Tactile Inspiration

I was just sitting here watching ESPN's College Gameday and they had a special spot on how most of the high profile college football programs have an inspiration object that they touch for motivation before they run onto the field. This spot chronicled teams such as Notre Dame who has touched their "Play Like a Champion" sign since the Lou Holtz era in 1986 and Texas who touches a pair of long horns before running onto the field.

During this spot the discussion approached near spiritual terms. According to the program, not only do these tactile expressions create motivation, but they also unify the team and create a sense of identity for the players.

As Christians what are we to make of these physical expression of "faith." Should we condemn the practice because these individuals are offering respect and honor to physical objects or should we just play it off as enigmatic of sports and declare that because it is not done in a religious context it has no real spiritual meaning. How do we respond if we realize that we can't dichotomize our spiritual lives from our "regular lives" because all of life is indeed spiritual? I really don't have these answers but this does prove to be an interesting issue. I wrote a bit about the issue of seemingly religious "touching" in conjunction with sports after the Super Bowl in February (here) so you can check those thoughts out if you're interested.

This topic does make me think about our own practices of tactile religious practices. Before relocating to NC I spent about three years attending St. Athanasius Orthodox Church. While I am not Orthodox, I don't think my love for Orthodoxy is any secret and I think there are many ways that we Protestants can learn from our Orthodox brothers and sisters. One of the things that we can learn is that worship, just as much as it is mental and emotional, it is also physical.

Since fully reentering the protestant world there have been many, many times where I have felt my body aching to be involved in the worship of our holy triune God. At times my arms and hands have felt cheated when I was hesitant to make the sign of the cross over my head and chest in holy reverence. My nose has been left out by not being able to smell the incense that symbolizes the prayers of the congregation as they rise to God. My knees have become soft with the lack of bowing and my eyes long to see the beauty of the Father made manifest in the images of his Son and the holy saints. I'm adjusting, and I don't mean this to sound like a complaint against the things we do at my church or against Protestantism in general. But maybe ESPN is right. Maybe we are tactile beings and touching things does inspire us and motivate us. Maybe looking upon a sign and touching a common object can create unity amongst us. And maybe this is part of the reason that the iconoclastic heresy was so detrimental to the faith and was rightfully condemned at the 7th ecumenical council.

Surely our worship practices do more than these sports practices. We do things for more reasons than to inspire, motivate, and create unity amongst ourselves. We are not "spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience" as I once read on a "Christian" bumper sticker. For if that were true then why would Christ our God become truly human and physical in order that we might be fully redeemed. Indeed we are both spiritual and physical and as such our worship must be both physical and spiritual or else by our practice we deny the truth of the incarnation and become no better than the Arian heretics of the First Council of Nicea.

May we all worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with body, mind, and soul.

- Ben

EDIT: Here is the link to the original video from College Gameday.

Gameday: Pregame Touch Traditions

Novelty

A worship service works best when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it… The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping… Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god. A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant…There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the chart to Peter was ‘Feed my sheep’; not ‘Try experiments on my rats’, or even ‘Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

~ C. S. Lewis

The above quote by C. S. Lewis was introduced to me during seminary by my friend JD Walt. Although Lewis wasn't around to observe the contemporary mess that is protestant worship he hits the nail right on the head. I do believe that Novelty is the destroyer of meaningful worship services. As long as worship leaders and planners seek first creativity, uniqueness, and that which is novel, protestant worship services will continue to leave masses of Christian unfulfilled and longing for something deeper...something divine. My friend JD has been having this conversation over at his blog for as long as I've known him so if you're interested in this Protestant dialogue I'd encourage you to take a look over there because I want to take a step out of the world of worship and apply this quote to something completely different - Fantasy Football.

Just as novelty is the killer of liturgy and worship so it is also the destroyer of fantasy football drafts. In preparing for fantasy football one can find himself or herself wrapped up in an endless maze of stats and strategies. In this maze one can quickly lose sight of the practicality of it all and end up over-thinking every draft move. Sure there is advantage in having a well thought out strategy and plan for your draft but when these plans turn to trying to be sneaky, creative, and novel then one's team will quickly turn into a bag of sleeper picks that never materialize.

I speak these words from experience. About a week ago our HAG fantasy football league had our draft and at some points I succumbed to the draft death that is novelty. The desire to outthink everyone lead to me using my first round pick on a QB instead of taking a solid RB or WR. In an attempt to defend myself a little bit let me state a few things. First you should know that our league is a 12 team keeper league so all of top RBs were off the board by the time I got my first pick (#5 via trade). Secondly because of our scoring system QBs far outscore every other position in our league. For example the top QB in our league last year scored 452 fantasy points while the top RB only scored 335. Despite the difference in value the perceived value of RBs is much greater in our league and thus it was my attempt to outthink everyone that caused me to overvalue a QB and destroy my draft with novel thinking.

There is one thing that I neglected to take into account on draft day that would have saved me from succumbing to this novelty - ADP. ADP or average draft position helps people like me, who arrogantly think they can outwit everyone in their league, stay grounded and know when they should draft certain players according to the general consensus value. Sure you'll always have that person who doesn't follow the plan and takes a Defense or Kicker in the 6th round, but if I would have utilized ADP I think it would have checked my novel thinking and enabled me to get a better second string RB (aside from my keeper) and still have a great starting QB. All in all my team isn't totally destroyed but it's surely not as good as it could have been.

So there you have my thoughts on why novelty is not only a killer of worship but also a plague upon fantasy football drafts. Hopefully if you haven't drafted yet you can learn from my mistakes and use average draft position states to help you truly out-draft your opponents.

- Ben

What?

My friend JD (here) recently posted a youtube video of a fashion show in Britain for church ministers. I watched the short video and it made me sad. Not only did the whole fashion show deal make me sad, but the comments made by the deaconess interviewed couldn't be any more contrary to what vestments and worship is all about.

If you watch the video (here) listen to the comments that the deaconess makes at the :35 mark and following. If my hearing is correct she says:

"I've always worn bright(?) clothes and I think the clothes I want to wear as a clergy person should really reflect that...should really reflect my personality and should also reflect the glory of God's creation."

In my understanding the goal of vestments is to not only hide the individual, but also to draw one's attention toward the things of God. She is placing herself and her personality at the center of leading worship. Nothing could be further from the goal of worship. Worship is about ascribing glory to a God that is holy and glorious. It is about asking our loving Father to have mercy on us through his Son. Worship is about laying aside all earthly cares so that we may receive the King who comes invisibly - namely Jesus Christ.

If we begin to desire to see ourselves in worship then we begin to become anthropocentric instead of theocentric. We will undoubtedly begin to worship ourselves and our preferences and as such we will surely lose our souls.

Lord Have Mercy!