| Welcome! | The Book | On the Horizon | Dahl - Writings | Portions | PodWorks | Prayer Requests | Links | PDL Store | Bubbles |
The cow starts in the heart. If the cow is coddled properly and developed into a shared system then it can become an albatross. It is no longer sacred. It is the wrong yoke. But if the cow is milked and led out to pasture and meets other cows and is loved by those that birthed it into being, well, then there is hope of health and good grazing. Of course, the obvious problem is pride which is a problem we all share. So my feeling is that no matter where you have your cow your pride goes with you, as does your heart.
For many years I was a home church cow worshipper. We lived in community, shared things, many folks owned homes together, lived near each other. It was an intelligent gathering of people who loved God and the cow idea of home church. We took great pride in NOT being a part of the SYSTEM. We were different and even said so in our "Yellow Book" that defined our theology and philosophy of church and God. We wanted to make sure we were set apart in every way but still living in our worldly worlds doing good deeds. Well, we started to see that the cow of home church was not where we were supposed to be. It was becoming a tired cow. The grass was brown and there was no pasture left. So we left to join the Episcopalians. It wasn't our intention to do that but we prayed and let go of our cow. I think you could say the wineskins were, well, just not holding what we needed and burst. We left with the blessing of the house church and took our hearts with us to seek God's direction. It felt risky but freeing. We no longer needed the by-line sacred cow of house church to hold us up. All we needed was God. Walking into the Episcopalian liturgy was for us a breath of structured fresh air. No one boasted of themselves, only Christ, and that has seemed to work for us completely. No pretense, but only many humans holding out their pride and their hearts at the altar. Betsy Retallack You can e-mail Betsy here: betsyretallack@hotmail.com |
Welcome! | The Book | On the Horizon | Dahl - Writings | Portions | PodWorks | Prayer Requests | Links | PDL Store | Bubbles © 2005/2006/2007/2008/2009/2010 Bill Dahl | site design by IDCI No part of this site and/or the contents herein may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All rights reserved. Requests for permission to reproduce or disseminate any part of any material on this site should be mailed to: Permissions Department, Bill Dahl Redmond, OR. |