A few years ago I took up Samurai swordsmanship. It has not been easy, because the sword is not just about cutting stuff. It’s as much about how you move your body. My body doesn’t do Japanese well. When my sensei shows me what I look like to him, he bounces like Tigger and sways like John Wayne. What my sensei is looking for, instead, is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s liquid smoothness. To learn fluidity of motion I have to force myself to take on a persona - almost an alternate me - when I’m on the floor of the dojo. I feel like a total phony, because I’m saying “No!” to everything that feels natural. But every once in a while when I glance at myself in the dojo mirrors, I see what my sensei is after.
The “liturgy” of the dojo reshapes me so I can take on the other me that I must be if I ever wish my swordsmanship to be Samurai. Christian worship does something like that for followers of Christ. Worship shapes us to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Worship invites us to take on a new persona: a persona so new it feels phony sometimes, even though it’s not.
