I got a dog. That's something new in the year since I updated. His name is Hank and he is mostly a menace to my furniture, but I like him. When I got him, one thing I decided not to do was to get him all excited before I took him on a walk, or put him in or out of his crate, or fed him or whatever. You know how some people talk to their dogs in that high pitched voice that gets their tail wagging and the dog just goes crazy? "Does my little doggie woggie want to go on a walkie?" "Are you hungry for a little foodie woodie in your tummy wummy?" You know what I'm talking about. There's usually a lot of rhyming and making up words that goes along with it.
It's not that I'm above talking to my dog. I talk to my dog all the time. But we usually talk politics or theology or movies. And I'm really talking to myself. Deep down I know this, but somehow addressing my comments to Hank makes me feel less weird about speaking my thoughts out loud. It's not really for Hank's benefit. Like he really needs to know what I'm going to buy at the grocery store, or my opinion on Frost Nixon (which is a fantastic movie, and not as boring as a movie about a television news interview sounds like it would be. Ask Hank, he knows what I think about it). It's for me. And that's the same reason dog owners hype up their pets before walks I think. It makes it a lot easier to go walk around the block if it seems like your dog really wants to go. It's nice to come home and your dog gets really excited. So we condition them to respond in the way that we like. Then we get mad at them when they get so excited they won't sit down and let us put the leash on, or they relieve themselves all over our area rug.
I think parents might do this sometimes too. It makes me wonder, was Chuck-E-Cheese pizza really all that fun? Does the pizza actually taste good? I doubt it, Little Caesars definitely isn't as good as I remember from childhood. Aren't talking mice with a huge plastic head, always smiling, dancing on stage and screen with unidentifiable creatures more than just a little scary for a kid? Were the games that fun? I mean clearly the Ninja Turtle arcade game I played as a child was a fine piece of entertainment artistry, but I'm talking about the others. Maybe it actually is a really fun place inherently. But maybe a lot of it is the hype. I don't know for sure. But sometimes I think maybe going to the assisted living facility to visit Grandma could be the cause of excitement if it got the same hype Chuck-E-Cheese did.
So people talking to their dogs and "Las Vegas for Kiddos" style pizza places aren't that big of a deal. No, they are not. But when the same principal starts to get associated with church I get a bit more worried. Maybe I'm stepping out on thin ice here, because I feel my opinion might be a minority voice, but some things I've seen and heard about at (mostly bigger) churches makes me scrunch my face up, turn my head a little to the side, and say, "Really!?" One of the things is when church gets compared to sporting events. You know, if people really loved God they would cheer and yell like they do a for a touchdown or something. I guess i just don't quite get it. Going to sporting events is fun, but it's also a little manic and crazy. A lot of people seem to go to the game to lose themselves for a little while. You can forget about your problems and just live in the game for a couple hours. Everything else will still be there when you finish. And to me, church seems like maybe it's kind of a different sort of thing. But some churches seem to want to compete with sporting events. So they get the loud speakers and bigger, louder bands, and big hype. Video technology, too. Then they get disappointed when the crowds move on the next big thing and they can't keep up. Is that really what it means to worship God? We worship God the same way we "worship" a football team?
I guess I have a different vision for the church. Not as a place of escape, but maybe the only place where real life can truly be engaged. Like all the ugliness, messiness, joy, mystery, pain, beauty, wonder, simplicity, and complexity of life can be acknowledged and embraced in that place. Like the arms of Christ stretched out on the cross reach around and hold it all together. The triumph of resurrection kisses the darkness of crucifixion, just like it always does. And I don't think crucifixion is really something to get all hyped about. I think to preach Christ crucified keeps us pretty grounded in the nitty gritty of real. And joy of resurrection is less like a touchdown and more like a family being reunited, or a storm being calmed, the marginalized finding their voice, the friendless finding friendship, years of suffering being ended - the kinds of things that are hard to depict on the jumbo-tron.
I recognize that my faith is slowly becoming something more cerebral rather than experiential, and there are others whose relationship with Christ leads more to ecstatic experience and genuine excitement. And I don't ever want to discredit that. I just don't really understand it. As for me, I have a tough time sorting out the genuine ecstasy from the more manipulative and fabricated kinds of excitement I see in some churches. So maybe I'm just boring. Maybe that's why I attempt to discuss stories I heard on NPR with my dog instead of jumping up and down holding his leash. Or maybe I'm not alone in this.
