Return to Space Mountain

I don’t know what it is about mountain communities, but there is something that I’ve always felt a connection too.  It’s not necessarily the people with their natural fibers and vegan menus or the women looking like cast members of the Hallmark Channels “Sarah, Plain and Tall.”  I don’t mind their categorical protests to cosmetics and their desire for body hair to grow completely unhindered . . . really. . . I’ve always thought that rubbing a crystal under my armpit would accomplish the exact same effect as a solid stick of Right Guard.  It’s just that I’m very committed to conserving our natural resources so why waste a good crystal? 

 Driving around some of these towns you can see the eclectic mix of architecture as well as retail diversity.  Go into one store where you can peruse a wide assortment of tie-dyed hemp while experiencing incense-induced emphysema, then walk next door into a general store that will transport you back to 1943 with it’s wooden floors, Duncan yo-yos and Glen Miller playing in the background.  For lunch, you can find a meat-and-three or walk down the street and discover fusion cuisine that could only have been conceptualized with one’s head in a narcotic cloud. 

 Having lived in Boulder, CO for three years, I truly have an appreciation for all of this exaggeration.  The only place I know where you can eat in a Russian Team Room, walk outside to have your tarot cards read, wave at the Buddhist monk as he walks by chanting while banging a drum then grab dessert at Haagen Dazs before buying a pair of khakis at Banana Republic.  I wore the torn jeans with the Birkenstock clogs and was even a vegetarian for a year (a true feat for a carnivorous southern boy).  I love the elevated sense of being in the mountains with its connection to nature and commitment to simplicity.  I think that’s what I like about this culture; the diverse attempts to connect with simplicity in its most original form.  Each expressing their own view of simplicity whether it is through diet, clothing, homes, or business practices.  Each one very creative in their frugal approach to living. 

 However, what I’ve discovered in my journey is that we can’t achieve simplicity through cultural asceticism.  This, to me, is like worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.  Simplicity means “to be free from guile.”  Our attempts at achieving purity through diet, environmental awareness or any other means will not give us our desired results in the end.  There is an innocence that we are always seemingly trying to get back to.  These things that we abstain from or lay down should be for the purpose of seeing God with more clarity and not ourselves.

 I remember watching “Grizzly Adams” as a child (popular 70s TV program for the chronologically challenged).  My favorite part was the opening and closing credits.  There was this incredible view of a man on a mountain top looking into the horizon with John Denveresque theme music in the background (work with me . . . it was the 70s).  There was something free and majestic about him.  But there was something incredibly content as well.  I think that’s what is appealing.  A feeling of being connected to something much bigger than myself in its untainted form.  Pure to its original intent and design or at least to my understanding of it.  A simple appreciation of the value and beauty of something.  Worship. 

 So in the midst of this, I will find myself strangely feeling at home in this peculiar tie-dye, tofu world.  Look for me.  I’ll be the obvious SUV-driving, yuppie, suburbanite visitor looking on in fascination with a Starbucks in hand.

Defining Worship

Worship – “to attribute worth to”

        Too often, we attempt to assimilate various attributes of God into all-inclusive concepts that we actually believe we understand.  We, as humans, like to have things defined, identified, labeled, classified, and compartmentalized into comfortable clichés and catch phrases that give us a sense of security and definition.  And so, we have defined worship. 

        But what if one of the many features of worship was that it would define rather than be defined?  Psalm 115:4-8 says this:

        Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell;

They have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk; nor do they mutter through their throat.

Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.

 

The psalmist basically says you will become what you worship.  Why?  What is so ingrained in our nature that instinctively drives us to worship; whether it be God, people, material possessions, culture, or ourselves?  Simply put, we were never intended to be separated from God.  He created us to be eternally connected through relationship with Him.  Worship requires relationship.  It defines us. 

Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that we are created in His image and likeness.  This relationship is mirrored in our earthly families beginning when Adam had a son, Seth, in his own likeness.  We are the reflection of our mother and fathers and our relationship with them often defines our character, behavior, values, personality, etc.  God frequently tells us in His word to seek His face and David repeatedly cried out for God not to hide or turn His face away from him.  What is the significance of being able to see God’s face and why did David seem so alarmed at the very prospect of not seeing God’s face?  Because David knew he would be lost without it! Because it is the reflection of who we are!  When we worship and seek the face of God, we are seeing what God always intended for us.  We become defined!  Worship allows us to see and possess our true identity and our image is restored!  No wonder God hates idolatry!  It keeps us from discovering our destiny and who we are in Christ.  When we put aside the cracked mirror of idols that keeps us bowed and broken and instead assume a posture of true worship, we are standing, looking up, and being revealed in His light.   We are examined and transformed into His likeness! 

We are told to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.  When we do not embrace the call of worship, we become the man that James says observes his natural face in a mirror, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he is.  As we worship, may we embrace and seize the revelation of our intended image and not constrain worship by our narrow definition, but rather become defined through worship by the One who defines us.