Thoughts of a Progressive Anachronism

Like most people, I’m a work in progress. At various times, I see myself through different lenses and use different descriptions to say to myself and to others who I believe myself to be. Some days I wear political face (Democrat, liberal, believer in social justice, etc.) while on other days I where a more general mask (female, Senior, pudgy, widow). I can define myself as a cat person by virtue of the fact that I live with four-legged kids but also a cat person by virtue of the fact that I don’t particularly care for change – most of the time. I like furniture to stay where I put it the first time, unless I find I need to change it around for some particular practical reason. I tend to eat the same things over and over and am reluctant to try new stuff. I like my creature comforts and would love to have someone prepare and serve my meals (on MY schedule), cleaned my litter box, give me periodic treats and pay attention to me when I ask for it. I’d make a great cat.

I find, though, that I’m becoming an oxymoron (some would say the oxy– part is optional, the rest is accurate). I see myself becoming a progressive anachronism: someone who believes in progress but wants her comfort zone and traditional practice to stay intact because that’s the way it’s always been, or at least feels like it’s always been. I am progressive enough to enjoy the benefits of technology – computers, Kindles, iPods, cell phones, high-speed Internet access, satellite TV, etc. – but I like them where I want them to be and not in unexpected places.

When it comes to church, my catness really shows up. I like things the way they used to be, or at least how I thought they used to be. I have great difficulty sometimes with the way things really are. I love the hymns we have sung for years, hymns I grew up with and to which I know all the words and harmonies. I’m glad to have both the CDs and access to iTunes that let me hear them whenever I want. However, praise bands and PowerPoint presentations of simple lyrics to songs with simple tunes and not much harmony don’t satisfy something in me that is integral to the way I worship. I love my iPod but I use it to listen to church music of the 14th – 19th century. I love the liturgy with polysyllabic words that resonate in my mouth as well as my heart and brain and I know the Psalms and the Christmas story sound better in the King James version than in anything contemporary although I’ll accept most of the rest of the Bible in modern language. In short, I like things the way they always were.

But while reading a book recently I realized I am becoming an anachronism, a nice Greek word, anachroniziesthai, as near as I can figure. I like things permanent in a world that is in constant flux and change. I pride myself on being progressive, but my progress seems to stop at the church door. When I look back over the years that I have been involved with church, there have been changes, some more jarring than others, but nonetheless changes that occurred as a response to a need or a perception. The church has not always been as I know it to be now. I remember the fuss when the beloved 1940 hymnal was changed, some dearly beloved hymns were eliminated and new songs were added that really took getting used to. I remember when the 1928 prayer book was revised and some parishioners left because “It isn’t church anymore.” The words had been changed and, it appeared, the meaning and worshipfulness of the church experience got shifted a bit. I remember seeing a woman priest behind the altar, celebrating the Eucharist and not just setting the table and/or cleaning up afterwards. That was another change that a lot of people could not handle.

I managed to deal with those changes, some more easily than others, so I know I am able to change even things that are important to me when it comes to church. So why am I having such a hard time and so much angst about more changes? The church has been changing since the time of the apostles. It might go along with the same garb, words, postures and gestures for a couple of centuries but sooner or later, things would change. The church went into new places, to new people and cultures, and the old ways didn’t totally fit. So the church changed. My church, among others, is in a state of change because the world outside the church is changing, a natural and predictable series of events.

The church people of my generation think of as “theirs” really isn’t. It belongs to no one group or one set of individuals or even one country. The church is God’s and we’re just the people who have the responsibility of making it work. Part of making it work means making it relevant to the place, time, and people who serve within it and who it serves both inside and outside its walls. The question is how to keep young people in the church and active in the church once they get past confirmation, go off to college, or just get too busy to be part of the church as they used to be when they were younger. It is frequently heard at church meetings and discussions that the young people are the church of tomorrow. That’s not really true; they are the church of today, the church they share with the older people and children who also work and worship together in that church.

The disconnect comes because the younger people live in a world totally different from the one in which their elders grew up in. Our generation read newspapers, we remember when there were no TVs to watch, a phone call was about something important and not necessarily just a “hi, how are you?” The young people today don’t remember a time before a man walked on the moon, or before computers existed. Their vocabulary is shorter and, in some ways, more terse than ours was. We crafted letters and worked hard to convey in proper English and proper spelling precisely what we wanted to say, and then wrote with good penmanship on a physical piece of paper and envelope that got dropped in a mailbox and eventually arrived at its destination. It was opened, read, and sometimes saved for years. That’s harder to do with e-mails, and most people don’t do those things with e-mails. Their world consists of tweets, short messages of 140 characters that speak volumes in a few syllables. It’s a more individual world, even in crowds – and churches. Programs that used to work, like choirs, no longer work because people don’t have time for them much less interest in singing in harmony. They want fast, simple, emotive experiences that can be made relevant to how they live their lives now. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that “We’ve never done it that way before,” as one of the unofficial mottoes of the Episcopal Church states.

Well, guess what. Calvinists of the 18th century probably nearly had apoplexy when someone suggested they sing hymns rather than metrically chant the Psalms as they were accustomed to doing. But look where we are now; hymns are common things in churches and psalmody is almost a forgotten art. In the Jerusalem church, circumcision was the norm until Paul argued that circumcision was a Jewish custom that should not necessarily be forced on non-Jews. He won that one, but it certainly made a big change in the church. For centuries the liturgy was done in a language common people didn’t read or understand. They didn’t sit in pews; they stood through the whole service. After the Reformation ministers wore simple clothing or black robes with preaching bands instead of the garb of chausible, alb and stole that had become standard at an earlier time. Those things didn’t come back to the Church of England (and many of its daughter churches) until the Oxford movement in the late 19th century. Change happens. Change is part of life, even the life of faith and religion. I just wonder sometimes though, why can’t it wait ‘til it doesn’t matter to me
anymore?

Whether I like it or not, change in the church is inevitable. There are new ways of doing church that speak to the people who will be in this church a lot longer than I will be in the future. Without change, churches, institutions, even life itself cannot continue. Nothing is static; it can’t be and continue to grow. So, I have a choice. Except the new way of doing church or go find old fogeys like myself who resist change and insist on their comfort level being respected.

I wonder what the new prayer book and hymnal will look like? How soon can I expect them not just in the pews of my church but on my Kindle? It may not be comfortable, but somehow it’s going to have to be. May I have the strength to bear it with grace and accept it with more patience than I have to date. It’s God’s church; I just have to get out of God’s way and let God set the agenda for the church of the future.