first person singular

i've been thinking about God. for the past few months, i haven't been to church for a variety of reasons. take your pick, but they've all had to do with me. that sounds painfully obvious, but hear me out. my faith has been fragile lately, and yet i didn't want to go to the service that i usually did. personally, it's become a bit too performance-oriented for my taste. but anyway, i figured i could handle it. well, as always happens, God never lets me go alone for very long, and yesterday He called it to my attention how aimless i was.

so it was all about me, and how i was struggling and how i was uncomfortable and how i was busy. and the strange consequence: the more i focused on myself, the worse i was doing. i couldn't do a darn thing to help myself. to some, this is obvious, to others, it's counterintuitive. but it is what it is. and tonight, the taize service was a blessing.

for those who have never heard of it, taize is a type of worship that originated in taize, france sometime in the 1940s (http://www.taize.fr/en). my church describes it as a service of sung and silent prayer. it's incredibly simple and poignant. what is very impressive is how powerful and worshipful the silence is. in a sense, it recalls the monastic practice of meditation, something that i find particularly healthful.

i think what i'm trying to say is that i've been tremendously caught up in myself, and the taize was a beautiful way to bring the focus back onto God, which is where it should be all along.


listen to the Third Person Omniscient...