Come and Play

It is a strange thing how removing oneself from the usual crowd and noise of life can put some things you're going through into heavy relief, like an embosser presses a flat and unordinary page into something recognizable, with shape, depth, structure and form. Solitude can make things that are buried in the lull brought on by the anesthetics of "daily routine" finally begin to seep to the surface and retain their feeling. This latest bout with solitude has certainly done that for me.
So what has come to the surface then? I suppose the chief realization is just how lonely things can - and have been - here. I've done what most folks do, joined and become active in a local church, I'm social as much as I can be, and generally I don't avoid conversations or "events" unless I've some pressing reason to do so. During my time alone, something from my youth came to mind that I haven't thought or felt in a very long time. When I was about five or six years old, my family lived in a rural house outside of Lamesa, Texas - between two cotton fields. I was an only child, out of reach of friends or their homes, and so I spent a good amount of time at home without playmates or entertainment in the form of company. My parents worked hard, and were often busy with the necessities of work. I was forced to be imaginative, to pretend and to play. I can remember one day, however, when I tired of being by myself. I made a couple of signs out of some white and construction paper; and on these signs I took some black and orange crayon (I was not yet an artist) and I scrawled in surely broken English and typical 5 year old form the words "I am lonely, someone come and play." I then proceeded to go outside near the road and march around, waiting for someone to answer. Of course, when my mother discovered what I was doing, she gave me a pretty deserved lashing.
In many ways, and on many days recently, I still feel somewhat like that boy with that sign around his neck, "I [am] lonely, someone come and play," waiting for someone to pull off that road, jump out and meet me. You see, I have this unfortunate quality that seems to silence discussion, or be the "last word" in the debate; even if (at the end) I turn out to be wrong. The reason is, I want people to engage in hard thoughts, to go with me and consider some of those harder points that are the answers to the “why” not just the “what’s” and “how’s” of life. Usually, when I start trying to go there in conversation with people, it gets silent, or they don’t see the value in such “heady” discussions. One of the latest was when I responded to a pastor with a simple question brought on by a sermon I had heard of his. I asked him if he thought the Christian was still totally depraved, to which he responded with a “yes.” I asked him this question because I happen to hold a different view, one that asserts our sinful and utterly corrupt flesh but who’s a new creation created for good works and hidden in Christ. I realize what Galatians 5 says, but it’s not a commentary on the whole of us in Christ, but those who are walking according to the flesh! Now, I really wanted to discuss this for this reason: The most miserable Christians (a lot of seminarians, too) I know seem to all believe that they’ll “get better” by constantly whacking themselves in the face and focusing on how bad they are. The worship leader, after this sermon, actually said “We need to consider and focus on how horrible we are.” I don’t advocate treating sin lightly, but isn’t our focus supposed to be the pearl of great value that is so wonderful that we would sell everything just to have it? Should we focus in Him instead of us… and let His kindness lead us to repentance and not just end it with “I am horrible, without hope?”
Why don’t we ask real questions of one another? And when we do, why do we go immediately into defensive mode rather than discussing and edifying one another. Does anyone wonder why “prayer” requests uttered in groups are often the last thing in the world people really need prayer about? Does anyone seem to think that “Christian responses” often are more rhetoric than believed truth or a real answer, and does anyone really wonder why the world absolutely rejects most common “Christian responses?” Why is most popular Christian media barely media and barely Christian anymore? Am I the only one who sees that, or is no one just going to come out and say “We really need help, this isn’t the way it should be?” Why do “we” often seem so disconnected, disenchanted and generally defeated? Why is compassion the last thing people usually see from us? Is doctrine really so hard and unnecessary for the average church-goer? Does it really not matter if God is absolutely sovereign or He isn’t as long as people say they love “Jesus?”
Or maybe I’m crazy, or too critical, or too theological, or to hard, or too concerned, or any of the other things people have said I’m too much of when I ask things like that? All I know is I don’t feel crazy, what I often feel is alone in my questioning. Just like that kid who’s dying for someone to pull off the road and take a few minutes to “play.” My time alone wasn’t the trip to a spiritual amusement park some have said it was for them, but it really pulled a layer of numb away and let me start asking those questions about myself. Where it goes, if any destination can be asserted, is anyone’s guess.