"Slipping into easy."

Here's a phrase that has been haunting me for a day or two. It began echoing in my mind after a conversation I had with my husband. We were discussing a variety of things, not the least of which was a conference he had just returned home from. There, a lot of ideas were confirmed and ignited ... ideas that I have been challenging him with for months, but you know ... They usually have to hear it from someone else to "get it."

Anyway, I was excited, because the things we were discussing are, in some ways, revolutionary. He was sharing with me how certain people he worked with were actually beginning to "get it," too. But we both understand how easily the excitement fades and reality sets in.

I told him, "You must do everything in your power not to slip into easy."

I believe as Americans, we are constantly on a quest for "easy." Not that it's wrong in all instances (yeah, I have a dishwasher, and washing machine and ...Etc.). But when the idea of slipping into easy permeates everything we do, we begin to become a people of less substance. This mentality feeds our already overweight selfish natures, and we begins seeking out the easy answers, regardless of the toll it takes on our psyches or any other part of our being.

I feel like, in many ways, the faith I have ascribed to for most of my life has been a journey of "slipping into easy." The more I study what Yeshua said, the more I learn about the culture He came into and the ramifications of Him being the rabbi I study in my quest to get to know G-d deeper and truer, I realize that a lot of what I thought was "practicing" my religion has been little more than exercises in shadowing what was true, simply because the church culture I was raised in reduced the true to bite-size, easy to swallow pieces of candy instead of the meat my soul required.

For instance: G-d set up yearly festivals - modium (sp?) - where He said He would meet His people in powerful ways. He set these things up to help us remember ... His provision, His love, His forgiveness. He gave these things as living symbols, things that would help us teach our children of Him, to make our faith something alive and bursting at the seams with fragrances of Him and His creation and His love for us.

Somehow, over the course of centuries, the church has taken something alive and brilliant and reduced it to borrowed pagan festivals that we have tacked onto religious meaning -- and even in that scenario, most of us forgo most "religious" significance to fall in line with our current, self-seeking culture of materialism and over-abundance. Or, best-case scenario, it has become a time of family traditions (which are good) that we presume will somehow "give" our children a view of G-d and cause them to want to follow Him.

Or "worship" service. For me, Sunday was a time to gather together and remember G-d and what He'd done for us. But this weekly meeting soon became a simply liturgy ... a spiritual obligation which somehow, in some mysterious way, was suppose to show those around me I was "different" and "holy" because I gave up a couple of hours on Sunday to "worship." Many people feel like Sunday fulfills some unwritten responsibility to G-d, and feel like a friendly visit, surrounded by song and sermon, is enough for the week.

Contrast this to the things I am learning about Shabbot. A day of rest -- not regulated by "do's" and "don'ts," but rather by things given to nourish mind, body, spirit and soul. A day filled with family, friends, and restoration to who G-d intends me to be. A day to worship G-d, yes, and celebrate Yeshua, but so much more. Besides, aren't the former two intended to be a part of our day to day "becoming"? (that questions rhetorical, for anyone wondering). I am a long way from a regular practice of Shabbot. But my heart cries for this, and I plan and wait in eager anticipation of that time when it will be a part of me -- a part of my faith.

Recently, I heard Bruce Springsteen say, "Everything is sacred." That's not a melting pot idea that it's all good -- that spiritual thing that comes across my plate is to be consumed as nourishment to my soul. No, for me that says that each and every thing I do is worship to my G-d. Big and small things -- joys, tragedies, struggles, commitments -- everything should reflect my Rabbi -- the one I say I follow. I feel like in most "churches" (i.e. buildings and organizations) I have been a part of have castrate the sacredness of most things, raking them into the "easy," to somehow pacify their soul cry for G-d. It's easy -- but it's not what G-d intended for His children, I believe.

Everything in my body yearns for the easy. But everything in my soul cries out for the real. Dear G-d, may my soul always tend and subdue my body.