A Paradox – Exactly What Is It?

By Chris Logan

What is it?

Is it old or is it new, ancient or modern? Is it temporal or atemporal or subtemporal or transtemporal? Is it something in which we can participate or is it something that we view, something done for us? Is it done in a building, a field, a workplace, a home, a coffee shop, a pub, a laundromat, a city, a town, a village, an office, a subway, a car, a tractor, a wagon, or on foot? Is it done with friends or acquaintances or enemies?

Is it loud or is it soft? Is it fast or slow? Is it happy or sad?

Is it defined by what is available to us or is it defined as something we have to obtain? Can we obtain it at all, or is it given? Is it done at all or is it simply the way of things?

Is it silent?

Is it deafening?

Is it individual or communal? Is it cultural, acultural, transcultural, supracultural, or intercultural? Is it of the people, by the people, for the people, to the people, from the people, or around the people?

Is it active or passive?

Is it for gathering, for comfort, for challenge, for engagement, for lament, for celebration, or for sending? Is it for us or from us or with us or within us? Is it about us at all or is it about denying ourselves, transient?

Is it exhausting or refreshing?

Is it a good at all, something with form, or is it something intangible, some sort of orientation that guides us? Is it a rule or a principle? Is it proactive or reactive? Does it build us up or tear us apart? Does it kill us or make us new? Is it observational, participational, sacrificial, theological, eschatological, experiential, relational, formational, or transformational?

Is it planned or spontaneous?

Is it beyond us?

What

is

worship?

… Yes.

Simply, yes.