A different texture.

A few nights ago I was hanging out at Ashley's and we were hanging some things up in her apartment. I decided to that we needed some music. So I went to examine her expansive CD collection. I was having a difficult time choosing a CD...Ash had so many that I loved. I yelled to her to come and help me but she was quite engrossed with the hanging project. So I joked to her that if she didn't come and help that I would just have to pick an old school Point of Grace CD. She said that anything would be fine so...I popped in The Whole Truth, Including such favorites as "The Great Divide" and "Gather at the River". I thought that it would be kind of funny, we would listen to a few then pick something else. But before I knew it we were singing right along, walking down youth group lane. We were not scared....we may have known a majority of the words...I'm just saying. I even noticed that despite the mildly cheesy music, that the lyrics said some pretty good things. Now I'm not saying that the next time you hop in the neon that I will be blasting Keep the Candle Burning but I became sad that I had thrown away many of my Point of Grace CD's. I thought that I was had grown out of them. They were too cheesy and cookie cutter, and I was educated and knew better. They were too tied to youth group days and I was trying to run deperately from my former legalistic self.
I have been thinking alot about that. Why do I feel that i have to run from my past, in regards to youth group days and such? The things that I participated in made me who I am today. Those cheesy Christian songs are a part of my spiritual landscape. Yes some of them are a bit too "Jesus is my boyfriend" or too individualistic, but many of them have affirming and redemptive messages. Yes, there are a few things about youth camps that I am unsure of, such as the extreme emotionality in worship services. But I had many formative moments on my spiritual journey at those youth camps. I continue to learn and grow all the time or at least attempt to. But that does not mean that the new is always better than the old, it is just different. It has a different texture, it adds another piece to my spiritual geography. The new is actually wrought from the old.
It is funny how those of us in higher education (I do at least) tend to think that knowledge makes us better in some way...more qualified...more open minded...It reminds me of a song by Nicole Nordeman that says:

God for the shameless pride
The times when I rolled my eyes
Laughed at Simplicity
Show Me Mercy
Knowing what I know now
I can't imagine how
I could feel anything but unworthy

Despite the facade of knowledge that I so often arrogantly adorn myself with I find each day that the more that I learn, the less that I actually know.