eh?

So on my last post, a comment by lara got my mind rolling (doesn’t take much)..

She stated how the simple act of a guy opening a door for a young lady-friend & her acceptance of it by walking through “meant something.”Hmm.. my mind asks, “just what does it mean?” & rather particularly, “why is it important to mean what it means?”

First off, her walking through isn’t saying she can’t open the door. It isn’t saying she ‘needs’ him to open the door for her. Rather it’s an expression.. a lived out symbol of grace on both parts. It’s a statement: there’s a model of offering and acceptance.

I’m going to jump ahead to my conclusion here real quick & come back & connect the dots: The early church had meaning in symbols, two of which are now formalized as baptism and communion. But walk into any Catholic (Or Orthodox) church & you’ll see symbols beyond your recognition of them as symbols! We rebellious, anti-authority types look at the church & see old, monolithic, scary, weird, funny,gawdy in a typical Catholic church building, or even in liturgy itself of any liturgical service.

Why has the external forms in the church building or the external form of the liturgy become so distasteful to our being?? & If not distasteful, unappreciated or at least valued so little? Simply the lack of recognition of the internal depth, breadth and height to fill that external form.

This is nothing new I am writing here. Many in the past decade have cried aloud for a return to the heart of a matter. For the understanding of purpose in a thing (Why are we doing it if we don’t know why we’re doing it!). I myself have previously assumed the statement, “if I don’t care about it, I’m not doing it” just to become consistent between my internal concerns and external actions.

But what is interesting is not so much how we don’t accept the externals anymore, so much as how that is true in contrast with how much the meaning was held up in the creation of these symbols! Why is there anarthex in some buildings? Why icons? Why is the ‘pulpit’ of some churches on the right? on the left? in the middle? Why dunk the bread in the wine? Why so many circles in circles? Why so many sets of 3 in these buildings? Why red? why blue? Why sprinkle? Why dunk? Why pour? Why does Jesus always hold up 2 fingers in these paintings? Why the halos?

The early church came up with so many ways to ‘tuck truth away’ into these little forms, it’s almost funny to think of the detail. Sure they didn’t ‘have to’, but they did & they had their reasons.. they were reminded of truths theybeleived. They saw this is instrumental in keeping to a orthodox faith, to keeping heresy away in present and future generations.

They saw something we don’t. And I dare say, some of the ‘old fashioned’ ways of ‘proper’-ness that has been lost with regards to social conduct is much the same as a Catholic mass. Now there’s a trip for ya– I’m comparing my interactions with a young lady to a believer’s relating to God via liturgy. How ’bout that ‘holy exercise’ of daily living?!
Maybe our society chaos that we deny each time we choose away from God’s design has come about because the lack of meaning in the forms. I think we could say our parents, for the most part.. maybe going back to our grandparents for some of us, kept the external form, but lacked the internal understanding. So our parents or ourselves saw that withdisguist & tried to find that internal truth. For most it was ‘all we need is love‘. Thank you ’60’s, we now see what you’ve brought: internal attempts of social order, without any external understanding or form.

I think where we 20-somethings are at is the beginning of a redevelopment, a re-constructing of external forms, based on what we and our parents learned about social interaction. we’re at a second level of ‘rejection’: our grandparents ‘were’, our parents ‘rejected’ their form, and now we reject our parent’s form. hopefully 1+1 will still = 2. That is to say, the external of our grandparents, with the internal of our parents we will understand and synthesize into a complete whole.

Wow. That was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to theoretical to have any real meaning or use. It’s late. Should I post this? Why not.