The Social Porcupine

 We’d just finished watching the movie Jesus Freaks when Andy asked me to marry him. It was early September… he’d planned to wait until I’d met his family in November, but we were ready to start planning our future. By all legalist appearances, we might seem unequally yoked. I was raised in a niche of an already obscure messianic movement, and he, born in and again recently returned to the church, was a traditional catholic. And yet those who know the two of us well and are able to see past the doctrines of man into the mystical hearts of God and His children, saw the inevitability of our union. Never is the material yoke naturally equalized between the two called to work together, not initially. It takes some sort of supernatural strength to put oneself with another, and in that acceptance is harmony cultivated. Our spiritual experiences, though stemmed out of drastically varying circumstances, have bloomed toward the same aesthetical values. But such matters are not easily seen i...

Written 9/11  2022 A great place to meet someone you've only talked to online is at church... theirs, or some new place for both of you! Today I met up with a Twitter mutual at her Orthodox church. This is now the 4th Orthodox church I've visited. Each has been slightly different (this one had pews and no rugs and stained-glass windows), but what I've loved about the services has remained true and steadfast. I really do love the Orthodoxy churches, especially the A Cappella singing and long scripture readings. I've been having a hard time sitting down to focus on scripture reading these days. I just can't. A thought struck the other day: most people didn't use to read the Bible, but had it read to them. We modern Christians have been taught that we need much alone time to read and study. And I'm not necessarily against this. It just isn't working for me these days...  And yet I could sit and listen to just about anyone read passages to me for...

Have you ever passed a church building and wondered, "What am I missing?"  Not that you're searching. You just want to know what is inside. There are people inside calling this building their home... the same with the one around the corner, and the other corner, and the last. Sometimes two side by side. 2020 I visited over twenty churches.  There were many reasons I did this, all of them true, none of them dependently the whole truth. To the majority of people I said, "I'm visiting churches in our district to spread word of my dad's campaign!"  Deep down, I'd always liked the idea of visiting all the churches near us. The idea was scary, though. Besides. I really liked the church I had been attending.  Germany frazzled my heart, though. And I didn't feel very welcomed in the States when I returned. The church I'd been attending for the last few years felt like a distant part of my past, one I'd grown away from. I had stumbled upon a littl...

Baby of my new Au Pair family. He thinks I gave him my phone, haha! In November I went to a Freikirche German church service with my first Au Pair family. I didn't understand most of the sermon ... and yet I got the gist of it, and enough of that to be inspired to write this post. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food —Hebrews 5:12 I think most of us are familiar with both the actual life concept and the analogy that those who are young need something that grows them, and those that have grown need something that sustains them toward strength.  Often, churches talk about this without really talking about it. What is the difference between the milk and the meat? And which is that one needs for themself? And how do you know it's time to be "weaned" from the milk and to start participating in a healthy, wholesome meal that only an adul...

The family I'm staying with don't attend a church, so after coming here I needed to decide whether or not I would attend. I mean, it's a give in I'd find a church (or church-hop). But would I go to a church that had German services, or one with English services?  There aren't all that many English speaking churches in Stuttgart, but I decided it would be nicer at first to be able to understand the services and worship.  On the first Sunday here, though, I could barely make myself walk around the block. The idea of jumping on a tram and finding my way to some church was just too terrifying.  I stayed at the house, biked for my first time with the family here, and just grew more at ease with my surroundings. The next week I spread out a little more, and felt confident enough to go anywhere I wanted on foot or bike.  But close to the end of the week, I began to question my sanity.  "Why did I come to Germany?"  I can walk and write ...