Each Wednesday,     Tim Carson shares 
the wonderings of heart and mind and the inspirations and quandaries of the spirit. You are invited to wonder along with him through the telling of stories, reflections on faith and observations on the events that shape our lives.  

Tim Carson

 

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Wednesday Wonder
March 23, 2016

It is Unholy Week in Brussels, Belgium. In an instant the unholy plot was executed - bombs were detonated in the airport and an underground subway. Over thirty people were killed. Hundreds were injured. Another city loses its innocence, its false sense of security.
 
Many of us remember when we lost ours. As the surrealistic story played itself out, as smoke arose from the twin towers and pentagon, dazed people stumbled through rubble, first responders did or did not make out with their own lives, the television announcers couldn't believe the words they were sharing. Neither could we.
 
In those days following the shock set in, then the anger and finally the sadness. How does one grieve when thrust into this state of involuntary liminality? I remember a man driving up to the church and seeking me out. He had one question: "What do we do?"
 
Of course there were the many religious services. Special prayer services were scattered throughout the land. Churches were filled with the fearful ... for about three weeks until people resumed their habitual routines. But there were also the spontaneous, self-organized gatherings, altar-building and rituals. A chain link fence became a shrine. A sidewalk was transformed into a memorial garden of flowers.
 
In Brussels a city square has become ritual center. The tribe is gathering there for mutual support, candle lighting, song singing and altar making. All this is natural human behavior, the instinct to symbolize and express the meaning of an event or a tragedy. We assign meaning to what has happened, even if that meaning is that we don't know what it means.
 
Because Belgium, like the rest of Europe, is thoroughly secularized, there is not much religious talk. Oh, yes, churches may have their services. But the message and practices of those houses of worship, the religious perspective on the world, the distinctive language of faith, is foreign to its citizenry. Right now the city square is the church and the gathering of strangers is making its own liturgy. The hymns may be warmed over John Lennon lyrics, but they somehow try to name the grief, solidarity and hope that is within them. That's the native religious impulse whether the word "God" is articulated or not.
 
Here and now we are retelling the ancient Christian story of Holy Week. We are getting reacquainted with the way that God keeps showing up in the world only to be blown up by it. It's an old, old story. And then again, it's not so old.
 

@Timothy Carson 2016

 

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