I read a blog post recently written by a faithful member of SOS Church Stockholm. I thought it was soo well written that I simply have to re-post it here. Written by Jens Charlieson; enjoy!
An Extremely Non-Religious Man
I am not your typical religious man. As a child, I was not baptized by a priest. As a teenager, I was not confirmed in church. I was not fascinated by the old myths and legends as I read the Da Vince Code. That is just not who I am. My personality and faith do not seem to match. I should not like church. I should not believe in a higher power. I simply have to few of these old romantic veins running through my body.
Never have I been amazed by the majesty of old stone churches as I have stood within them. I have never sought out one to find peace for prayer. I would never kiss an old relic that is said to have belonged to some person from of old. I have never kneelt before a crucifix or an icon image. I have never enjoyed sitting listening to a man in strange clothing that wraps his words in sentences that can be interpreted to mean whatever one wishes.
I hope and believe that I one day will be able to travel to Mecca, but not to walk around a stone. Sure, I give alms to the poor, but not to appease a god whose mood remains a riddle. I can sit quiet for hours at a time but have never understood why sitting with legs crossed would generate perks when searching for a higher power. I believe in doing good and caring for our fellow human beings, but I much rather care for them for their own sake than trying to accumulate plus point with a god.
Religious rituals. Religious buildings. Religious relics. When everything has been degraded to an adoration of majestic buildings and art that once was beautiful, then the entire world has gathered around a duck pond, making little or no difference. It simply is beautiful to the eye of the admirer and awful to the eye of the critic.
An extremely non-religious man is writing these words. I have never understood how an organ is holier than an electrical guitar or why a punk should feel like he is not a part of the church. I probably am very, very bad at being religious. Yet, every week I find my feet walking into church again.
It was nine years ago that I for the first time in my life saw a man in a wheel chair stand up and walk. I was not sure how to process what my eyes were seeing. In what compartment should I place these thoughts? A few days later I was a thousand miles away and found myself crying like a baby. I was still trying to place my thoughts in the right compartment. They did not fit in the church compartment; there were many thoughts here, but none were about lame men walking. They did not fit with anything that I so far had experienced. They only fit with places that I had read about. That is where I placed them; together with everything else that I had read.
As I cried like a baby, I decided to never dance with the ducks in the pond. Shortly thereafter I saw a deaf ear opened. Then a blind saw. Then tumors disappeared. And it continued in like manner. The compartment with thoughts about what I had read began to be filled with thoughts of what I had experienced and soon these new thoughts formed a picture of the life I wanted to live.
The Da Vince Code was an exciting book. Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu swam around in a duck pond of ancient stories and myths void of history. They swam among majestic buildings, among relics that may have been the property of some man from of old. They hunted down crucifixes and icon images at the bottom of the pond and they never seemed to find anything in the mud and mire.
I am part of building a church in downtown Stockholm. You know, one where the punk feels at home. You know, I have never seen either an organ or an electrical guitar heal a man. I have never seen a majestic building set a drugged teenager free from the addiction.
I believe in a God beyond all religion. Beyond relics. And there, beyond all such things, He pulls people out of wheel chairs like never before. We are building a church in Stockholm for those that usually do not go to church. For those who, like me, are the non-religious types. We walk the thin line between two worlds. We are an ugly duckling in a pond of religion and atheism.
Jens Charlieson
