Last November, I sat in a packed auditorium intensely enjoying Unity Dance Troupe’s performance of The Veil: The Creation of Glory, a perfectly beautiful program covering the Creation, the Fall and Redemption, showing God to be not a Being of tameness but of beauty, joy, humor, creativity, love, passion, curiosity, thought, care, practicality and so many more things that I’ve only begun to glimpse over the past few months.
For many years, I treated religion more or less as a checklist—a list of things to avoid (like dance and drama) and things to do. The Veil, however, showed me that religion is only a part of something much greater: God’s taking great joy in creating everything, His making humanity to increase His family and His pursuing me out of honest love despite being deeply hurt and saddened over my frequent rejections of His efforts.
Why don’t we see more of this in church? How does an average college student keep spirituality/religion meaningful and enjoyable? How should this person enjoy the Bible while finding those beautiful things I mentioned earlier? Attending church, reading the Bible, praying—all these are important. However, the picture of religion I’ve received growing up in an American culture (nothing necessarily against my parents) is different from what I’ve learned about God while studying world religions earlier in college and while developing my more emotional side. That picture is good, but it’s only partial. Deep Bible study is good, but I lack the time. I understand that God has promised to bless time I spend with Him by helping with other things because He told His disciples to remember how God cares for the flowers and the birds and to remember that He will do the same for anyone who follows Him as long as that person puts God first (Matthew 6:25-34).
When two people meet, they usually quickly know whether they’ll become friends because of shared interests, common background and appreciating the other person’s character and looks. One person usually doesn’t think, “I will develop a relationship or friendship with that person.” However, this latter impression is what I’ve generally received from most people about religion: by spending time with Him and talking to Him, I will create the relationship. While these are necessary for creating the relationship, the general impression I have received is that it is all about what I do. When a marriage experiences a lull, such a resolution can be helpful, but it is rarely the reason why two people marry in the first place. I admire Pastor Ferguson, Chaplain Kirstein and Chaplain Bennett for what they do to introduce people to God for who He is, and I hope that this beautiful work will continue to spread both on a church-wide level and on an individual level.