Weblogs: Annie Dillard on playing at church

(via Poocherelli's Posts from David's Reflections by David Perkins of Episcopalatlee on Yahoo Groups)

"Annie Dillard in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk writes about her experience attending a service of Holy Communion, weaving in her reflections in response to each movement of the service. In that essay, she speaks of the unpredictability of a God too often tamed by our meager expectations.
She writes, 'Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does noone believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us to where we can never return."