Sunday, May 9, 2010

Getting back into the groove...

It’s time to start scribing again. Not because I have a plethora of wisdom that should be spread to the masses but rather because it forces me to slow down and refine the pinball game in my mind. Key to the verb “to refine”, is conciseness. My hope and aim is that these entries and blogs will not be long winded, because lets face it…if I loose interest while writing, then heaven help you as the reader.

Today’s topic…is witnessing.

I’m going to spout out a lot of verbage here and my hope is that it is all taken with a grain of salt in that my definitions to these words might not be your definitions. So don’t throw me out with the bathwater of my language.

Witnessing… the mere mention of this act causes “progressive” Christians to cringe. Images of sweat glazed men in three piece suits on street corners proclaiming the sins of the world jump to there minds or at the very least a fake 20 dollar bill laying innocently on the ground hiding the Romans road on the back. Splash… the witnessing baby lays in a puddle out side the bathtub.

My most recent kick is standing up for these tossed “bath babies” in the Christian faith.

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Hrrnnnnnnnnn….Shorter Ben, loose the hot air…

So witnessing has become this thing that Christians join in lambasting, and instead we never mention a blasted thing to our friends about something that we claim lies at the core of our being…something that is supposed to give us life. Call it fear, call it cultural sensitivity, I don’t care. The fact is that we have this subconscious hesitation to looking like a radical.

Then it hit me. To be a witness is not to be someone who has mastered the tenants of apologetic or the various theodicy’s, no, the literal definition of a witness is to be one who has seen. All too often I find myself sharing stories that are not mine. I don’t suppose this is inherently bad, but if I don’t share my own story, and all the doubts and triumphs that come along with it then I’m not being a witness, I’m being a parrot.....maybe more on this later once i get more thoughts....