INSTANT

This picture was taken as we drove home from North Van. Saturday night and I was amazed at how quickly the sun disappeared.  It seem instantaneous.  This was taken out the car window.  We where returning home from our birthday dinner with Susan and Craig, Leah and Craig and Tyler.

I was amazed at how with their smart phones the boys could look up facts about just about everything.  Also there where instant pictures that could be brought up.  There was also instant communications.  This is the world that I find myself a little lost in.  I wonder what will happen next.

There is no instant spirituality and this is one of the reasons I go to church most Sundays.

Here I am the next morning.

One cannot just say a prayer and be completely changed inside and out.  Every Sunday morning we light the Christ candle to remind ourselves that we are meeting in his name.  We are encouraged to embrace life with all it's joys and sorrows and challenged to see life with new eyes of faith and hope.
We are lead in prayer to confront the negative in our own hearts and to be open to the spirit that loves both saint and sinner.  If one looks deeply into both the Old and New Testament we find a God who loves even those who appear to be his enemies. 

Christianity has taken many years and gone through times of great reformations.  Five hundred years ago the invention of the printing press, the rise of nation-states, the corruption in religious institutions and the emergence of an educated elite forced this reformation.

Today we are moving into a new time of reformation where both liberal and conservative Christians see a need for a reformation not about beliefs but about deeds. 

Words enliven faith and hopefully embody the Spirit.  Today as I listen to the words of scripture I am reminded that I have the potential to be changed by what I am reading and hearing.  There is an instant when I desire that change and it can begin but it is only a beginning.  Authentic Christianity calls for us "to be what it says it is". 

The early Catholic Church used words of Latin to make the priests superior to those who attended the church services.  That has now changed but believe it or not some like the service in Latin because they could still experience a sense of God in their midst. My friend says she liked it because no matter where she was or what language that was being spoken she felt like she was in a Holy Place.

I do not know what changes must be made for young people to want to learn about faith and about a God who seeks to have a relationship with us by living within us.  A miracle of Grace!