the fact that God is at work within these other traditions, that their faith is as legitimate as mine?

+Alex Resurgent

Trudging Through the Faith

I don’t remember many of the chapels from the Christian High School I went to, but I do remember one speaker who said something about Christianity being a faith of action. That if belief was all that mattered, we would all die at our baptisms and go directly to heaven; do not pass go, do not collect 200 Dollars; but we are all still alive after our baptisms (unless we’ve been doing something very wrong), which means we still have things to do.

Thus we are called to an “active” faith, one where we interact with God in everything we do (preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words), one with hearts of prayer, service, and love. But what does this “Active faith” look like?.Many more churches are trying to create this through small groups, community out reach, discipleship training, and what not. This is wonderful.

But at the same time I am mildly afraid. This active thing is great, but I am also afraid that it will soon become routine, and people will get bored. At my church there are small groups that are falling apart because they’ve been together for half a decade, and they have become bored. Service groups are likewise having a hard time because after several years, the weekly trip to the Salvation Army is not what it used to be. To keep people happy we need new songs, new classes, new outreach, and new programs. The Church now runs on novelty.

This is one of the complaints that is leveled against the “traditional” churches, that the worship is always the same, which makes it dull and boring. I will admit that sometimes I get sick of Rite II Book of Common Prayer services. The prose is beautiful, but how many times must I hear “Of thy own have you given us o Lord…” Sometimes I wish we could break out the incense and noise makers, and do the Qurbana or liturgy of St. John the Divine.

But at the same time I am glad for the monotony. Once upon a time I tried praying the daily office twice a day, it lasted about a month, I got bored. During that month I was bludgeoned with the prayer of confession. And I started to notice that I started treating people better, because I kept hearing “Forgive me Father for I have sinned, both in what I have done, and what I have left undone”. It was a tad unnerving.

Perhaps this is why we don’t like monotony, we’re afraid it may begin to change us and challenge us (another reason why I stopped the Daily Office). If we live out our active faiths by constantly changing, we’re to busy forming ourselves -and indeed God)-instead of giving Him time to form us.

+Alex Resurgent
Feast of St. Martha

A Personal Relationship?

As long as I can remember, I have always heard something along the lines of “You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus, thats all that matters.” And to an extent I have agreed, although at times Ive quipped that one should also have a relationship with the Father and the Spirit as well, but for the most part I’ve agreed.

Earlier I was looking up at the stars, contemplating the sheer gravity of Everything (a favorite past time of mine), and it hit me. What does that term ‘personal relationship’ mean, what on earth does it even look like.

I severely doubt it looks like the illustration above. I cant say Ive ever winked at God in my prayer times, and I sincerely hope that He has not blinked at me. I tremble at the thought of what that would mean. Come to think of it I have never felt Chummy with the Eternal One. And I dont think anybody has (except maybe the sculptor of the above).

But I must inquire further into this.

In the times when I can remember feeling fitfully close to God, it has always felt as if I was in the room with a Monarch (which of Course God is), but when I examine it, it doesn’t feel “personal”. HM Queen Elizabeth is my Queen. In such capacity we have a “relationship,” although I feel like political scientists would have a hayday trying to define what it is. It is anything but personal. I can pledge to God my life and my service in return for his wisdom and protection, but that does not cover going to a bar to chat about problems.

The only other time I can think of being close to God is at the alter receiving the Eucharist. There can be nothing more personal or intimate than consuming/being consumed. It is an overpowering feeling, but again, it is not “personal” in the sense that everyone in that congregation, diocese, province, and communion is doing the same thing. It is intimate but not personal.

Part of me believes that it is impossible to have a personal relationship with God on the same level as having a personal relationship with my best friend. Im okay with that. I am totally content with knowing that I have stood in the courts before the King of Kings. I could ask for nothing else. But part of me wonders if I am missing something. If I’m not, how many have turned away because they felt the same way?

+Alex Resurgent

Random thoughts on Forgiveness

Forgiveness is something I struggle with at times. Times like now. Most sermons I hear on forgiveness tend to be the “forgive everyone, don’t let your pride get in the way of the Lord’s will” and I dont want to sound boastful, but thats really not the problem I have with forgiveness.

I have a hard time with it because I have a hard time knowing what it looks like.

On the surface (and in the depths), its the ability to admit that someone wronged you, and the ability to not hold it against them, to be able love them in spite of the past.

Okay, easy enough. Someone makes an inappropriate comment about my heritage. It hurt, but it was a slip of the lounge. I forgive them, and its forgotten within 36 hours. Next!

The tough ones are where the transgression was more personal, and im driven in one of two directions.

The first case: I had a teacher verbally abuse me in 10th grade, call me names, accuse me of things with no evidence, and then she had the moxie to “forgive” me for this “transgression” but only because she had to because her brother was “guilty” of it as well. (I cheerlead (past tense), just FYI). As you can tell there is still a little bit bitter about it. Afterwards, i did not report her, i still did work for her class. I did not plan a coups within her class. I just wanted to never have unnecessary contact with her again. Was my attitude of not having revenge enough to constitute “forgiving”, even with the lingering bitterness. Is my lack of desire to show love to this teacher a sign that i have not “forgiven” her in my heart?

Case Two: I was in a harmful relationship this past year. This person kept wronging me, and I kept forgiving them and forgetting – forgetting as in I let the transgression continue to occur. In this case I dont think there was genuine repentance on the other persons part. This for sure is not a true form of forgiveness, its a true form of stupidity.

But how does one walk that line. How does one stand up and say “I do not forgive you because your not really repenting” and do it with a pure heart, and do it lovingly? And not do it with respite or hatred or revenge? How do we remember the wrongs that people have committed against us in a neutral manor?

How does God?

+Alex Resurgent