I grew up in the non-denominational evangelical church. I came out of my formative years with a fear of other churches and other traditions. They were all possibly cults and no other teaching could be completely trusted. This is normal because children don't have the tools to make evaluations on matters of theology. Children want to be taught what is right. Now, this doesn't apply as much today with the post-modern generation. They want to figure it out somewhat on their own.
Until a few years ago words like tradition, ritual, and liturgy were words that, to me, spoke of uninspired religion. I'm being to fall in love with these words. My eyes are being open to the early church and the power of being intentional with my encounters with God and Church. I must thank Jim and Janna Matthias for guiding our group in Lectio Divina and teaching us that church tradition is beautiful and communal.
I'm on a journey to experience God in a new way, for me. Not a new way in regards to church history. The first believers continued to worship God in their daily scheduled prayers. Jesus didn't come and throw out the prayers of Judaism, but fulfilled the prayers; adding His teachings of the Kingdom (good book on this "The Jesus Creed").
At some point, soon, I hope my post will be titled "Journey in the Sacred."
"Language was the one sure and steady presentation of the sacred in life....the one space or exercise in which the human and divine truly met and in which every act of both was recorded beyond adjustment or deletion. To give oneself to understanding the workings of language was to accept vocation at the high altar." P. Tickle The Shaping of a Life
"The words were everything. They were the whole of my life as I had ever felt it and the whole of beauty as I had ever dared to suspect it." P. Tickle
