Christian Tourism

My husband and I spent the last long weekend being tourist in our own town. We’ve lived here for over 20 years and we didn’t know the details of the town’s history the short term visitor picks up while visiting the tourist spots. However, even though a tourist may know detailed bits and pieces about a town, they rarely know the town.

 A resident, on the other hand, does. A town is a community and if a community wants to survive, it takes care of its members. Now people don’t always agree how to do that and some have hidden agendas, but ultimately, there is a consistent goal to make the town work and look after the residents. The residents may include the homeless, entrepreneurs, recovering addicts, Olympic athletes, mentally or physically ill, Phds, high school drop-outs, gang members, military.....anyone who lives there.

I used to be a Christian tourist, not someone who goes on pilgrimages, but rather a someone who tours various flavours of Christianity.

The church I attended as a child, defined sin as doing the wrong thing, a series of rules and regulations which had to be obeyed or else God would be mad at you and you would end up in hell. It was a common parenting technique, behave or be spanked. But God’s punishment was scarier.

My teenage rebellion against parental authority included my rebellion against this version of God. My subsequent touring of different faiths led me to a place where I accepted Jesus as my Lord and saviour. My self-centred understanding of that concept made me a spiritually superior jerk ‘cause I had my ticket to heaven and anyone who didn’t believe as I did was a sinner who was going to hell’. Every encounter I had with people, especially my family, became an opportunity to preach the gospel as I knew it, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

I continued to tour, checking out a variety of one issue churches. They all had appealing facades, sounded good and, like at most attractions, the tourists were tightly controlled.

At one church, I knew a woman who was encouraged by the church leaders to leave her husband because ‘he held her back from her ministry’. I met people who were told their faith wasn’t strong enough since they weren’t healed from a physical disease or they were struggling financially. They must have been sinning because ‘perfect health and financial success were marks of God’s blessing’.

Once I asked a ‘teacher’ about the struggles and the persecutions of the early Christians and apostles, and I was told ‘if they knew then what we know now (about faith) they wouldn’t have had to suffer.’

I knew a young woman castigated for missing Sunday evening services when she went skiing after the morning service on her only day off.

I saw marriages explode because people acted the part of good Christians while, in reality, they struggled with the problems and pain which their church said would disappear once they said ‘the prayer’. When their lives finally fell apart, they felt shunned by the church since they obviously were not ‘new creatures in Christ.’

These were churches which shot their wounded, hid the bodies out of sight while the stench announced a failure of their love.

This was tourist Christianity, a place that looks intriguing but is unable to sustain life.

True Christianity requires us to love each other no matter what. As a Christian tourist, I had a self-sanctified, holier-than-thou attitude which was not conducive to loving relationships. 

As an Orthodox Christian, at every liturgy I confess I am the worst of sinners and, compared to Christ, I am. This humility is the way to loving relationships which creates community; a group of people living with, and struggling to overcome their problems, who are strengthened by the love and care of those around them. An accepting community nurtures all its members and doesn’t kill the weak and shun the difficult.

 Sure, the passing tourist may spend money but it’s the community which, in the long run, sustains or destroys the people who live there full-time.

This is my Christianity and this is my community.

Worry

Like most people, worry is a familiar companion. I worry if I miss the garbage pick-up or if someone judges me after my dog drops a load but before I can pull out the poop bag. I worry when the bills arrive and if I’ve met others’ expectations.

I’ve always had this problem. When I was a kid in school, my days were a constant balancing act between pleasing the teachers, my parents and my peers. At work, there was constant pressure to keep customers happy, the bosses content and avoid offending fellow employees.

After I married, my husband was a salesman on the road and, if he was more than half an hour late, I would plan his funeral while crying and nursing my baby. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was worry turning to fear.

I would worry my food wasn’t as good as my mother-in-law’s, if my kids liked me or if I was an overbearing mother. I worried over my children if they were bullied or came home crying or what other people thought of them and, by reflection, what they thought of me.

I still worry about them, even though the children are all grown adults, some with children of their own.

Obviously, if there was a situation that I could do something about, I would. But more often, I imagined the problems. I would ‘what if’ and start worrying about a possible, but highly unlikely, scenario to the point of fear.

After all, what is worry but just the seed of fear and as Yoda said “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

My worry often led to confrontation and anger, especially with my children when they wanted to do something which I feared would lead to maiming or death. I don’t think I ever got as far as hate, though, just resentment of the all imagined expectations controlling my life.

Over the years, I’ve realized worry and fear don’t help and can actually make a situation worse.

If you have ever made and played with cornstarch ooze you’ll have an illustration of what I mean. It looks and feels like a liquid, but if you squeeze it hard or strike it, it feels solid. Stop squeezing and open your hand and the ooze will flow through your fingers like liquid. The more energy you apply to the liquid, the more solid it will become.

Quicksand is the same. Thrashing around in quicksand causes it to clump and solidify making it harder to escape. But relaxing, with minimum movements, keeps the quicksand liquid allowing floating and gently swimming to safety.

Fear and worry are my quicksand. The more I worry, the more I fear, the more I struggle with the problems of this world, the greater the likelihood I will sink and be overwhelmed. The demons tempt me with situations. They want me to worry, to fear and rage against the world so they can get stronger while I get weaker. They have no power within themselves, only what I give them. My resistance, my anger, my worry, my fear is their strength which drains me, leaving little room for love.

I once had a poster reading “Let go and let God.” It is a very succinct way of expressing what I, as a follower of Christ am supposed to do. When I recognize my worry, I need to stop and relax, let go of the situation and trust in God. If instead, I struggle with the worry, it grows stronger and I become paralyzed with fear and will drown in the anger. Relaxing allows me to float and keep my eyes on God, secure in His love. Without worry to build on, the demons will flow away like water, unable to stand against the embodiment of perfect love in Jesus Christ, the one who casts out fear (1 John 4).

Phillipians 4:6 “Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God.”

Worry should not lead to fear, worry is a signal it’s time for prayer and to ‘let God’.