Fight or Flight

I have two fairly prominent inclinations. One is that I want to engage life and challenge it. In the church there’s so much to challenge. I want to take it on. I long for deep and residing change. Transformational! It is something deep and significant. It involves death… the death of what is. The Christian message is all about this: that we must die so that we might live. This is what I am truly interested in and I think passionate about.

But this is what creates the other urge within me, and that is to quit it all and go live in a hermitage way out in the proverbial desert. I am becoming more and more persuaded that the church is only interested in renovations, adjustments and tweaks. But it is because the church is made up of people, and this is all people are interested in. We refuse to die. We reject the cross. I include myself in this. This is why I’m always so tempted to quit and make a meagre living off my art. I won’t settle for rearrangements. But since we resist death, we continue on and on down through the centuries perpetuating the same old cycle of revolution-renewal-ritual, revolution-renewal-ritual, revolution-renewal-ritual… ARGH! And I’m tired of it. This, I think, pretty much defines my struggle.