The Beauty of Liturgy

There is something so special about praying the prayers other Christ-followers have uttered for hundreds of years. Allowing my heart to get caught up in the prayers saturated with theology ties me to the richness and goodness of what God has been doing in this world for centuries.

The things He does aren't always big. They doesn’t always change the face of the planet, but He calms my heart after I've been berated by life, gives me reminders that I am free to love the homeless couple living in their van, and awakens in me an awareness that the Lord has my heart in His hands.

The thing with Liturgy is this: it can be just a ritual or it can be sacred. If it is sacred, people will adopt orphans, feed the starving children in Africa, and even appreciate their bus drivers. If it is just ritual, people will kill in the name of Christ, live immature, hypocritical lives and drag Jesus’s good name and mine through the mud.

I remember when I first fell in love with liturgy. I was at Multnomah Bible College’s 2002 Liturgy Chapel and I realized what I was saying. I recognized that the words on the page were so ripe and rich, that it was like biting into a perfect peach and knowing that the juices would run down your wrist and then arm! I got so excited about what I was being led to pray that I started jumping up and down in chapel and was filled with joy! How I loved the depth of meaning, the fullness of thought behind what was held in my hands and I wondered how I had never seen the beauty in liturgical prayer before.

Such a thing as Green

There is just something about the experience of green that makes me want to take off my shoes and run across the lawn like a little girl, mouth things that aren’t edible, and that never fails to put a smile on my face. I love the way it looks in sunshine, the way it contrasts with a grey sky and the purple-blue hue of the mountains on the horizon, the way I feel when I’m wearing my bright green skirt--beautiful, joyful, hopeful. I love the feel of it between my fingers as I hold a leaf, the feel of it between my toes while I walk the long, grassy distance between campus and home--without my shoes on.

This Fall, I went to Marine Park and as I walked through the rich, green grass to my favorite tree, I met a homeless man named Shamrock. It was cold outside, but we both found ourselves with the bay, the mountains, the deciduous trees, the rocks and the grass-green. He told me that his family was from Ireland. He got so worked up about the forty shades he’d someday see on the other side of the ocean, that he started to drop a swear word here and there. It was the reflection upon a reality that will never be, as precious to him as it was. We ate my M&M’s together in silence, for a time and took in the picture painted before us.

The Bond of Cheese Lovers

“If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living.”
G. K. Chesterton
“Essay on Cheese”

I’ve found an appreciation for a food so fine as cheese, distinguishes one. It may not give prestige, but it does set one apart. I cast my lot with the likes of G. K. Chesterton. The question is whether he is so quick to place himself with me.

For several years now, I’ve fancied the idea of having a shirt made for myself that says “I like cheese” but in the Swedish language as opposed to English because of my Scandinavian heritage. Further reflection upon this idea has lead to the use of a light blue tee shirt with yellow writing, rather like the flag of Sweden. I would be quite satisfied with the simplest of text styles as long as everything else was in order.

I also find myself in the company of other cheese lovers! Last year I was in a Bible study that met on Tuesday nights. We all liked cheese. Upon discovering this wonderful information, I promptly set out to find G. K. Chesterton’s essay that I’ve fondly quoted above! In honor of cheese, we had, you guessed it, a cheese party. Each person was to bring something with cheese and to top it off, we watched a cheesy movie. We ate cheddar slices on crackers, Cheese Whiz, Cheetos, Cheese-its, baked bre, even macaroni and cheese. As Chesterton would have said, our party was “quite the cheese!”

Then, last quarter, as if proof of forever being in the company of cheese lovers, my downstairs neighbors were so appreciative of me bringing them dessert one day, that they made my roommates and me a batch of brownies. The catch was that I had to try one and tell them what I thought before learning their secret ingredient. I was impressed with their baking skills, but did notice a slight discoloration in the brownies as well as an added flavor that isn’t often combine with dessert. I complimented them and learned that the secret ingredient was a good sized handful of Cheese-its!

Though G. K. was from a different time, a different place and a different social status than I, I believe we would bonnded--over cheese.


Chesterton, G. K., “Essay on Cheese.” Alarms and Discursions. 1910. http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/cheese.html>. 16 May 2007.