Skin in the Game

In the Christian faith it's almost a philosophical principle that the universal is known through the particular and the abstract through the concrete.

We work out our faith with these other broken men and women around us in the pews. It's lackluster.

I had never been a church member, officially, until the church I currently attend, Christ City. I have always been a drifter, living, as I thought it, beyond commitment. I didn't need to be at one church, I could be at any of them. An overseer kind of saint, in my mind. Except that, taking a closer look, I never came from any of them (except the first), and I never really served any of them.

I was able to persist in this frame of mind, a floater, because I considered the Universal Church. The super organism was what I was a part of, not the trappings of any one flawed congregation, but trappings and the illustriousness of the flawed and fantastic whole.

But that perspective is flawed. I am not a part of the whole without being part of something in particular. "Skin in the game", Brooks calls it. Until this church, I had not committed my flesh and blood as much as my transcendental mind. Remember now, Jesus came in the flesh!

Lord Jesus, in addition to LotO I am challenged by Flannery O'Conner, writers who stuck with the pursuit of You, and matured in that pursuit. In our youth we buck systems. They are the things that suppress us and keep us bottled. As we grow older, we adhere to systems, because we want to gain traction, but also, perhaps, we want to be contained. Rarely, do we experience the two together. Adhering to a system and piloting unchained. But that may be just where You call us. Never too religious to call bullshit, bullshit, or too sacrilegious to live in irreverence. Renew my confidence that I am in the pursuit of You, and that from You I share in your religion and areligion.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

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