Lancelot

NOTE: I found this in one of my document folders. I wrote it last year.

I attended a new church this morning with a friend of mine. He attends the church and in my current status of between churches he invited me to go in the hopes that it may become my new church home. Now, I go to a Bible College where we attend a church-type
service every day of the week. The worship and atmosphere in this church was ultra-contemporary, even more so than the chapel services at our school which consist only of college-aged students and generally lacks aged folks. The church was mostly college age to early thirty-somethings in my observation. At some point in the service I actually found myself wishing for a more traditional styled service.

My high-school aged self would kick the crap out of me if he'd heard me say that.

I would have been in heaven had I attended when I was in youth group. 5 days a week I am in a youth group-type worship setting (that is, contemporary worship based on the most recent publications of Matt Redman, Israel Houghton, etc.). So I found myself thinking that maybe attending one service per week that was a little more traditional would be nice.

The second thing that struck me this morning was how emotional the service was. The first half of the service was worship, which was fine, and I enjoyed it. I actually haven't been in such an emotional setting in a long time. I honestly felt out of place. Why? Because I am not an emotional worshiper. I'm not really an emotional guy.

This thought process made me think of my college psychology professor, Mr. Williams.

Before transfering to Bible College, I spent my first year out of high school at a community college. One of the first class periods he talked about Lancelot of all people. Lancelot, he said, was the most noble of all of King Arthur's knights. The reason he was so noble was because he was truly a terrible, ruthless person. He enjoyed hurting people, but he wanted to be a knight. Knights, though, were noble and caring, so therefore, Lancelot did not allow himself to do what he truly wanted.
Having said this, I must point out that I am not a very emotional person. Being in situations with an excess of emotion puts me a little on edge, even in worship. I cried and wept when I was saved and again when I returned to the faith, and again here and there, but all in all I am not an emotional worshiper nor a really emotional person. Why is this? Kinda like Lancelot, I am actually a very emotional person. I actually have a deep rift of emotion flowing through me, but I do not let it show. At times it comes out in the form of a poem, story, or painting, but generally the tumultuous waves of my emotion stay neatly inside of me. Why? I don't know, I guess. Maybe because I've grown up in a household that wasn't emotional, maybe because I've been raised in a society where men are taught to with hold their emotions. Either way, I am a quiet rock emotional. Strong, but jagged nonetheless.
It's hard to be a rock when you really know you are a river.