I've been reading a new book called "The Barbarian Way" by Erwin Raphael McManus. I've heard from many people that this is a good book to question your faith and make you ask "What am I really doing with it---am I living like a barbarian for Jesus, or sittin on the sidelines of this domesticated life?" My uncle Eric read the book and said that he became angry. He wasn't angry so much at the book, but because the book was pointing out things in his own life, places where he has become domesticated. Like all books, I give them a chance.Many passages really challenged my faith. I would sit in the backyard on our adirondack chairs under the walnut tree and just think. Moey would be sitting a few feet away enjoying the nice breeze. With my feet on the fireplace bricks, and me knees providing a good desk I would read and read. Every once in awhile I would get hit by a random leaf (that is falling way too soon this season) or hear the chattering of the squirrels in the background. My favorite passage was actually one of the last couple of pages in the last chapter. Throughout the entire book, each chapter had a illustration of rhinos running. I couldn't quite understand what it meant until I read these last pages. McManus states:
"With insects most of us know that bees are called swarms, and ants are called colonies. Among ocean life, I was aware that whales are pods, and fish are schools. Cattle are herds, birds are flocks, and if you watch Lion King, you know a tribe of lions is a pride. If you grew up in the country, you might know that crows are murders. Maybe the most unnerving one is an ambush of tigers.
I was surprised to learn that a group of buzzards waiting around together to feast on leftover carnage is called a committee. Just this one insight is worth the price of the whole book. This explains so much of what's going on in churches--a lot of committees waiting around to live off human carnage.
Groups of flamingos are called flamboyants, which for some reason remind of TV evangelists. And groups of the less glamorous owls are know as parliaments. They do seem sort of British.
But my favorite of all is the group designed for rhinos. You see, rhinos can run at thirty miles an hour, which is pretty fast when you consider how much weight they're pulling. They're actually faster than squirrels, which can run at up to twenty-six miles an hour. And even then, who's going to live in dread of a charging squirrel? (Sorry--that was a bit off the point.) Running at thirty miles an hour is faster than a used Pinto will go. Just one problem with this phenomenon. Rhinos can see only thirty feet in front of them. Can you image something that large moving in concert as a group, plowing ahead at thirty miles an hour with no idea what's at thirty-one feet? You would think that they would be far too timid to pick up full steam, that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, rhinos run forward full steam ahead without apprehension, which leads us to their name.Rhinos moving together at full speed are known as a crash. Even when they're just hanging around enjoying the watershed, they're called a crash because of their potential. You've got to love that. I think that's what we're supposed to be. That's what happens when we become barbarians and shake free of domestication and civility. The church becomes a crash. We become an unstoppable force. We don't have to pretend we know the future. Who cares that we can see only thirty feet ahead? Whatever's at thirty-one feet needs to care that we're coming and better get out of the way.
We need to move together as God's people, a barbarian tribe, and become the human version of the rhino crash. The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There's a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full force because of what we do know."
So am I living like a barbarian or a domesticated civilian? hmm...
