The roads of freedom
America the beautiful. And tis true as I can testify to with authority after completing a 6800 mile trip to the West Coast from the East Coast and back again. America is indeed beautiful. But for someone like me who has lived much of the last 14 years in post-socialist nirvana, better known as Russia and the Balkans, beauty, while breathtaking, was not the most profound discovery of my transcontinental motorcycle trip. Freedom was.
Freedom to travel so far, unmolested, without documents, without police interference, with no border guards, with no customs officers, with the freedom to stop wherever I wanted whenever I wanted and pretty much do whatever I wanted . . . was . . . amazing.
Few people in the wide wide world experience such freedom of travel, thought and action. While American citizens who never leave their zip codes probably would not notice, nor appreciate this phenomena nearly as much as I did, they should. Freedom should never be taken lightly.
There are other freedoms I pondered while on my motorcycle for days and days . . . the heaviest of these is the end of my professional holy man days. I am more and more convinced that our evangelical system of church is less and less biblical. Professional Christians, known as clergy in many circles, are those people who stand in for God. We serve His sacraments, we lead His hymns and songs, we pray His prayers, we teach His book . . . we also take much of His abuse and almost all of His adulation.
Professional Christians maintain the system that makes weekly gatherings mandatory for those who wish to be in good standing with Him. We professional Christians also dictate that you, the Christian professionals, must give your money to this system, that you must volunteer your time to this system, that you must serve on committees that preserve this system, that we must do everything possible to maintain and perpetuate this system . . . and on and I could go, but won’t.
There just seems to be little left of the two great commandments of Scripture, in the system (we all this church). There is little human, caring, loving texture left in the system. I think God wants to set us free. Free to be human, free from rules of the system (think modern contemporary pharisees here) free to love and care for humans in human ways. I may still work in the system occasionally and I may still perform some of actions of clergy. But inside the garden of my heart, and in the manner I earn my living, my professional holy man days are numbered. As my friend Mark said to me not too long ago, I can be a Christian professional, but I can’t be a profession Christian any longer.
Freedom to travel so far, unmolested, without documents, without police interference, with no border guards, with no customs officers, with the freedom to stop wherever I wanted whenever I wanted and pretty much do whatever I wanted . . . was . . . amazing.
Few people in the wide wide world experience such freedom of travel, thought and action. While American citizens who never leave their zip codes probably would not notice, nor appreciate this phenomena nearly as much as I did, they should. Freedom should never be taken lightly.
There are other freedoms I pondered while on my motorcycle for days and days . . . the heaviest of these is the end of my professional holy man days. I am more and more convinced that our evangelical system of church is less and less biblical. Professional Christians, known as clergy in many circles, are those people who stand in for God. We serve His sacraments, we lead His hymns and songs, we pray His prayers, we teach His book . . . we also take much of His abuse and almost all of His adulation.
Professional Christians maintain the system that makes weekly gatherings mandatory for those who wish to be in good standing with Him. We professional Christians also dictate that you, the Christian professionals, must give your money to this system, that you must volunteer your time to this system, that you must serve on committees that preserve this system, that we must do everything possible to maintain and perpetuate this system . . . and on and I could go, but won’t.
There just seems to be little left of the two great commandments of Scripture, in the system (we all this church). There is little human, caring, loving texture left in the system. I think God wants to set us free. Free to be human, free from rules of the system (think modern contemporary pharisees here) free to love and care for humans in human ways. I may still work in the system occasionally and I may still perform some of actions of clergy. But inside the garden of my heart, and in the manner I earn my living, my professional holy man days are numbered. As my friend Mark said to me not too long ago, I can be a Christian professional, but I can’t be a profession Christian any longer.