Being countercultural

I struggle with how so many are conformed to the world and not transformed by the renewal of their minds and spirit. Perhaps I might have become a monk or a hippie in the past but perhaps I am?

So often I meet leaders seeking methods as solutions who fail to hear the call to faithfulness and fidelity against cultural values and attitudes. When it comes to sabbath (read my earlier posts), workaholism and fear of loss of recognition seem to take over. Bonnie Thurston asserts "with regard to time... we Christians must become distinctly countercultural; we must shift from being future-oriented people to being present-oriented people. I am not arguing that we set aside Christian hope of heaven, nor that we set aside our responsibilities or our work. I am asking that we become present to them, to find joy in them rather than seeing them primarily as a means to an end."

What does this mean? I think it means we need a new point of view or worldview: Taking sabbath as rest with enjoyment and celebration, taking sabbath as a discipline and witness to the world of something different, and sabbath as a mode of being in the world, relishing each precious moment like it might be our last. It is to lose the busyness of life for the business of raising cognitive dissonance in those around us, to raise the fundamental questions of what is life about?