(I wrote this on December 17.)
I was wondering what it would be like to come back to the states and return to worship. Considering my “worship” experiences in Central America included a Sunday service at an evangelical Christian church, a Mayan ceremony, and a “progressive” Catholic mass, I was excited to return to my roots and worship within a Lutheran congregation. I was also interested to see if my view of God and faith had actually changed as I thought it had and if this was really true once I stepped back into my comfort zone, aka a Lutheran congregation.
Nothing really seemed different or hit me until we reached the Lord’s Prayer. I barely got past “Our father…” before I found myself changing up the words of this so well-known prayer. Almost instinctively I changed “who art in heaven” to “who is here with us” and “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” to “Thy kingdom come and be done now” and “give us this day our daily bread” to “give everyone some daily bread.” I wouldn't allow myself to recite the traditional words. Perhaps it is just the wrath of John Shelby Spong and his words still convicting my mind, but I just couldn't recite the same words that I have known since childhood.
I haven’t really had a chance to actually “talk out” how I feel like my faith has changed over the past four months (even seven months including changes I felt over the summer), but I have told people that my faith is one aspect of me that I feel has changed. After studying liberation theology and seeing so many empowered people, I can no longer limit my God to someone who is “arting in heaven.” My God is arting its Godself in every single person that I met in Central America and every person I continue to meet. For me, God is no longer “out there,” no longer just in heaven (whatever that means). God has been revealed to me via Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Panamanians, and my fellow U.S. students and study abroad staff. Each person had a little God in them—actually, each one of them was FULL of this God in which I now hold my belief.
Hannah, I love your posts. But this one definitely caught my attention and I just HAD to post. Please, don't stop doing what you're doing because the church needs more of this. If the church is going to survive, we need to do something different, and I think this is where it needs to go. Thanks so much for your insight...it's amazing.
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