Not preserving, yet not walking away...

So I've been on quite a journey these past few years...

What I mean by that is that I've been on quite a spiritual journey. Over two years ago, I really began reconnecting with my spiritual roots as a Radical Pietist and Anabaptist. So much that the Spirit began convicting me of what it meant to reclaim those roots. I began a process of simplifying and minimizing many aspects of my life. This was a refashioning of my Old German Baptist Brethren roots and identity as I sought to reflect the plain dress as well as back to earth mentality of my daily living and theology. Think Amish with more earth tones and primitive clothing. Now don't let the exterior fool you, I'd be more than at home in a plain community, yet it's my being a mystic that keeps me from ever laying down my roots there.

Yet at the same time, my sense of spiritual grounded-ness felt as though it was losing some of its foot-holding. By that, I mean that I was increasingly becoming more put off by the institutional aspect of the church and I noticed I became increasingly more comfortable to sleep in on Sunday mornings than I was to be in worship. Though there are aspects of myself that like being around church-speak and bureaucracy, I'm consistently reminded of my calling to be coyote to the church and stay on the edges, not the center. I'm more than certain that the North American version of Christianity stands on the precipice of something new, yet feel as though we are being held back by something.

So this is where I find myself: I no longer feel compelled to preserve a dying institution yet at the same time, I'm not entirely comfortable walking away from it.

So where does that leave me? Stuck in the middle?
No, I'm sensing that we are on the edge of a major reform in the North American Church and this new paradigm will catapult us into the next stage of our story. After all, it's what Jesus essentially does as he reforms the Jewish faith into something new. Part of how that fleshes itself out for me will be faith's reclamation of more of an Ecological perspective when it comes to living out our discipleship. It's preciously why I shifted the emphasis of the blog. I want disciples of Jesus to know each other by the grass-stains and dirty clothes from having been in God's creation, tending to and protecting that which we were commanded to do in the Genesis story. Reclaiming Eden if you will. I also sense that my calling to just how I invite others into that process is about to shift as well.

So perhaps it's better not to think of it as walking away from something, rather we are now walking towards something else. I for one am excited to see how this unfolds, although I have a sense that it will not entirely come to fruition in my lifetime... so it'why I'm raising my children to pay attention to it as well.