Signs, Signs, Everywhere The Signs

So why can't I make the leap? Grandkids? Wife? Don't feel like dealing with the evangelicals/charismatics in the family? Not up to debate? Too much effort, more easy to be a 'passive' Orthodox believer without the commitment? 

Not sure. All I know is the more I listen to these sermons the more I know that I am aligned with th't is theology and not that of the 'modern' church.  The excitement, the rock concert (or rave) vibe. the enthusiasm that is equated with "true" worship is not my thing. 

When a pastor calls for everyone to raise their hands or raise their voices to show God our "true" worship I usually do the opposite. I'm not one to do something just because someone tells me to do it. I don't always want to talk about God, God, God as after a while it ceases to lose its import. 

After five years of immigration battling when someone says 'look what God did' I am initially irritated. Not that I don't believe it but that this whole thing short changes the how of it all. I put in the hours and hours of work and stress and effort, guided perhaps by His hand (or He cleans up my mis-steps), but there is no snapping of fingers and it is suddenly done. 

I want to get into the minutiae of what took place. That, to me, is where God 'does' what He does. I am often accused of taking the credit but the opposite is true: I like to think of myself as a pliable instrument. "I" am doing the work here in the flesh but behind it all is the mystery of His machinations toward an expected end, though often that end is different than our expected end. 

This is not a name it and claim theology, at least not without the work. Perhaps we envision the end and move toward that end but this isn't a claim it and sit back. If anything. that 'naming' gives us the goal toward which we must strive. We may rest in Him but the work is done by us. 

I think I am averse to this whole 'American' Christian culture so perhaps the appeal of Orthodoxy is the fact that it is old and unchanging but I would argue it is the depth of the theology, of the tradition, which has been passed down (and not 'tradition' as empty ritual), that is appealing. 

It goes so much deeper than that of the pop theology that gets blurred with modern day self-help messages, where the goal of the faith is self-serving. There is no 'death' in much of modern Christian teaching. 

I am effectively done with the the 'popular' Christian faith and though it may have its merits it simply does not hold my interest and I find solace in the writing of the Fathers and the messages of such priests as Patrick Reardon and John Behr.