For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt
I had never thought of time or space as a soul language, so this has been an interesting lesson for me. I grew up in Ohio in a very unbelieving household, but as a child I remember loving nature. Nature is an amalgam of time and space: wandering in the red-leafed woods of autumn, watching snow fall in the light of streetlamps, smelling the lilac bushes burst in bloom, and biking out to the river in the heat of summer and skipping stones in the shallows; these are my favorite childhood memories, times when I was alone and at peace with the universe. I had a vague notion of God, so I wouldn’t have called such times “worship” – but I think they were, really.
We moved to Tucson when I was in high school, and my love of nature continued in the two seasons we have here: summer and hell (sorry – Tucson joke). Seriously, the grey and purple craggy mountains, the wide deep blue sky, the delicate greens and browns of the desert, all ministered to my soul. My favorite worship times are still out of doors, especially with a view of the mountains or the ocean. The mountains and the ocean give me that sense of the majesty of God that leads me to worship.
The churches I have attended since becoming a Christian 30 years ago have been very utilitarian spaces, and being a good Puritan, I thought that churches should be utilitarian, and that spending money on stained glass and worship spaces was wasteful and sort of idolatrous. Then I entered a cathedral for the first time, in England about four years ago. The feeling of awe was incredible. So now I have mixed feelings. I think we should be extravagant in our worship, and perhaps my former attitude was like that of the disciples who chided Mary Magdalene for pouring the precious ointment over Jesus’ feet.
