Category Archives: christianity

Decompartmentalization…

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One of my great temptations is to compartmentalize my life — to separate the holy from the everyday. I remember doing this when I was a kid, riding the tractor around the field in the monotony of cutting grass or raking hay. I would sing songs as I went, making sure that for every secular tune I sang, I would sing a religious one. There is nothing wrong with this practice, but the problem was that I began to give God parts of my time instead of recognizing all my time came from and therefore belonged to him.

I’ve found that this tendency to compartmentalize is common to Christians; and I fear that church culture actually encourages it. People have their church clothes and their normal clothes. People have a church vocabulary and they have their common vocabulary. People have their church friends and their other friends. Separation of the secular from the sacred betrays the fact that we are reserving part of our life for ourselves. We can justify this practice by drawing comfort from the fact that at least our church life is sacred.

In his unique style, Frederick Buechner helps us see the folly in this. He writes:

A sacrament is when something holy happens. It is transparent time, time which you can see through to something deep inside time.

Generally speaking, Protestants have two official sacraments (the Lord’s Supper, Baptism) and Roman Catholics these two plus five others (Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Matrimony). In other words, at such milestone moments as seeing a baby baptized or being baptized yourself, confessing your sins, getting married, dying, you are apt to catch a glimpse of the almost unbearable preciousness and mystery of life.

Needless to say, church isn’t the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, any place, and to anybody. Watching something get born. Making love. A high-school graduation. Somebody coming to see you when you’re sick. A meal with people you love. Looking into a stranger’s eyes and finding out he’s not a stranger.

If we weren’t blind as bats, we might see that life itself is sacramental. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, London: Collins, 1973, p.82-83.)

I think if we could take off the bat-eyes, and see with an eye toward eternity, we could overcome this tendency to separate our lives into Christian and secular events. Then we could really say, with Paul, For me, to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21).

~Steve

Faith Is What Runs Deepest w/ Dungy…

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While there are many things that identify who a person is, for the Christian nothing is deeper than his or her identity in Christ. Tony Dungy demonstrated this after winning the Superbowl last evening when he had this dialog with the reporter.

Jim Nantz of CBS Sports: This is one of those moments, Tony, where there is also social significance in this victory, and to have your hands on the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Tell me what this means to you right now.

Tony Dungy: I’ll tell you what. I’m proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American to win this. It means an awful lot to our country. But again, more than anything, I’ve said it before, Lovie Smith and I, not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way. And we’re more proud of that.

Look at some of the words he used: more than anything and we’re more proud of that. It shows you that the most important thing about Dungy, in Dungy’s estimation, is his Christian faith. Continue reading →

Ebenezer Shields…

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In the opening part of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Dickens has one of the characters say to Ebenezer Scrooge:

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

Is that the way you view Christmas? Should we? If I don’t see Christmas that way, what is wrong with me?

This year I bought my wife a new wedding ring. After 25 years her old one had worn out and living with me for that duration warrants a significant reward. I gave it to her when it arrived from the jeweler in early December, not waiting to Christmas. Having promised my daughter an mp3 player, and delaying that purchase for about six weeks as I shopped for the best of the Scotsman’s deals, I picked one up a week before Christmas. But I didn’t wait until Christmas day to give it to her. I gave it to her that evening. My son has been saving money to buy the new Nintendo. He finally got one this week. When we were at the bank, I pulled out the money and paid for it, letting him keep his money in his account.

Last evening, as Laurel and I lay in bed, she said, “What’s with all the giving? And why not wait until Christmas? I am intrigued.” I didn’t have an answer, except to say that I see our Western Christmas traditions as being far removed from what Dickens wrote about. Rather than opening our “shut-up hearts freely” and thinking of people below us as our “fellow-passengers to the grave,” I fear that many see Christmas as a contest whereby we prove our abilities to out-do one another.

I gave Laurel the ring, Esther the mp3 player, and Tim the Nintendo because I want them to know that they are deeply loved. Not to fulfill the Christmas mandate.

So am I an Ebenezer? I hope not. But I feel that focusing my time for being “kind, forgiving, charitable,” and “pleasant” on Christmas alone blasphemes the holiday and denies the reality of such godly virtues in the soul.