I don’t exactly recall when I started reading Michael Spencer’s internetmonk blog,  but he has seemed to me of late to be especially relevant to me.  Michael has very VERY similar roots as I do as far as I can tell.  And many of his blogged thoughts accurately articulate for me my frustrations with the state of those Baptist roots,  which have , in recent years,  become almost synonymous with the “religious Right”/evangelical/mega-Church/individualistic spiritual “offerings of those movements.  It is no accident, I think,  that the Southern Baptist raised folks I know that I still identify with tend to be the ones who are into Thomas Merton and visiting St. Meinrad’s and being a bridge between our Baptist lack of “spiritual path” disciplines. The Church of the Saviour,  who was and is still led by a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary grad since 1947 (Gordon Cosby) certainly focused themselves intentionally around the “paths” of spiritual disciplines.

As Falson journeys back, he becomes a pilgrim: one who is going from place to place where God has met people in the past; where the echoes of God reverberate in the present. It is Catholics who mark such places and remember such stories. And it is catholic spirituality that many of us turn in similar circumstances.

One of the reasons I liked this story is I completely understand it. When my experience with Jesus “runs out of gas,” as Falson says, I also consider where I can go. Where in my evangelical, conservative Baptist tradition can I go for spiritual renewal?

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