Dirt

I apologize to my non-readers for failing to finish up on the Kester Brewin book like I promised. What a shameful Christian I am. Well, let me sum up, but in very much my own words, what Kester was saying when he wrote about dirt. God is not to be found in the swept and kept areas of life, but in the dirt and filth of suffering--in the uncleanliness of our continual failure to love each other well. Churches are uber clean of life. I mentioned this in an earlier blog too; we have removed "church" from everyday existence and it is now, for many people, sterile. I think that this is perhaps why people come to the gritty, charming, and very alive coffee house that I now find myself in. It isn't "clean" like church. There's no vacuumed carpet, its not dusted, instead there is a beaten up wooden floor and rough, marred brick walls. It's lovely because it isn't perfectly clean, one doesn't worry about messing it up because it seems that there is a place all ready for someone to sit down and get comfortable. It feels lived in, therefore life feels present here. Churches can feel empty simply because there's no one in them most days of the week. We have huge sanctuaries dedicated to one or two services a week. The rest of the time they are silent and lonely. Maybe God gets lonely in these quiet spaces so she wanders out to see what is going on in the rest of the world--just a thought. Not only lonely, but bored. Church can feel like wandering into the part of the house your mother has set aside for guests where everything is arrainged perfectly so nothing can be touched. You get in there and look around, look at how pristine everything is, how perfectly positioned the pictures and knick-knacks are, how stain free the chairs and carpeting. You stand in the midst of this place and take in its sameness, its perfection, its silence, its rejection of your desire to live there. It says to you, "there is no place here for your play, for your rest, for you." This place must be maintained as it is, for to do otherwise would be to ruin it.
basically shit needs to happen in church. Church should not be a place where dirt cannot enter into it because as Brewin points out, if dirt can't enter, it cannot be a place where people come to be cleaned. Dirt is a part of life, life must be a part of church, therefore, dirt must be a part of church. We need to know we can enter in, settle down--get comfortable and move the furniture. We cannot consign ourselves to a God who is afraid to get dirty, to enter the darkest parts of our lives and be present there with us. If there is no dirt, there is no need for redemption, and our faith is a sham--a denial of how things really are. We must be willing to acknowledge that we are dirty, bring it with us to our faith community, to worship, and to God. When we start doing this, we can begin to know what it is to truly be clean.
I hope this was clear enough. I'm multi-tasking right now.