I was in a class years ago that was focused on spirituality. The idea that a class can be taught on spirituality is kind weird to begin with but with a historical and practical approach it was very life giving to understand how different cultures and peoples from different time periods engaged the same God. The class met in the morning and one of those mornings a musician was invited to the class to give a lecture. He was playing a show in town and the professor was going to be out of town if I remember right and so here he was about to teach on spirituality or something? He had mismatched socks and sandals on (this was in Michigan) and a cup of coffee in his hand. No notes no powerpoint and certainly no prepared teaching on the topic. I thought, typical artist-this is great!
He stumbled to the podium, saying hello to anyone who would make eye contact with him, and proceeded to raise the podium to its maximum level-about five feet in the air. He then placed his coffee on it as the podium swaid in the air threatening to spill burning hot cafeteria coffee all over the front row. Then he said, “So what do you want to talk about?” It was 8:05 in the morning and no one wanted to talk about anything. The class probably would have been okay to sit in silence for an hour and then leave since most people who lived in the campus dorms had the sweats they had slept in still on, not to mention the drool/sleepy crust whisping from their eyes, nose and mouth. But the long pause seemed to startle everyone, perhaps the ackwardness was to much for the even half-awake person.
Then somehow the conversation got on the topic of salvation and how a person knows they are ‘saved’. I remember thinking what a stupid thing to talk about! This was a knee jerk reaction based on things that bugged me. I wondered how in the world did the message of Jesus, being this beautiful message of embrace and redemption to those who were on the outside, become a system of exclusion? I felt myself getting tense and just a semester before I thought of transfering-leaving the school because of conversations like this one-but then this musician answered the question. He said…
everyday
everyday
And he wasn’t talking about feelings or big catoclismic events in the daily that helped you know you were in with God. I think he was aware that God has pursued the world in a way such that we might awake everyday and trust again in the ongoing redemptive flow of God’s love. It is for us a river we get cause up in and all of life flows with it. It is not somewhere else it is right here in the very interacts that form reality. We dance this life of salvation out with the rhythms of daily graces. Im in another class that is focused on spirituality these days and I read this today by Alice Walker. It was a sign post that helped me to look back and remember the everyday truth that constitutes the connection I have with God, others, myself and the world… everyday.
She loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the folk. Loves herself. Regardless.
