It is a problem of excess... If a little is good, the a lot is better. Most makeup mistakes seem to be rooted in too much. Maybe teen age girls grow up watching too much of Tammi Faye Bakker or Jan Crouch (TBN). Maybe they just don't know when to quit but the usual teenage practice is to overdo something until it is no longer cool or in (pardon me, I do not know the current lingo for this) ...
It is a problem of individualism... Girls see make up as a personal expression. It has little to do with beauty as much as it is "I gotta be ME." They me they gotta be is generally seen as self-expression but it is always within limits -- following the fad or staying within certain parameters to make sure you are in the group and not outside. Radical self-expression but not so radical you get pushed aside by the group...
It is a problem of change -- change that happens far too quickly to keep up... I am sure that cosmetic companies and those who produce teen age clothing are happy about the pace of change. It means that a lot of makeup is tossed out before it is used up and a lot of clothing sent to the secondhand store before being worn out. Trying to be new all the time is stressful and wearying...
And so it is for liturgics in the LCMS... It is a problem of excess. At first it maybe adding in something not included in the hymnal Then it becomes radical and wholesale renovation of the Divine Service that can render it much less Divine. I recall how one word turned the world upside down at one LCMS parish I visited. We were confessing our sins and the Pastor changed but one word in the confessional rite that changed the whole thing. We confessed that we were in bondage to sin.... Where do you stop? Before you know it, you are an addict. Maybe we need a twelve step for liturgy writers -- it even sounds Lutheran: Liturgy Writers Anonymous!!
It is a problem of individualism. Pastors and parishes get the idea that they are unique and that the Divine Service must reflect this uniqueness. Sunday morning becomes the place to display who I am (the "I" being Pastor, parish, performers, etc... you fill in the blank). So Sunday morning is stripped from the fabric of our confessional fellowship and from the liturgical year and lectionary and we end up with one off liturgies that bear but passing resemblance to the official orders of the Church. We forgot that our uniqueness has taken second place to our confessional standard (article 1 or 2 in most constitutions) and we have voluntarily forsaken our individuality in order to walk together (even then, the hymnal offers us enough diversity within the options of the liturgy and the perciopes). From the confession to the benediction we shed individuality in the liturgy -- we are all miserable sinners and in Christ the face of God shines on us...
It is a problem of keeping up with the non-denominationals and the churches down the road or on the internet. Change happens fast and it is a full-time job to keep up with things so that you remain on the cutting edge. Lutherans tend to define "contemporary" worship in ways that are well behind the curve when it comes to what's new. We were still singing Peter, Paul and Mary style songs to folk bands when the rest of the world was into the sound of heavy metal (or something like Nova Jehovah). The pace of change is wearying and all we have succeeded in doing is raising the expectations of some beyond what we can deliver, turning away those who are looking for constancy, and sending the rest down the block where the praise band is better and better, the technology is bigger and better, and the music is not yesterday. We are serial polygamists or we go through our concubines like those with colds run through kleenex -- marrying the spirit of the age, of the day, and of the moment, only to watch the time pass and we run behind to catch up...
4 comments:
I'd also contend that the mascara-like tendencies can show up on the high church leaning side myself. I lean that way - my congregation doesn't (very... bronzish, I guess - or simple TLH might be better). I'm glad of that now -- I don't know if I, as a new pastor in a parish, could have handled it if I hit a congregation that handed me a censer and said, "Go knock yourself out." I would have been doing things in the liturgy because they were "cool" -- but a safe, good "cool" because it was liturgical.
... at least I would have told myself that everything I was doing was good because it was "safe" and I could have found someone in Church History somewhere who had done it.
Not sure it is individualism. Rather it may be about the temporal rather than continuous. The teen could embrace her heritage as identity, or the current fashion. Neither identity is individualistic. Each denotes membership in a group. Where is her loyalty? Family or friends? Ideas like not wanting to move because our kids will have to leave their friends, we imply that somehow that is where loyalty should be. It implies friends will eventually become who our children bond with, when really most of us do not do that. We actually bond with someone of similar heritage and continue our line. The contemporary notion of identity with one's generation rather than one's heritage is destructive to both the individual and the community. Truth be told, I have more in common with my ancestors than anyone today except my children.
"about the time most Lutheran congregations realized the big growth of the 1950s was receding, they got these new tools and began to think: "The Lutheran Church is barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild it, we have the technology."
Ironically it was technology that was responsible for the end of the growth. Technology was employed to reduce family size. Of course, those who talk about growth often mean "new" folks or the unchurched etc. Somehow our own heritage is not as appealing.
An apt metaphor. If only liturgical mascara washed off as easily as the regular kind. It can take years to undo what it took a relative moment to paint onto a congregation. Unfortunately the principals involved either do not have, or do not heed a 'mom' who says 'you're not leaving the house looking like that.'
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