KCHURS!So here is a break for your entertainment pleasure...
Isn't it strange how the brain works.
I took an intensive course in the "Seven Intelligences" a few years back. It absolutely revolutionized the way I perceive the way I perceive. We all "click" differently, and most traditional measures of intelligence are hopelessly biased toward a few of those ways of clicking, encountering the world and learning.
Realizing that we are differently gifted is relatively easy. Making allowances for those differences in how we reach, preach and teach is far more challenging, but ultimately liberating. In my church, we try to offer different modes of experiencing the Divine. Not sure how successful we are at it, but it is certainly leading our church to evolve.
Our music program is flourishing under the leadership of a cadre of individuals who reach, teach and preach melodically. We have a wonderful member of our congregation who makes banners and wall hangings that are regularly rotated through the sanctuary. We do occasional dramatic presentations, though not nearly enough... We've also added a brand new digital projection unit which will be used in all kinds of creative ways to help people open their hearts, souls and minds to the Holy Experience. And our occasional guided meditations are quite the rage.
Why? Because traditional church can be a mind-numbing experience, when it should be a mind-BLOWING experience.
Here, have another picture:
This is a duck I met outside the Clifton Springs clinic after I spent the night at the bedside of an acquaintance there on a mental health admission. He was a loner (the duck, that is), standing apart from all the other ducks doing their ducky things. "I'm my own duck, dammit!" he seemed to say to the world. "I will not follow the flock.I will not humiliate myself for a scrap of stale bagel. I am the pinnacle of duckdom. "
We spend a lot of our lives being measured to see if we are smart enough, pretty enough, interesting enough, rich enough, erudite enough. But God has created us as part of an amazing palate of ability, flaw, color, dimension and odor (to name just a few variations). Why do we feel the need to categorize, homogenize, institutionalize and sanitize ourselves and each other? I prefer the collage... the mess... the FUNK. How about you?
When was the first time you acknowledged you were different than everybody else? How'd you feel? I think you're weird. Please don't change unless you want to...
