The Intersection of Faith and Culture
Dear Alan, I hope you are well. The situation here in Yemen is still catastrophic – the government is unwilling or unable to give salaries to employees. Teachers are striking. Many people don’t have anything to eat; people are collapsing in the streets, at the mosque or at work.
What a state of privilege! It includes our justification before God, but the term “acceptance” in the Greek means more than that. It signifies that we are the objects of divine satisfaction, nay, even of divine delight.
The best musical in NYC didn’t cost hundreds of dollars and didn’t take place a few blocks off Broadway on a Thursday night. No, the best musical experience of my NYC trip happened at St. Nicholas Carpatho Orthodox Church on Sunday Morning on the Lower East side of Manhattan.
I discovered that in Jesus I don’t have to please everyone, navigating my relationships with perfectionism in order to belong. I discovered in Jesus that I don’t have to layer on pretentious identities in order to have an identity.
The bodily motions of worship—singing, raising your hands, kneeling, closing your eyes—shape us significantly, even when we don’t feel like they are.
There’s too much God aims to teach us through the trials we face, through the times when nothing seems like it’s going to work and really we’re pretty much lost. The lessons are different for everybody but necessary.
