I like the example of Noah having both a overall goal and a (for him, perhaps) more practical goal. I guess in all things we have the overall goal of giving glory to God, loving him. I wonder how that might change the "more practical" goals of some a-spiritual (secular?) things that we do. Like organizing my closet. Or buying lunch in the student center. Would keeping a better eye on the overall goal change the WAY (i.e. the HOW of Kierkegaard) we go about it? Maybe this idea is more basic in just thinking about God when we do things.

This segues in to your questions about living as a priest (without all the baggage). One thing our resident gadfly and I have talked about is about keeping a Sabbath, a day where we don't do work. It seems like when I was growing up (uh-oh, Nathan's using a subjective example!) Sundays were more holy, and now they've degenerated into days where I do church and homework. There's no sense of rest like it seems like God intended there to be once a week.
As far as other priestly ways to live. . . I wonder if we would have more rituals . . . like praying before meals is both a ritual and a means for being in touch with God. What if everytime we entered our homes, we recited the Shemah . . . "Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Without even thinking of other specific examples, I feel as though a more priestly life would have more meditation, more peace, more communion with God. What think you?

To the communion issue . . . I remember one time Highland St CofC (memphis) had the Lord's Supper (LS = communion = Eucharist = collection?) up front, and groups of people went up in sections where there were church members who served them the LS. It took a little bit longer than usual, but there was a connection when someone looked you in the eye and gave you the symbol of Christ's body and blood. It integrated the horizontal aspect of communion -- that of fellowshipping with other Christians -- with the vertical dimension -- that of being in the presence of God. The church gave a good response to the experiment/deviation . . . but the next week it was back to the men passing the trays. So on a more macro scale, I'd like to see something more like that develop.

On the micro scale, I think just to look up during the LS, to smile b/c God raised Christ from the dead, and to be more aware of others rather than zoning out would be a good way to start. I think the way we do it now is biblical but could be even better (did I successfully avoid railing-against-the-establishment? :-P )

mmk, that's enough for now . . . I read the Kierkegaard excerpt, so feel free to bring that up if you like.

Noah, etc.

Transferred action to God: Yes, I think you mostly answered your own question -- the motivation and attitude are different when what you're doing belongs to God and not you. But perhaps we can elaborate again and clarify two of the specific questions.

Yes, you can still dedicate something to God if it's the only option. A lot of great servants of God have done what they saw as the only choice, not acted with some bold and free initiative. Noah didn't have some flash of genius to build the ark, it just happened to be his job, and he would've drowned if he hadn't. But while he was doing it to preserve his life and his family's, he was also doing it for God, and God used it to achieve everything else that he ever did for humanity. So we've got the intermediate goal (not drowning) and the final goal (God's work). And while the intermediate goal may have been more accessible to Noah, it wouldn't have even been possible without the final goal -- and (this is important) without Noah's being in line with the final goal at the time, at least as much as he was able. Noah had to trust that God knew what he was doing and be willing to be used by God in order to build the ark before the rain started -- so Noah's submission to the final goal of God's not-yet-realized work was relevant and useful for the intermediate goal of not drowning, and the goal of not drowning also served God's not-yet-realized work. It's not usually going to be that dramatic, but I think the same process can apply to other things we do without much choice but decide to do for God.

And yes, I think we can Christianize every action. Think of the priests in the temple or tabernacle -- they killed animals, made bread, washed themselves, ate, studied, etc. on holy ground and with the goal of worship in sight. They had to do all the stuff people do to take care of themselves and their surroundings, only they did it aware of the presence of God. We could do that too, couldn't we? We should talk more about what a priestly life would look like in our context. Have you ideas about that? Would we do mundane things any differently? Think about them differently? Would we have rituals?

Yes, your categories of obedience and creativity in worship are most excellent. We need to practice and esteem both wherever possible. (I shan't touch the potential tangents and controversies in your examples at the moment, but feel free to bring them up again if you want.)

Yeah, we can talk about integrating the communal aspect back into communion. But we'll have to be careful to keep it out of ineffectual-rant-against-the-establishment territory and include thoughts about what we can do now even though we aren't church leaders. This post is already long, so I'll let you start. What do you think communion is meant to be, and how do you think we could bring in the neglected community aspects into it? (Or throw out whatever thoughts you like on the topic and we'll go from there.)

P.S. I believe Jess would call you a "punk" for tagging your post under "Pulitzer." ;)

First Real Post

So, I just wrote a whole long entry and it got erased. Here goes again.

Okay, the question I was asking about I'm still not sure is resolved. You talk about an action being transferred to God or "you'll drop it if you have indications that doing something else would serve him better." But what if the job or act doesn't fit that? What if I'm washing the floors of the student center b/c it's the only job I have and the only job I can get. What if the issue of serving him somewhere better doesn't come up? How am I serving God then if I'm not able to transfer my service in a real way to him. I can say that I'm doing something to the glory of God, but is that statement the glory or can every stroke of the mop somehow be to God's glory? What if the "recompense" for cleaning the floor IS what matters because it puts food on the table . . . can God get the glory when I'm getting the gain?

I will grant the idea in the verse (forgive me, I've misplaced my concordance. . . it's around here somewhere. . .probably next to my laziness) that says "Whatever you do, do it as for the Lord." I can see myself cleaning the floors of the sc even better because I want to do everything as good as I can b/c that's what God wants. God wants me to do my best b/c it makes me a better person, makes me more like him, so when I do my best, it gives him glory.

Did I answer my own question, or is there more to it?

Moving on . . . Okay, so I see two basic responses to love: obedience and creativity. Woman loves man, so she obeys him as head. Man loves God, so he gets baptized, b/c it's commanded (possible tangent). Jesus loves the Father, so he goes to the cross. Obedience. Woman loves man, so she does the greatest physical act of creation and has a child. Man loves God, people, and the world, so he creates art. God has so much love bounding within him that he creates the world.
I definitely see how the cleaning the sc floor is equal to writing poety or painting on canvas when viewed from this context. Although, I think creativity is a bit more fun. :)

To your question . . . if you'll look at the next paragraph from where you got that quote, you'll see I wasn't excluding the perseptive of the heart from the other parts but was just trying to focus in on it vs a more practical viewpoint.

Well, I recall my original draft being more eloquent, but alas, this will do. If you'd like to pursue a topic of how to integrate the communal aspect of communion back into our faith, I'd be up for that. Or if you find some tangents, we can go there. There's nothing like a fresh tangent with breakfast (Nathan clearly needs sleeP). Time to go edit joanna's posts to make me look smarter ;)

(I want to put some latin quote about striving for truth here to make up for that tacky last comment) Ad veritato!

Here's the draft I lost, similar but perhaps more witty

Well, I guess I get to baptise our dialogue from the sinful email to the purified blog. Or maybe it's more like a proselytization from the catholic email world to the church of christ blog. . .okay, that's pushing it.

Okay, I still haven't gotten this "how you do X for God" issue worked out. You said that it's about transferring the action to God, that " you'll drop it if you have indications that doing something else would serve him better." How does that play out in a non-God-related context. What if I'm cleaning the floor of the student center, and it's never an issue whether doing that job will be my best place of service to him. What if, for example, it's my only choice to work. Can I still "transfer" the energies I have when I'm working to him -- or are some things simply secular? And how can the pay not matter as much when that's the primary reason I have the job? Can we really Christianize every action?

I will grant the idea in the verse "Do everything as if doing it for the Lord" (I've left my concordance somewhere. . .probably beside my laziness). So, I'm cleaning the sc floor, and I do a markedly good job, not because there are monetary incentives but b/c God wants me to do my best and b/c it will make me a better Christian to do everything as well as I can.

Did I answer my own question, or is there more to it?

Moving on . . .So I see two main responses of love, and perhaps I was wrong to rank them earlier. First, obedience. We love God, so we do what he says. We don't sin; we baptize b/c it's commanded (tangent possiblity here). A wife obeys her husband b/c she loves him (sorry about the volitle issues . . .). Jesus obeyed God by going to the cross. Second, creative outflowing. God made the world as a result of his own abounding love. A wife births a child as a creative work of her love for her husband. Artists paint and write in response to a love they have for God and people. In this sense, I see cleaning the floor of the sc on equal footing with writing a poem.

To respond to your question. . . I was also considering a practical service perspective. Look at the paragraph after the one about the "perspective of the heart" and you'll see I was just hitting two viewpoint in succession.

Are you up for talking about the integration of the communal aspect of communion back into the practice of our faith? Feel free to start us off on that or go on another tangent if you find one. I've rambled enough for one night. Watch out for hiding non sequiturs. :)

9 December Email

Doing one's job can definitely be a form of service to God. I think a larger principle is at work here: that of transfered action to God. (Or, in nerdy metaphor, maybe God can be the indirect object of every verb.) We have intermediate purposes for our actions -- such as getting a paycheck, helping a friend, learning a concept, etc. -- but the actions can still be aimed Godward though they also pass through intermediate goals. I used to say roughly this, that school or whatever was ultimately for God, but I rarely brought it into focus at the time of the action, except as a last-ditch self manipulative motivator. But when you really mean actions are for God, it makes a difference in several ways. Yes, attitude and thinking about God are part of it, but definitely not all. If you're doing something for God, you'll drop it if you have indications that doing something else would serve him better. If you're working for God, other recompense doesn't matter as much anymore -- not that it's wrong to accept the paycheck for work or the appreciation of a poem and still be working for God, but rewards from other people are more of a welcome byproduct than the main point.

Your comments about creative versus manual service are basically valid, but I'll qualify them again. So yes, creativity is a really amazing manifestation of our likeness to God, we can do gorgeous things with it, and I think he's pleased when we do. But bending to do what's below one's capacity is also a beautiful characteristic of God. Working (at anything) out of love taps into another of his fundamental aspects. Creating is wonderful, but I don't think it's right to give it a preeminent place among acts of worship -- ranking them at all is probably questionable.

But I agree with what you said about the genuine mattering. You say "from the perspective of the heart" -- what other perspectives are we looking at with worship? (Real question.)

*sigh* I wish we could get back the intended interpersonal aspect in communion more.

Well, I'll leave it at that for now.

Oct 5 Email

I agree with you that whatever is done for the Lord is a form of worship to him, but I'm not sure I know what that means. How is washing the floor of the student center worship to God? It's the cleaning person's job, so it's not a form of service. It's probably not enjoyed, so I think you'd be hard pressed to say that it's a joy to clean the sc. How can you just "do something for the Lord"? Does that mean the cleaning person is thinking about God while doing it? That s/he has a good attitude while doing it?

There does seem to be a differentiation that you lightly touched on between such manual labor acts and more intellectual ones. Intellectual ones seem to involve more creativity. I know there can be creativity in manual labor, but it's often quite limited by the job. There is certainly a level of skill in both, but again, couldn't a cleaning person do a perfect job cleaning the floor, while in poetry, I don't see such an upper limit. I'm not trying to be snobby, but this is how I see it.

Of course, clearly, from the perspective of the heart, all that matters is what is genuine. If I'm writing poetry yes, for God, but also for myself it may not be as much worship as if the cleaning person is cleaning with all his/her heart (which I'm not sure what that means, still).

From a practical service perspective, the arts do seem less down-to-earth-useful. If the sc floor didn't get cleaned, I would notice. If I didn't write anymore poetry, not many people would notice or be affected by that.

Yet, I can't help feeling that writing and music and painting are all activities that are close to God. (Here, I'm trying to be aware of the assumption that we tend to make God in our own image.) Is creativity one of his greatest qualities?

Well, this came up because I've started writing during the Lord's Supper. Usually religious poems. To me, it is worship in the same sense that praying or singing is worship, yet it is not so much a vertical, Man-to-God act as a intrapersonal, horizontal act within myself of praise. It is creation, rather than repition.

Well, I'll let you chew on those disordered thoughts.

Worship and Writing -- 6 September Email

Very well. I shall begin the said elaboration, and you may embellish/rebut/qualify/affirm it at your pleasure.

Writing is certainly a valid form of worship to God. Prayer and song are established forms of worship, and they're not so different from writing. In prayer and song, we use words to communicate with each other and express ourselves to God, and writing can be the same thing.

On a broader level, writing is something God gave us the ability and drive to do, and as such, it's a fit offering to him. But I think that so are visual arts, scientific inquiry, athletic endeavors, manual labor, romantic passion, and pretty much anything human. So even if writing isn't explicitly religious, I think that offering it to God can be an act of worship, because it's something he's made us to do, and he wants us do whatever we do for him.

The thing is, we can't get cocky and think that offering an intellectual treatise or a beautiful poem to God is better than offering what other people offer. If the cleaning lady in the student center mops the floor for God, I think He values that as much as my poem. In fact, those of us who worship through writing should be humbled by those who give more direct service to others in their daily labor of worship.

Another qualifier: Writing can definitely be an act of worship, but it's not always the appropriate act of worship. I think it would be wrong to stop attending church in order to write, because worshiping in community is important, and faith isn't meant to be isolated. (I don't think I'd have a problem with skipping church on occasion to write, but writing doesn't substitute for participation in a community of believers.) Also, along the same lines, it would be wrong to neglect the people around us in order to write. If I have a poem idea brewing, but someone nearby needs a talk, I think it's usually better to go with the more direct service to God through serving others. Maybe sometimes we have to sacrifice our writing to God by not writing it.

But yes, since we're people who write, I think writing should be a major part of our worship to God.

(Tangent: Do you pray about and/or during your writing process?)

Hehe, that was probably more elaboration than you wanted, but you asked for it so I shan't feel too sorry for you.