Church on Sunday...

It's funny how in this country we take Church for granted. There's, more-or-less, one on every corner. Many Americans seem to attend like they attend a social group: Moving from church to church on various whims. Screwtape (the devil from The Screwtape Letters) goes so far as to say:

One of our greatest allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately that is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbors whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors. Make his mind flit to and fro between an express like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew.

And I'm sorry to admit that I sometimes fall right in line with Screwtape's strategy.

But then there's some days when the simple Sunday gathering is transfigured in almost a -- for definite lack of a better word -- magical sense. Certainly mystical.

When the body of Christ is gathered together we can begin to see things as they are. People who I normally would dismiss without a second glance are revealed as vibrant, powerful creatures. Words that I've heard countless times are suddenly piercing. The world is upside-down or rather I've stepped into a place that is right-side-up. And it's like dunking my muddled head into a bucket of cool water. I stop seeing "the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face" and begin to see citizens in the kingdom of heaven.

I've begun to understand why the Church is so misunderstood by the world. They see us exactly how Screwtape would have them see us. They can't see us for what we are.

Anyhow, please pardon my poorly-articulated Christian rambling. Next up: Brad Pitt's improved Legend's Of The Fall look.