I quit too...

"I quit," said Charlie. "I walked out. I don't want to teach anymore. Every time I walked into that classroom, I died a little bit."

Tony Campolo says: I could understand him. I'm a teacher, and I know what it's like to go into a class and pour out your heart to students, to let every nerve inside you tingle with the excitement of your most profound insights. I know what it's like to passionately share the struggles of your existence, to lay your soul bare in an attempt to communicate your deepest feelings.

Then, when it's all over, some student in the back of the room raises his hand and says, "Do we have to know this stuff for the final?"
(from a Tony Compolo story)

Oh how this conversation captures my irrepressible apprehension about the way we try to capture God through church services. The more I wrestle with it, the more I find myself coming to the same conclusions...it's so much vanity.

Almost sacrilegious ... this attempt to re-share truth, it's like trying to regurgitate a meal into some recognizable form that someone would want to eat.

It's like trying to explain sex to a virgin...vs the mystery of two lifelong lovers making love...a sacred bloom of passion, with a depth of knowledge that makes your knees weak.

It's like a picture of the grand canyon vs standing on the edge of it and feeling it's ancient winds lift your small spirit off the ground and into the clouds.

A strawberry flavored candy vs one plucked fresh from grandma's garden that when tasted, sends a bolt of flavor right into your socks!

I've concluded that all I can really do is take off my shoes in front of this small burning bush and hope that it will continue to burn...and hope that I can remember the way here and pray that my face will still burn when I get back...

Oh the tragedy and mystery of it all.