Worship

Day 9 Theme: Worship

Today we explored worship, hanging out with Adam's (our prof and fearless trip leader) best friend Vito (who is a pastor in Brooklyn and went to seminary with Adam). We went to Vito's house and had lunch and talked about church, finding a church, what it's like to be a pastor, and how we can worship. If I'm being totally honest, worship is one of the only parts of Christianity that I like. When you're worshiping with a bunch of people you feel connected despite all differences. You share one common goal of reverence and honoring God, and everything else falls away. I just like hanging out with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I get caught up in the politics of religion, in whether or not God exists, but if you just spend time with the Holy Spirit it clears the mind. It makes everything more obvious. One of the only reasons I go to church is for worship. Sometimes pastors say things I don't agree with or I've heard before, but I don't care if there's a chance to worship.

After a much needed nap I went with some Whitworth friends on a different trip in NYC to a rave/club thing. It was one of the most incredible parties I will probably ever go to. We spent an hour and a half in the line to check our coats, which later ended up being worth it, but it was a very long wait. Coat check was in the basement, where there was a dubstep, kind of darker DJ playing. I love bass music. I love dancing downstairs, and probably ruining my ears forever because it was so loud. I love when the strobe comes on and you watch everything happen around you in flashes. The DJ was wearing a shirt that said DEATH on it. So that gives you kind of an idea of the vibe.

Then the main floor upstairs we got drinks at, they played typical club music, all the hit songs. I experienced a whole other level of guys trying to 'dance' with me. Usually when someone asks you to dance if you say no more than twice, then they get the hint and stop asking. Here it's like they don't stop. We had a little clan trying to keep each other out bad situations. People just grab you. It's really hard to move without feeling someone's hand on your waist. After shoving guys away for a while I was just kind of sick of it. I'm not used to such an aggressive environment. It was still fun, it was pop songs that we all know and some of my favorite people boogie-ing with cool lighting, but I don't understand our generation's idea of guy-girl dancing. It's not really dancing and I'm not really okay with it. So I went back downstairs and jumped around to Death for a while.

Later in the night, we were thinking about leaving soon, when we realized there was another floor. So we walked upstairs, really confused about how we didn't pick up on that sooner, and to our surprise we came across a kind of sanctuary. I can't even accurately describe what the top floor was like. It's this huge long room, with the bar in the back where you enter. The size of half a football field maybe. And at the other end of it there's this one DJ up on a platform with bright white screens behind him. The room is packed, people are all facing the DJ, singing and jumping and just staring in a kind of trance. Near the ceiling, the room is surrounded by a balcony (which needs special tickets to enter). The balcony is filled with the fiercest people I've ever seen. Wearing everything from feathered gowns to masquerade style outfits. They had neon wings and were casually standing and holding glasses of shiny drinks, whispering amongst themselves. They had full face paint, contact lenses, gloves. It was like every era and the future, no one was alike. Just standing above the masses, they belonged in the sky. The crowds below mostly had Brazilian flags (I found out later it was a Brazilian DJ) and were all caught up in the music, just facing the front. I think that's what seemed the most strange to me. Of course you face the front at a concert, but the other floors you're still with you're friends. You can still circle up and face each other. Here it's like everyone was separate. Everyone had entered alone, yet everyone was the same. This floor was so different from the rest.

It's like worship. It's like the feeling you get when you're singing together with others to God. There's the same feeling when you're all singing a song you love. When you're jumping with a thousand others facing one man. Looking up at this creator of the sound. The parallels to worship were so evident to me even while I was there. Even in the basement. People seemed to worship the feeling. The feeling of whatever drug they were on, the feeling of the bass, of not being able to hear yourself think. There's a kind of addiction in worship that enslaves us. People want to feel like a part of something more. People want to go out on a Saturday night and be a part of this cathedral. To feel connected to those around them. And to worship the music. That's the danger in worship for me. I love worship, but it's so easy to worship the wrong things. It's so easy to get caught up in a temporal world. I can't see myself doing that every weekend. Or again anytime soon. It's very draining. But there's an impossible feeling that comes along with it. There's a rush, and I crave that rush. I crave the pulse of a bass, the feeling of moving in space to a beat, and the anonymity of being surrounded by strangers experiencing that same feeling. The problem us it's only a rush because it doesn't happen everyday. It's not something to live for. I can get that same unexplainable feeling from standing on a mountain, from riding in a car with my head out of the sun roof, from singing around a campfire. I don't want to worship a feeling, I don't want to be trapped to the addiction of needing that feeling. I'm glad that I don't have to be, I'm glad that I'm not in a place where I need a the weekend to rage just to get through the week. I think we were meant to worship. Something inside all of us craves wanting to give back to our creator. To recognize the beauty in being alive. So many people find different outlets to do that. I'm a big fan in worshiping outside of a church. To worship God through talents, through time outside, through singing and dancing. I think we should all find a healthy way to worship. I think we all need to worship, not because God requires it, but because it's ingrained in us, it's part of our livelihood.