Whoa … talk about seeing what your brain is conditioned to see.
I visited the Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist Web site at least three times to check on the church’s starting time. Each time my mind saw Sunday at 10:50 am. I even went back and looked again after multiple people mentioned I would have to attend church on a Saturday.
“No, no,” I wrote, “this particular church meets Sunday at 10:50 am.”
Friday night, I checked one more time, and there it was, plain as day—Saturday at 10:50 am. Half of me thought someone snuck in and changed the day to screw with me, and the other half thought we can be so conditioned to see what we are expecting to see that we miss out on what is actually in front of our faces. Could this be analogous to our lives? To our church experiences? To our perceptions of people who are different from us?
You betcha. (Channeling my inner Sarah Palin.)
Either way, I luckily realized my mistake in time and attended Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist Church Saturday morning. And I’m glad I figured it out because it was a life-altering experience.
The forms and functions of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church were similar to many Christian denominations I have visited. I was greeted with a “Happy Sabbath” at the front door and handed a program. I was greeted again in the lobby by a super-friendly older gentleman. The main room sat approximately five hundred people, and it was probably half full. This might have been the most racially diverse church I have attended. The ratio of black to white had to be near 50-50. Some old, some young, and a high population of children. The service kicked off with greetings—people wandering around hugging and kissing friends. I stayed in my seat to see if anyone approached me to say hello. Two people did.
So far, pretty normal. But then, the experience took a turn for the … unexpected.
The whole service was led by a group of young people (it looked like a Boy Scout troop) called the Cincinnati Stars Pathfinder Club. The group had a few adult leaders, but it was mostly a couple dozen kids dressed in uniforms. They led the opening prayer, sang the worship songs (it felt like I was watching a school choir perform at the local mall), read scripture, prayed in Latin, put on a skit from the story of Esther for the kids at the church, and prayed some more.
I have no idea if this is what happens every week or if it was a special performance, but it was equal parts inspirational and awful. Fun to watch the kids involved (and cute to hear little kids lead simple, heartfelt prayers), but letting children lead a church service results in lots of kinks and awkward moments. The whole thing had the feel of something you would experience at church camp. The interior of the building even looked like a stereotypical Christian retreat center.
I do want to dive in a little deeper with the prayer that a very young boy led (he was four or five years old). He said, “Dear Jesus, help us be strong and brave.” The end. I loved it. That’s all you need, right? Nothing drives me crazier than when people ramble on and on in their prayers with religious mumbo jumbo that doesn’t even make sense. Jesus even made a special point to instruct us not to pray in public with many words, and yet many Christians blab away, seemingly more concerned with sounding impressively pious than truly speaking to God. Letting kids pray simple prayers filled with power and truth seems like the way to go. Quite refreshing.
After the prayer, all of the little children walked around with plastic cups collecting loose change from everyone. Then, the older kids walked around with collection plates collecting cash and checks. Finally, adults walked around with buckets collecting jewelry. (Okay, I made that last one up.)
After that, there was a special ceremony for a girl who was named “Master Guide.” No idea what this is, other than someone who has completed training classes and read lots of books in order to step into some type of leadership role. The pastor invited all Master Guides on stage (eleven total) and honored them.
Next, he invited a group of people on stage running the Flying Pig (Cincinnati’s annual marathon) the following day, and that led us into the morning’s message delivered by a guest speaker.
The message itself was pretty bland. Seemed like a nice guy, and I’m sure he’s a wise dude, but not the best speaker. His thick accent probably didn’t help. It was hard to understand a lot of his words.
But there were some interesting parts—moments that have really caused me to reevaluate the way I currently structure my life.
First, they played a short video clip from a National Geographic report. Journalists traveled around the planet to find communities where the average lifespan defied world trends.
Common themes emerged. Communities lived longer when they experienced less stress, connected with family on a regular basis (I know those two contradict for many of us!), shared life with good friends, and had a compelling reason to wake up in the morning (in other words, a life mission). Makes sense.
What they also found was a particular religious group in the United States that, on average, lived ten years longer than other faith-based communities. Any guesses?
Seventh-Day Adventists.
The journalists’ explanations? Seventh-Day Adventists are often vegetarian, don’t smoke, don’t drink, promote exercise, and preach the value of taking a weekly Sabbath.
The Sabbath discussion really got my attention. We exist in a culture (especially in the Midwest of the United States) that places a high value on hard work. We brag about how busy we are. Ever notice yourself trying to “win” the busyness game?
I slept two hours last night, worked a fourteen-hour day, painted my house, changed the car’s oil, planted a garden, negotiated world peace, and took my six kids to six different dance recitals.
Ummm … congratulations, you’ve won high blood pressure and frequent panic attacks! Enjoy your early grave.
As I sat in the church, I was reminded that God worked hard for six days and then rested on day seven. God needs a day off, but we don’t? How arrogant of us.
After the pastor finished speaking, the service closed with a song and a prayer, and I was out the front door and off to see Wolverine.
I don’t know exactly how the Sabbath is supposed to work, but in honor of the folks at Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist, I decided to keep the Sabbath this week (with the limited knowledge I have of its rituals and traditions). I did not work at all for 24 hours—midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday. I slept in Sunday morning. (Okay, so this was weird. I have been waking up at the same time every morning for the past few weeks. Often, when I do wake up, I wake up in a panic … as though I slept in and was running late for something. But Sunday, I slept soundly until 11:00 am. It’s like my brain and body knew I was taking a day off.) I went for a jog (for the first time in months), took a long shower (for the first time in … well, nevermind), watched cartoons, played Frisbee golf with a friend, read a book, watched a movie with Liz, and didn’t even turn on my computer until I plugged back in after midnight to post this.
Twenty-four hours of peace and relaxation.
And I learned a few things:
1) I don’t even know how to relax. I need to figure out how to turn my mind off. We are so conditioned to work hard in this culture that taking a day off reeks of incompetence and laziness. How ridiculous that we have forgotten how to enjoy life in this country without feeling guilty. (And I mean really enjoying life … not the fleeting pleasures we get from all the unhealthy crap we become addicted to.)
2) The world didn’t end without me. Believe it or not, the globe is still spinning after my day off. God didn’t panic. The Internet didn’t implode. The University of Cincinnati is still operational. People didn’t stop reading my blog or drop me as a friend on Facebook. I rested, and everything was okay. Imagine that.
3) It felt sooo good to unplug. In fact, when I turned my computer back on at midnight, I felt a little depressed. And when the Internet was running slow, I felt my stress level shoot up about a thousand percent. It’s like we’re addicted to chaos and stress, and even when we know it’s healthier to unplug, we keep coming back for more. Absurd.
I’m not sure a Seventh-Day Adventist Church is the place for me, but they did teach me a very important lesson. One that Ferris Bueller tried to impart twenty-three years ago:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Amen.
So many of us do it. We escape from the secular rat race only to jump into the Christian rat race. Instead of making tons of money and being successful in the world, we opt to impress God and people with our religious devotion. There are a million excuses to justify the fatigue, burn-out, and disregard for friends, family, and even our personal health. In the end, our obsession with performance—either secular or spiritual—is killing us. Literally.
Take a day off. You deserve it.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
I visited the Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist Web site at least three times to check on the church’s starting time. Each time my mind saw Sunday at 10:50 am. I even went back and looked again after multiple people mentioned I would have to attend church on a Saturday.
“No, no,” I wrote, “this particular church meets Sunday at 10:50 am.”
Friday night, I checked one more time, and there it was, plain as day—Saturday at 10:50 am. Half of me thought someone snuck in and changed the day to screw with me, and the other half thought we can be so conditioned to see what we are expecting to see that we miss out on what is actually in front of our faces. Could this be analogous to our lives? To our church experiences? To our perceptions of people who are different from us?
You betcha. (Channeling my inner Sarah Palin.)
Either way, I luckily realized my mistake in time and attended Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist Church Saturday morning. And I’m glad I figured it out because it was a life-altering experience.
The forms and functions of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church were similar to many Christian denominations I have visited. I was greeted with a “Happy Sabbath” at the front door and handed a program. I was greeted again in the lobby by a super-friendly older gentleman. The main room sat approximately five hundred people, and it was probably half full. This might have been the most racially diverse church I have attended. The ratio of black to white had to be near 50-50. Some old, some young, and a high population of children. The service kicked off with greetings—people wandering around hugging and kissing friends. I stayed in my seat to see if anyone approached me to say hello. Two people did.
So far, pretty normal. But then, the experience took a turn for the … unexpected.
The whole service was led by a group of young people (it looked like a Boy Scout troop) called the Cincinnati Stars Pathfinder Club. The group had a few adult leaders, but it was mostly a couple dozen kids dressed in uniforms. They led the opening prayer, sang the worship songs (it felt like I was watching a school choir perform at the local mall), read scripture, prayed in Latin, put on a skit from the story of Esther for the kids at the church, and prayed some more.
I have no idea if this is what happens every week or if it was a special performance, but it was equal parts inspirational and awful. Fun to watch the kids involved (and cute to hear little kids lead simple, heartfelt prayers), but letting children lead a church service results in lots of kinks and awkward moments. The whole thing had the feel of something you would experience at church camp. The interior of the building even looked like a stereotypical Christian retreat center.
I do want to dive in a little deeper with the prayer that a very young boy led (he was four or five years old). He said, “Dear Jesus, help us be strong and brave.” The end. I loved it. That’s all you need, right? Nothing drives me crazier than when people ramble on and on in their prayers with religious mumbo jumbo that doesn’t even make sense. Jesus even made a special point to instruct us not to pray in public with many words, and yet many Christians blab away, seemingly more concerned with sounding impressively pious than truly speaking to God. Letting kids pray simple prayers filled with power and truth seems like the way to go. Quite refreshing.
After the prayer, all of the little children walked around with plastic cups collecting loose change from everyone. Then, the older kids walked around with collection plates collecting cash and checks. Finally, adults walked around with buckets collecting jewelry. (Okay, I made that last one up.)
After that, there was a special ceremony for a girl who was named “Master Guide.” No idea what this is, other than someone who has completed training classes and read lots of books in order to step into some type of leadership role. The pastor invited all Master Guides on stage (eleven total) and honored them.
Next, he invited a group of people on stage running the Flying Pig (Cincinnati’s annual marathon) the following day, and that led us into the morning’s message delivered by a guest speaker.
The message itself was pretty bland. Seemed like a nice guy, and I’m sure he’s a wise dude, but not the best speaker. His thick accent probably didn’t help. It was hard to understand a lot of his words.
But there were some interesting parts—moments that have really caused me to reevaluate the way I currently structure my life.
First, they played a short video clip from a National Geographic report. Journalists traveled around the planet to find communities where the average lifespan defied world trends.
Common themes emerged. Communities lived longer when they experienced less stress, connected with family on a regular basis (I know those two contradict for many of us!), shared life with good friends, and had a compelling reason to wake up in the morning (in other words, a life mission). Makes sense.
What they also found was a particular religious group in the United States that, on average, lived ten years longer than other faith-based communities. Any guesses?
Seventh-Day Adventists.
The journalists’ explanations? Seventh-Day Adventists are often vegetarian, don’t smoke, don’t drink, promote exercise, and preach the value of taking a weekly Sabbath.
The Sabbath discussion really got my attention. We exist in a culture (especially in the Midwest of the United States) that places a high value on hard work. We brag about how busy we are. Ever notice yourself trying to “win” the busyness game?
I slept two hours last night, worked a fourteen-hour day, painted my house, changed the car’s oil, planted a garden, negotiated world peace, and took my six kids to six different dance recitals.
Ummm … congratulations, you’ve won high blood pressure and frequent panic attacks! Enjoy your early grave.
As I sat in the church, I was reminded that God worked hard for six days and then rested on day seven. God needs a day off, but we don’t? How arrogant of us.
After the pastor finished speaking, the service closed with a song and a prayer, and I was out the front door and off to see Wolverine.
I don’t know exactly how the Sabbath is supposed to work, but in honor of the folks at Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist, I decided to keep the Sabbath this week (with the limited knowledge I have of its rituals and traditions). I did not work at all for 24 hours—midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday. I slept in Sunday morning. (Okay, so this was weird. I have been waking up at the same time every morning for the past few weeks. Often, when I do wake up, I wake up in a panic … as though I slept in and was running late for something. But Sunday, I slept soundly until 11:00 am. It’s like my brain and body knew I was taking a day off.) I went for a jog (for the first time in months), took a long shower (for the first time in … well, nevermind), watched cartoons, played Frisbee golf with a friend, read a book, watched a movie with Liz, and didn’t even turn on my computer until I plugged back in after midnight to post this.
Twenty-four hours of peace and relaxation.
And I learned a few things:
1) I don’t even know how to relax. I need to figure out how to turn my mind off. We are so conditioned to work hard in this culture that taking a day off reeks of incompetence and laziness. How ridiculous that we have forgotten how to enjoy life in this country without feeling guilty. (And I mean really enjoying life … not the fleeting pleasures we get from all the unhealthy crap we become addicted to.)
2) The world didn’t end without me. Believe it or not, the globe is still spinning after my day off. God didn’t panic. The Internet didn’t implode. The University of Cincinnati is still operational. People didn’t stop reading my blog or drop me as a friend on Facebook. I rested, and everything was okay. Imagine that.
3) It felt sooo good to unplug. In fact, when I turned my computer back on at midnight, I felt a little depressed. And when the Internet was running slow, I felt my stress level shoot up about a thousand percent. It’s like we’re addicted to chaos and stress, and even when we know it’s healthier to unplug, we keep coming back for more. Absurd.
I’m not sure a Seventh-Day Adventist Church is the place for me, but they did teach me a very important lesson. One that Ferris Bueller tried to impart twenty-three years ago:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Amen.
So many of us do it. We escape from the secular rat race only to jump into the Christian rat race. Instead of making tons of money and being successful in the world, we opt to impress God and people with our religious devotion. There are a million excuses to justify the fatigue, burn-out, and disregard for friends, family, and even our personal health. In the end, our obsession with performance—either secular or spiritual—is killing us. Literally.
Take a day off. You deserve it.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
