Week 2 Recap: Worship Songs, Communion, and Universe Jumping

Two weeks down in my 40 Days of Christianity journey and I've continued to have great conversations with friends and strangers about their faith journeys. I've also read more in this two weeks than I've ever read in my life, enjoyed my morning quiet times with my best if clumsy attempts at prayer.

It's been hard to choose a direction for these updates as I'm trying to keep this personal enough that it's not compromised by my awareness of an audience. But here are some thoughts that stuck out from this week.

To Sing or Not to Sing

I was sitting in church a couple days ago during the worship music, and I second guessed whether I ought to be singing along. As the band played, a bunch of questions popped off in my head - Do I believe these words? Is it wrong to sing something I don't really believe in? Is it disrespectful to the people around me who do believe it that I'm just out here cosplaying Christianity for my weird experiment? Do I even like this music? As my neuroses peaked, I recognized these questions were all too familiar. It's almost exactly how I felt for years as a believer sitting in church.

I had a pretty negative relationship with worship music for a long time. I "led worship" a lot in my adolescence and a few times in college. People frequently told me I had a gift for it and even asked me to come on staff leading worship at their churches. But by midway through college, I became really resistant to that role.

For one, I just didn't connect with the music much - most modern worship songs are uninspired as they avoid depth in favor utility - simple words and melodies comfortable for a big crowd to quickly pick up and sing along to (not inherently bad, just not my jam). Leading worship also felt manipulative - I had a little bag of vocal tricks I knew could provoke emotional experiences in the crowd. When I used these tricks and they worked and people praised me for being a great worship leader, it felt icky and honestly kinda dangerous for where I could imagine my ego taking that feeling. So at some point I decided it was a no from me dog - asserting that I will not lead worship anymore.

But that feeling continued when I was on the other side of the stage too, sitting in church services as a Christian feeling awkward about it. I suppose I was projecting my egophobic story onto everyone else - viewing the whole thing as a crowd of people singing dumbed down words to maybe have a manufactured emotional experience that would validate the whole exercise as meaningful or make the band believe they did a good job.

Anyway, back to the now in that church service I was visiting - returned to my judgmental overthinking while the band played on.

To Commune or not to Commune?

I made it through the first round of worship with some half-hearted hums and melodic murmurs, then listened to the sermon (which btw happened to be on the exact chapter of Acts I'd read that morning), then it was communion - a great opportunity for me to go back to overthinking... Is it right for me to take communion if I'm not a true believer? Would anyone care? Does this church have a specific stance on this? Does my prior belief carry over - like is once saved always saved a valid doctrine?

And as it came time for my row to enter the line for bread and wine (grape juice), something clicked in me. Why am I worrying about this? If none of this is real do any of these questions matter? And if there is something real here isn't all this overthinking just a way of avoiding the real thing?

What am I actually afraid of?

Why do I put so much pressure on the exact meaning of these rituals? (tbh the answers to those questions come from the legalistic form of religion I took on when I was a kid but I don't need to get into all that rn). Aren't I at church to participate in church?

Identity Prisons

I recognized it as a sort of fear around the perceived threat to my own identity, resistance to an action that may change the framework of how I or others perceived the Michael B. Allen avatar. I wasn't going to spontaneously combust by taking communion, but I was going to have to confront the version of me who had some deep seated fear of it - seeing what it might awaken in me, noticing the ways I might cringe at myself, feeling the eyes of someone who might see me and know who I am and be confused.

When I was a Christian (years ago before this 40 day free trial version) I was locked inside my Christian identity, afraid of what might happen if I stopped going to church and started reading and listening to other ideas. I resisted my curiosities because they threatened the identity I'd built, and that turned into constantly feeling afraid of myself - which transformed into self-resentment, which became deep depression. We can only suppress and silence parts of ourselves for so long until they find more drastic ways to make themselves known - a much harder path than just embracing the discomfort on the frontend.

Now here I was on the other side, beginning to feel the walls of this new identity prison I'd built for myself - Michael the post-Christian, Michael the intellectual, Michael the rockstar - all these illusions of self, afraid of being shattered. I'm really extrapolating this thought process, but it lasted all of two seconds, then suddenly crystallized into a feeling of courageous freedom.

I went up and ate Christ's body broken for me and drank his blood poured out and got back to my pew and sang the songs at full voice - granted I wasn't belting it with my palms thrust toward the ceiling. But I did the thing and I let myself enjoy it.

Now I know a bunch of y'all are hoping this post ends with "And then I felt the spirit stir my heart and bring me back to faith and now I'm a Christian again." If that's the news I have to share one day, I'll share it. But I don't like the feeling that I'm on display like some kinda spiritual spectator sport with fans in the stands watching the devil and God compete over my soul. That said, y'all maintain your chill.

'Verse Jumping

I'm sharing this stream of consciousness because it's what's on my mind this morning but also because I feel like someone else out there feels what I'm saying - that anxious grip of your comfortable identity keeping you in bounds, scared of ever changing lanes, avoiding new experiences that may threaten the way you like to think of yourself or your beliefs.

I don't think it's exclusive to religious or non-religious folks - I think it's a human instinct to keep us safe and comfortable. But it's a double-edged sword where when you don't intentionally flex the muscle to push yourself out of your comfort zone, over time everything that's not routine starts to feel offensive and threatening.

I think sometimes the antidote to that is just to be a freaking weirdo and see what comes from it.

It reminds me of the bit in Everything Everywhere All at Once where they have to do something unexpected and bizarre to "(uni)verse jump" (portal to a different dimension). The idea is that these extremely unlikely actions create a gap in the fabric of reality that allows you to transition into a different reality. And ultimately that's what I think I'm doing here - getting comfortable facing the resistance to the unlikely so I can enter a new reality.

Having now read 3/4 gospels, I can definitely see that in the Jesus stories. He's constantly being pressed to uphold the comfortable identities and narratives of the people around him, and he constantly finds ways to choose something unexpected that opens a portal to a new reality.

Maybe you can some little way to verse jump today.

To wrap up, here's the books I read last week:

• Gospel of Luke
• Acts of the Apostles
• Augustine's Confessions (Books 4–6)
• Mere Christianity

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