“The Church is Christ’s bride; A bride is a woman; I’m a member of the Church; Therefore I’m a woman.”
There once was a man named Bernard, he was from Clairvaux in France. He was an abbot in the Church, and was later sainted by the Catholic Church. Berny was a good man, no doubt, but took the idea of the Church being a bride a tad too far. In dedication to this idea and devotion to Mary, he introduced a form of bridal mysticism into the church, speaking of his relationship with Christ in erotic terms, even urging parishioners to take of his teaching as an infant takes of the breast.
“That’s some solid logic there, Bernard, let’s see: God is love; Love is blind; Ray Charles is blind; Ray Charles is God.’” – Pastor Doug Giles
Leon Podles’ book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity somewhat gives Bernard the title of Father (or Mother?) of the feminization of Western Christianity. According to some, you can thank St. Bernard for our array of pink and teal church interiors, Precious Moments figurines, bearded-woman-Jesus portraits, Jesus-is-my-lover worship music, and generally effeminate men (especially in Charismatic circles).
With all of that said (most of which I agree with), I’d be the last person to liken my relationship with Christ to anything that resembles dating or being romantic. But, during Easter, I was thinking about the last year or so and the way God has given me a life that is full of family, friends, opportunity, and joy. I can’t help but think of being lead in a dance where you have a good idea of the steps and moves, but not much of an idea about what’s coming next.
Specifically I was thinking about my involvement with NASCAR over the last year. As most of my friends know, I’ve loved racing since I was little. I raced cards for about three years:
And I moved to Charlotte to get into the NASCAR industry. God, in his great love and (some may say) humor, has seen fit to bring many of my dreams to fruition. Many people see racing, particularly NASCAR as silly, or worse Southern (Buddha forbid)! They see it as a waste of time, as one of my bloviating art professors once told me. And, I guess, when it comes down to it, it is. It is excess. It is gluttony. But, by God, it is good.
It’s like being in love and trying to impress a girl. I’ll make the silliest gifts, draw the goofiest pictures, say the darndest things, hoping for some sort of connection. If that connection is there, for some mysterious reason, love causes you to enjoy even the obsurde.
God has seen fit to bless me in the area of the most silly, pointless, waste of time – my dreams, NASCAR-dreams nonetheless. To the prudish moderns who loath excess, celebration, liberty, and driving in circles, Christ from the right-hand of the Father lifts a Righteous Middle-Finger and hands out gifts in-line with his promises to fulfill the desires of our heart and give us a whole life.
And he does it with such poetry and irony; my life is His story, and he is the Greatest of Authors.
For instance, my first car design was on the track in Miami (where I’m from), at a track I had been to dozens of times; a place where I have some of the most exciting memories of my life. Not only that, it was driven by the world-famous Colombian, Juan Pablo Montoya, in his first NASCAR Nextel Cup race! I had followed his career for years, being from Miami, hispanic drivers caught my attention. Then, earlier this year, my design adorned the car he drove to his first NASCAR victory in Mexico City.
Besides those two designs, I will have designed no less that 9 NASCAR stock cars, with more on the way. For a young man, still living like a kid, I am in awe of the wonderful wastefulness of our Lord. Keep it comin’.
A small sampling from the Wall of God’s Fame:
Easter: All things new (specifically, this blog)
April 9, 2007
Today is Easter and it has been a very happy weekend of thinking about the Resurrection, and spending time with amazing friends. I was starting the book of Galatians tonight and I couldn’t make it past this verse:
“… If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Paul, Galatians 1:10
Here’s what I do for a living, in the most general and unromantic terms: I take pigmented, colored dirt (for that is all that paint is) and I either add oil, or water, or nothing at all, and I arrange it on a piece of paper, to make a beautiful work of art (hopefully). As an artist who is also a Christian, that concept is poetry to my ears: dust to glory, mud to beauty, death into life.
It was the Heart-Changer who, after triturating Paul’s life (that the apostle himself called dog dung on the sole of a shoe), used the resulting dust to paint one of the greatest lives ever lived. The Artist had a lot to work with in this case and the resulting piece was a change even more dramatic than colored dust into brilliant art.
“All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in His freedom! I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing – not caring about others, not caring about God – the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? … But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God tell you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.” – Paul, Romans 6
Paul is so much fun to read, especially because of his wit. Let’s face it, the guy can get downright biting and sarcastic, much like Jesus. His words are sometimes full of humor, and I can’t help but hear a big “Duh!” from Paul in my head when he says that he wouldn’t be a bondslave to Christ if he was still trying to please men (as I quoted from Galatians above). But like I said, this verse struck me with a lot of conviction – living for an Audience of One is no easy task. Though things like building my career, finding a wife, and excelling in school are big parts of my calling, I’m so quick to go back to the old master as I guard my heart with unsuitable weapons.
I was reminded of a book I read titled The Call, by Os Guinness which gives good pictures of the man I aspire to be. These quotes are some of my favorite, so I will end with them. They get the testosterone-fog that I inhabit swirlin’:
Winston Churchill described Nineteenth-century Christian soldier General Charles Gordon as “a man careless alike of the frowns of men or the smiles of women, of life or comfort, wealth or fame.”
Soren Kierkegaard on the “Knight of Faith” – “This figure is the man who lives in faith, who has given over the meaning of his life to his Creator, and who lives centered on the energies of his Creator. He accepts whatever happens in this visible dimension without complaint, lives his life as a duty, faces his death without a qualm. No pettiness is so pretty that it threatens his meanings; no task is too frightening to be beyond his courage. He is fully in the world on its terms and wholly beyond the world in his trust in the invisible dimension.”
