I rarely know what I’m going to write about when I sit down to blog. Sure, there are times when an idea has been brewing, or a phrase has been bouncing around in my head, but that is no guarantee that I will go in a specific direction or even end up writing about that topic. Sometimes it feels as if someone else is guiding my fingers as they stumble over the keys. But that is one of the things I love about blogging. Day after day I surprise myself by writing something that comes out of nowhere and catches me off guard. The phrase that has been rattling around in my head this afternoon is “insipid religiosity.”
That has a real ring to it, doesn’t it? Insipid religiosity. It’s not original to me, but I read it in a book of poetry that my friend gave me the other day. Insipid religiosity is right up there with the belief that religion is supposed to teach us how to be nice. I’ve known far too many people who are nice, but I sometimes wonder if anyone really lives inside their skin, but then I am one of those people who has a tendency to jump in, feet first, before testing the waters.
Years ago, when I went to a retreat in which we studied Enneagrams and tested ourselves, I came face-to-face with someone I hadn’t recognized and acknowledged in myself. And boy was I angry. I did not want to be an eight. I wanted to be a three or a four, which appealed to my romanticized idea of insipid religiosity at that time. But that’s what happens when we dare to explore something new and different, isn’t it? We meet someone we didn’t know who was hiding inside of us, someone just waiting for permission to make an entrance and to breathe out the breath of God we’d been stifling.
I think that is why I love to read. I can get as much out of a trashy novel as a theological tome, as long as the authors have a decent grasp of the English language and they can throw words together in an engaging manner. When I was in seminary, I had to read some books which were only good for putting me to sleep. What profound ideas they contained got hidden in their ponderous prose and egos on parade, and I suspect I missed most of what they wanted me to learn.
It’s become so easy to badmouth Christianity these days because of its insipid religiosity and its recent marriage to nationalism. Still, we have to be careful to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater, to use an old cliche. Along with all the church’s faults, we still need help to find our path or whatever points us toward a lifetime of shedding our skins and engaging in the process of becoming someone new in Christ and clothing ourselves in the wisdom of Sophia. We’ve got to stop introducing people to a nice Jesus who is meek and mild and instead introduce them to this fresh thinker, this radical, this avant-garde guy who did all of these far-out things and didn’t care a flying fig if someone is gay or trans or whatever. He promised them a new life in HIm just as he promised us that we can do all the crazy things he did (maybe not walk on water) if we are really and truly willing to follow him. Of course, being different resulted in him eventually getting killed, and it’s a good bet that following him could get us in a heap of trouble, too. But what we miss when we give into the fear and settle for an insipid religiosity is the sheer joy of the ride. Jesus never came to turn us into a bunch of sourpusses or fearful freddies. He came to free us from our fears and the junk we hide inside because we are afraid of what others might think. If we’re willing to let go and trust him, he’s delighted to fill us with a delicious and juicy joy that makes all the hardships and challenges we may encounter worth the journey.