liturgy

i like liturgy. there's something empowering in performing the same rituals as christians from 300 years ago; it reinforces the truth that this Christ that i worship is also the lord of peter, aquinas, and luther.

but sometimes my doctrine doesn't square with my liturgical preferences. for example, catholics are the undisputed masters of high liturgy, but their methods of christianity seem to dangle one toe in the pre-resurrection world--despite Christ's promise of personnel salvation, they appoint intermediaries to God: the saints, the pope, the priests, each is somehow more suited to conversing with the divine than your everyday john doe.

in some way, this theological construct (albeit more nuanced than my white-washed sentences suggest) is then reflected in liturgy. the rituals of liturgy are foreign to the usual human experience. to an outsider, they may seem strange and off-putting. indeed, i'm perhaps most attracted to liturgy because it pervades the worship experience with a sense of mystery. when liturgy's done right, there's something mystical, some sense that God is so much bigger, so much more powerful, so much more divine, so much more out of this world than the happy-smiley bestfriend of evangelicals like me.


andrew david "the other reason i like liturgy: cool cathedrals" morningside heights, nyc.

while in nyc, we walked through the cathedral that stands guard over the basinger's block in morningside heights. these pictures aren't particularly great, but i do think that they capture the immensity of the cathedral. staring up into the dark stone space of these rooms sent my mind reeling back to the fifth century. like liturgy, there is something awe-striking in these cathedrals, something that causes one to become thoughtfully reverent, something that inspires silence even in a buzzing metropolis like nyc.

by the way, check out the drops of blood (?) on the holy grail image.
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