Danny ChaiAfter Mike’s sermon on Sunday I was inspired to listen to some Michael Jackson. I listened to that Childhood song he referenced… it’s disturbing.
Anyway, the sermon and its emphasis on Thriller made me feel kind of young, because I think Bad was much more influential in my childhood than Thriller. Which makes sense. I was only 6 when Thriller came out, 11 when Bad came out.
Actually, it reminds me of this weird thing we used to do in elementary school. For a while this teacher was into meditation and weirdo stuff like that. So every week (every day? I can’t remember how frequently we did things as a kid) we’d take time during class and all close our eyes while she led us in guided meditation. You know, breath out tension, breath in peace, visualize ourselves flying, oddball stuff like that. And at the end, we’d all sit with our heads on the table, eyes closed, while she played Man In The Mirror. I suppose it was meant to inspire us towards self-actualization or something. Cuckoo.
Is that kosher? I dunno, I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but in retrospect, it’s kind of kooky, and perhaps reinforced some ideas about spirituality that aren’t cool. I’m not a fan of teachers pushing Christianity in public schools. But I don’t think they should have a free pass in pushing other ideas about spirituality just because they don’t think of it as an organized religion. I dunno.
Regardless, I like Man In The Mirror. And the last line of the chorus speaks to me; I think it’s appropriate for our church. If you want to make our church a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change. I dunno, I think our church is small enough that if we don’t like something about it, us doing something to change that will make a significant difference. I dunno.
Another thing that spoke to me recently, My Utmost from April 16th. Chambers is talking about mountaintop experiences, I guess they’re like spiritual highs. And he writes, “Laziness can always be seen in our cravings for a mountaintop experience; all we talk about is our planning for our time on the mountain. We must learn to live in the ordinary ‘gray’ day according to what we saw on the mountain.”
Ain’t that the truth for me. I frequently think about taking a day or whatever to meet God and never actually do it. That’s just laziness talking, not wanting to deal with the spirituality of the day to day. OK, rambling.