Radio Man has been with us three times now. He visited The Gathering for a Sunday morning service, for our Thursday evening Lectio Divina meditations, and tonight for our Movie Night.
After watching War of the Worlds, and having a pretty good turnout. Radio Man stayed around to help out. He vacuumed the whole place. I thanked him profusely for his spontaneously generated help. He replied simply, and straightforwardly, "I wanted to give back."
We sat down for awhile and talked about church life, and his experiences. He had been a part of a local church in Salem, which was agressive, and hyper-Pentecostal. For 4 years he attended, and always felt like an outsider. The church was very small (between 5 and 12 people), but the greetings, and goodbyes from the pastor were always very formal, and distant. The sermons regularly attacked other groups such as gays, Witches, Catholics, and even other Pentecostal groups. (Our own church was on the list as well.)
When Radio Man visited on Thursday evening, he shared during the Lectio Divivna that he was not a Christian anymore. Tonight he explained this by saying that somewhere along the journey through 15 years of AA, and 4 years at the church he had attended, he lost faith. He thought that he was agnostic, and perhaps even an atheist on some days. Tonight he also said that he believed he needed to relearn things some things, and hoped that this might occur at The Gathering.
I think that I need to relearn some things too. Radio Man's open confessions about his struggling faith might be one of those things I need to learn.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
You know, your blog comments seem very much like open confessions of struggling with faith to me. Maybe not with your faith in Christ. But your faith in some who would claim to be his followers.
Your honesty and openness in questioning your thoughts and feelings is a testament to the kind of man you are- an honourable and decent human being, aware of his own (and indeed everyones) human frailties and prepared to inspect your inner self for pitfalls that may come from those frailties.
Just keep on doing what you're doing. You set a high standard for the rest of us mere mortals to try to emulate. :)
BB and hugs
Mike
Oh boy, do I love hearing from BB Mike! Hoping to cross the big blue to you soon.
Hoping to see you on this side of the big blue as soon as you can get here. :)
BB
Mike
Post a Comment