Sunday, January 14, 2007

"You Bleed to Know Your Alive"

A line of music that often runs through my head is from "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. It goes "when everything feels like the movies, yeah you bleed just to know your alive." I think part of this is just because I know some of the times I feel most alive is when I my body is in pain. Not when I am hurting emotional, but simply physical pain. The other day I went running with my brothers. The result of this exercise is a great deal of soreness thoughout my legs. While in some sense it slows me down, it also adds a certain spring to my step. For me there is a certain satisfaction that comes with the pain. With the pain comes the knowledge of what I have done. When I was in college I could remember hobbling to class on Mondays after spending the weekend at fencing tournaments. Certainly my body was in pain but I also knew what I had done over the weekend. There was also a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that with that pain was hopefully a sense of accomplishment, and if it had been a good weekend, a few more medals for my collection.

I offer this example because I think it echoes a lot of what is being said in the church today. There is a sense of satisfacion that comes with pain, loss, or effort. In an attempt to fill the pews it is tempting to try and make church easy for people. While this may have a short term result, in the end I think church, and more specifically faith needs to be something that takes effort. In the Epistle of James there is the statement that "faith without works is dead." If we are not prepared to work for, to stretch ourselves for our faith, what does it mean? I think leaders of the church, myself certainly included, need to remember that we are doing everyone a disservice if we try and make faith something that is easy. No one would go to a gym and expect their workout instructor to just have them lounge around. When we go to the gym we expect a work out. Why should the church be anything different? Obviously I don't expect a worship service to be a cardivascular workout, but shouldn't a sermon require a bit of mental strectching? Shouldn't the message of scripture cause us to break a sweat as we seek to live out our faith? If we are to make faith meaningful today I think we need to try a create that same sense of deep accomplishment that comes from knowing you have gone out and done something, made a difference somehow.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I appreciate the sentiment, but I am uncomfortable with the metaphor. A masochist would be comfortable with these words. A cutter would feel right at home with this essay. But I think that the goal is not pain but well prepared activity. If you had stretched adequately would you have experienced the pain or just tiredness? I think your point would be better made by substituting tiredness for pain.

Jeff Ozanne said...

I can see your point, and actually for years was disturb by the song for the very reasons you mention. I think that cost is a better analogy than either pain or fatigue. Behind both of them is the idea of a payment that makes something more rewarding. This is what makes grace so wonderful for to me, because it comes without cost ... which is probably what makes it hard to accept as well

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