CFLs At Church
It was an odd Sunday yesterday. A good chunk of the service was devoted to the environment. Apparently Jesus was a hippy (well, he did have long hair and wear sandals) and wants us to take better care of the environment. This is a pretty good message given that it is earth week, or however long it is now, but I was still a little surprised when they handed out compact fluorescent bulbs at the end of the service.
It turns out the visiting pastor had just attended a conference put on by Faith In Place, and interesting organization takes the “care for all creation” command pretty seriously. Heh, they even had the president of the ELCA do a blessing on the solar water heater (pdf) installed at a local church.
April 23rd, 2007 at 16:49
Well, at least it’s news you can use. The only time I went to church regularly was when I was a child. Sometimes they had Sunday school programs for kids, where they told Bible stories that had as much credibility as something about the tooth fairy, except there was no money in it. They were pretty boring too, no one had swords like in Greek, Roman, and Norse myths, which I spent a lot of time reading at that age. I had no use for Sunday school, and with the benefit of hindsight, they did a crappy job of having Sunday school, so rejecting it was an exercise of good judgment. Other kids have positive stories about Sunday school, so I assume there are ways to do it well. I’ve just never seen them.
If I stayed in the church with the adults, the service was two hours long. It’s hard for me to focus on a ritual for two hours now, as an adult, so as a kid it was just impossible. Occasionally, I would try to pay attention, but there were these Bible readings and sermons that seemed to be hinting at some point they would never actually make, just a kind of “See? Got it? Yeah, that’s right (wink-wink)” that seemed to be directed at someone else - I surely never got whatever point it was they were trying to hint at. As I got into my teens, I’d read in the papers about Reagan sending troops to kill unarmed peasants in Central America, but when we got to church all we’d hear was some never-to-be-consummated point about Noah loading two of each species on the Ark. Whatever. The ministers at that church seemed to mistake cowardice for modesty or humility. That’s another perspective that hasn’t changed with the benefit of age.
Sometimes I’d get into trouble for making too much noise. Occasionally, I’d just leave and wander around downtown until church was over. I found an access to the university’s heating tunnels and explored them for several weeks. It’s amazing I didn’t get kidnapped or kill myself on the open machinery in the industrial bowels.
The most safe and successful church visits I had were ones where I brought a book of Greek myths and read it in the back. Moral lessons learned, quiet time observed, no bullshit on either side. If the church had ever done anything so interesting as hand out weird-looking lightbulbs, I would have been ecstatic. Okay, maybe not ecstatic, but it would have been interesting at least. And it would have been something I could use when I got home.
April 23rd, 2007 at 18:58
At least they got it more or less right. Tim’s employer gave him a non-recycled plastic mug for Earth Day
(Second try. You might want to put the required question *before* the Submit Comment button — it was scrolled off the bottom of my screen and I didn’t know about it till my first reply got eaten.)
April 23rd, 2007 at 20:14
Hmm, what required question?
April 24th, 2007 at 11:35
Ellen: that is pretty sad. I guess reusing that is better than buying styrofoam, but still…
Tom: The question she’s talking about is the bot filter math question.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:46
Religion: I didn’t want this post to be a “my religion” post, I’ve been working on that one for a while, but your comment deserves some remark. For me church was about the music. My grandfather was a church organist for years (as well as school teacher) and he would make us all sit at the end of the service to listen to the postlude since the organist had practiced it for a long time. So, the service itself is more cultural than anything.
As far as actually getting a “church education” it is the conversations with the pastor and other members that gave my moral education. (Well the part that came from church anyway.) OTOH, the pastor I grew up with was a mesmerising speaker with incredible moral strength so perhaps if I had been a bit older I would have gotten more from the service itself. But it was the lessons he taught me in individual conversations and by demonstration that were of value to me. This is clearly something that is not easily transferrable to any church and any child.
And I have to say that of Greek, Roman and Norse myths, I would have gotten my morals from the Norse rather than Greek! Those Greek gods were something else!
April 24th, 2007 at 14:21
If you can cover “my religion” in a single blog post, with any credible level of depth, I think you will deserve some kind of journalistic prize. I suspect it may just have to creep in from time to time, more here, less there.