I know a number of people who have had what they refer to as conversion experiences in their lives - a specific moment when they entered into a deeper experience of God, a greater sense of being God's beloved, even a connection to their immortal being.  For these folks, the people around them at that moment, the songs being sung, the place this took place, even the seasons or the smells that surrounded them - they are all fixed in their memory, just as real as the moment that just finished.

We do not get to pick who we form as people of faith with, just like we do not get to pick our family or our home football team.  Anne Lamott writes about why she ended up at Presbyterian church in Sausalito - it was closest to the Planned Parenthood Center she had just left, a safe place that would let her sit as she came off being high.  The illusions of control fall by the wayside when it comes to issues of faith & transformation & recovery - coming to Jesus (or anyone else) is rarely planned or logical.

Separating yourself from that experience, or the people who were a part of it, is often one of the most painful things a person of faith can do.  The man who married Lisa & I turned out to be someone whose approach to faith & life was something I could no longer connect with, despite the fact that he led the church of my youth & my family.  There was no public renunciation, no press conference to parse the meaning of condemn vs. condone.  That said, it still hurts, even 20 years later, to remember that part of my story with that central figure out of the image.  Life stories are sometimes like a puzzle - take out some pieces and they look forever different.

Watching Barack Obama dealing with the fallout from the Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle is just painful:

Maybe I am playing armchair analyst, but Obama strikes me as a person really in pain, struggling with shifts in his life that are much larger than being a politician or responding to media machine.  His reaction is complex and in process, something that just does not work well in the American scorecard mentality of winners & losers, heroes & villians.  What ever the results of the campaign - I still hope very much that Obama is inaugurated - one of the candidates has now lost his relationship with his pastor as a direct result of the media machine & the whiplash we all take part in.

I am really sobered by how the country I love and the people I live among - how all of us - are struggling with issues of race & faith & identity.  A man who gave 40 years of his life to inner city ministry - after a career in the military - is used as a prop, a caricature of what many white voters will perceive as "The Scary Black Man".  A man from a mixed racial background, with a moving personal story of reconciliation rising from faith, has to balance political expedition & personal formation.   A country that has been manipulated by marketing & political wizard who use faith as a dog whistle, now must struggle to find some sense of hope & a way forward.

Comments

[Bill]

Jeremiah is a church of Christ preacher, altho perhaps a different church of Christ than what Onesimus or Philemon were a part of(that's a cool story of how the gospel meets the social). I left a church near my home a few years ago because the church of Christ preacher preached more political anger than what I know God has....and God is plenty angry, I believe. Jeremiah, the prophet of old was political, I guess; but God was telling him exactly what to say and do. Today's ministers are deciding on their own what to say and do, so it makes sense what James says about not many being teachers, cuz we don't control our tongues too well. I love you Bob and suggest that you not lose hope in your dream....the cause for which Obama stands is still there: the war still needs an end, our people still need a leader with a heart, the throats of the many are parched and in need of hope. beware the church of Christ preacher- they are a razor's edge that will make you decide who you really are. I left my Jeremiah....Obama may wish he had, too- but he will live on. John the baptist said one time about his cousin Jesus, "He is becoming more and more and I am becoming less and less".