VIEW FROM A PEW – a Lenten comment on life
(PanamaNewsRoom) Any god who asks me to leave my brain at the door is not going to win my heart.
Many of the friends I’ve made here in Panama are people of great faith. Perhaps it is the challenge of living so far from home that strengthens that faith into a kind of bedrock.
My friends believe with all their hearts that the answer to every question begins and ends with Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. These are my “two-o’clock-in-the-morning” friends, people I can (and have!) called upon in the great crises of my life. Their faith informs every aspect of their lives, and each of us around them is richer for it.
But the religious answers that comfort these friends of mine do not always comfort me. My existential questions are not easily answered – even by Jesus – and, as a Christian woman, I often find myself struggling with traditional Christian theology. Thankfully, Panama offers a number of options for English-speaking worship. My friends go to one church, and I attend another – and we happily meet for brunch at the Miramar afterwards!
On Sundays in my church, we sing from the old Methodist Hymnal, but our eyes are always skipping ahead to check if we believe what we sing. Every week, our Mission Chairperson exhorts us to emulate the loving life of Jesus – “If he asks for your coat, give him your cloak, as well” – and we gamely struggle to meet the needs of our Jesus-inspired projects and programs. The speakers in our pulpit are folk just like us – in fact, WE are the people in the pulpit, as we all are regularly asked to speak. Consequently, where other congregations shake hands with the minister on the way out, saying, “Great sermon, Reverend,” or “Fine talk, as usual, Pastor,” we end up assailing each other during coffee time with, “Now, wait a minute. About that part where you said…” or “Tell me, again, how you came to that conclusion…?” or “Here, write down the name of that book you talked about!”
If you’re a fan of Barbra Streisand, it’s like that movie she made, “Yentl.” We’re just like Yentl, always chasing down those among us with more Christian knowledge and experience, reading the scriptures with our spectacles so we don’t miss anything, and finishing every verse with a question – or six. Our heroes are not only Jesus and Peter and Paul, but John Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg and Robin Meyers, too!
Through Lent, we will be writing a weeklyView From A Pew column for Newsroompanama.com with some thoughts about Lent and what it’s like to live, love and work in a progressive, English-speaking Christian community of faith in the Republic of Panama in 2011.
Look for stories of struggle and redemption, irony and humor (lots of humor!) -- and joy.
Just don’t look here for answers.
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Original Source: PanamaNewsRoom
Date Retrieved: March 10, 2011.
