What Next, God?

I must admit a few things. I’ve been doing some hardcore battle with depression that stepped in to my life, unwanted and unexpected, and did nothing but warrant the writing of a lukewater poem about God who feels far far away.

FAR FAR away.

Needing support and I don’t know where to find. I’m too uncomfortable talking to Christians. Well, not my old pastor but for some reason I’m too embarrassed to speak to him, and I really don’t want the “but it’s in the bible” argument, which is completely circular.

I know I need some fresh resources and faces. Time to look, but I’m not sure where. Lead me, God, you’re the only one who can rescue me.

And right now I need it.

So tonight I was reading more of “Bee Season” and it struck me that this is another book about the search for God. I had NO clue in advance, I thought this would be more about a brainy girl, but there is QUITE a lot of mysticism in the novel. I considered my belief that there are no coincedences and that here and now I’m on a quest and found these 2 books on the same day.

I’ve started to realize, as one person commented, that all religions are one. “Misquoting Jesus” isn’t really challenging my faith, it’s challenging what I’ve learned these last 2 years in my return to Christianity.

And I’ve found that the more I learn, the more I am me. Christianity is the right ticket on many levels, but there is so much I cannot buy, and I do believe it’s because my soul has learned more advanced truths that it cannot deny.

Who was Jesus? I’m closer to thinking that perhaps He was a perfected person, or a perfected being, and separate from God. Still, we can pray to him, respect him and honor his sacrifice. And while I don’t think Christianity is a short cut to God, his life and death did bring those of us who follow closer to the Lord by bringing in the concept of forgiveness (a concept that I believe is WIDELY misunderstood and even abused).

I can’t help it, but deep down I believe:

-there are many paths to God. He created a limitless universe, how can only one road lead to Him?

-there are many lives. We need to really get perfect or close to perfect just to be in His holy presence.

-there was nothing but God and God created everything, therefore He is in everything. I was shocked recently to learn this is considered pantheism in some circles. This explains that “God shaped hole” we all have and our need to fill it. We just want to return to our Source.

-all religions are one – this is a slippery concept because of course there are false teachings, false prophets and falseness in general. But there are universal truths that we can call get to and quite frankly, lately, I’m seeing them EVERYWHERE. This leads me to confirm that God is everywhere, permeating everything, and evil and falsehoods cannot dam up Divine Truth.

-a merciful God would not condemn anyone forever. Yes I do believe in Hell and that it is eternal, but God is beyond eternal…so something lies even after THAT.

Whew! Some of that was hard to write. It’s hard to admit when you’re not what so many others want you to be. I cannot subscribe to the idea that because I’m not digesting Christ=God that I will be condemned eternally and ever to hell. That’s just not logical or merciful.

THE “ANGRY” JESUS
I have been reading, as mentioned, “Misquoting Jesus”. This is actually a kind of hurtful book in a way. I have never expected the Bible to be verbatim, it HAS been nearly 2000 years since most of it was written, that wouldn’t be possible. But some things I read disturbed me, for example, the section about “the angry Jesus”, which deals with a changed line from the gospels about how he was angry at a leper he healed – changed to “filled with compassion”.

I started to get bothered by this, because honestly, I cannot model an angry Jesus. And there WAS an angry Jesus, I can only claim that his anger was righteous, because whatever else I may be conflicted about, I do believe he was born perfect. As for me, I am LIGHTYEARS away from being able to only be righteously angry, so I cannot really touch that one.

THE MESSAGE MATTERS
It was at this point that a lightbulb went off and this disheartening book suddenly revealed a new truth. It is not the fact of the events of 2000 years ago SO MUCH as what they teach us. And while God perhaps would not intervene* with a Bible that ended up more humanly than divinely inspired, I cannot believe that He would let Christians end badly because of they *possibly* worship a man and not a God, not if they are pure of heart.

THE CHOICE MATTERS TOO
Which leads me to THIS conclusion: perhaps faith IS a choice. Because right now what I want is to be a Christian, wholly and totally. And following the Jesus of MY choice, the righteous man who demonstrated something extraordinary in his sacrifice is bringing peace, clarity, calmness, and frankly, joy into my life.

When I get detracted from that path, I lose all that and so much more.

JESUS AND HIS HUMANITY
What is amusing to me is that when I read the next part in the book about how Jesus didn’t suffer by the grace of God, but that the original text much more likely read “apart from God”…now THAT made more sense. Because for the sacrifice to be valid, he had to be apart from God – alone, scared, shamed, in agony – just like every other person who got crucified or who suffered in any way on this earth. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, in the sense of I can FINALLY see Jesus as completely human AND completely divine. (I still don’t see him on equal footing with God, and see some evidence of that even in our current Bible, but that’s a whole other post.)

So where does this leave me?  I think I am going to finish that book and buy a few recommended reads on grace (a concept the REALLY boggles my mind!)  For now, I’m going to be content where I am and stop for a little bit digging and digging AND DIGGING.  I will go back to excavating the Real Truth I’m sure at some point, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy my readings and get back to church tomorrow, to worship my one true God.
*NOTE: It’s my opinion that God CANNOT interfere that much, or free will has no meaning. Where can/does He draw that line? No one can say, but there must be enough free will for our choice to follow Him completely matters utterly.

I *was* going to post on this thought that I had while watching one of the 100s of shows last night about Don Imus – about perhaps the outrage is so great because society, or at least a larger part of it, is becoming more civilized, more spiritual, more socially conscious. Maybe we’re improving.

And then today happened.

It was a day of bad news. First, about a dear friend and her brand new baby. Then about a new, kind acquaintance with a tragic situation. And then of course the massacre of Virginia Tech.

I got on this “need to know” mission this afternoon, following the news stories for a little while, because this incident hurt me badly. Charles Gibson did a mini-piece about how universities are our sanctuaries, and I realized that was part of it.

College for me – a woman who’s never finished her undergrad degree and dreams of having a master’s – has always been a kind of haven. It was the first place I was popular in my youth. It was fun, it was intellectual, it was the first place I learned the independence and freedom I craved since I was a small child.

It was like a really great church sanctuary. I attended, in my college on-again-off-again career, 5 different colleges, each of them I loved for a different reason. Classrooms were ok, but libraries and professor’s offices were heaven. Even the caf, with its smell of nasty over-cooked processed meats, was comforting. I loved to stroll my different campuses, try to find the pools and think about learning to swim, walking the paths, finding accessible rooftops.

And now that’s gone.

But now, when I consider the insecurity and danger in this world around us, where we least expected, when I think about my friend, those traumatized parents of the deceased students, the trials of my new acquaintance, when I add in terrorists and pandemics and poverty and on  and on, my spine is straight, my heart touched but in place, and my peace still whole. I am thankful I was not affected, but I am more thankful that I have a good sturdy God standing behind me. And where once I would have needed to fall backwards, repeatedly, into His Arms on a day like this, today I can turn to Him and smile that He’s got my back.

And I know that’s true even on those days when the terrible things happen to me.

May you be safe, dear reader, and remember to pray for all those parents who lost their promising, beautiful, bright young children, because their hearts will never be the same again.

peace.

In a day when I slept in and skipped church intentionally – the first day I wanted to in several years, and the one time my husband spoke the idea aloud as I was thinking it – I saw this from a New York Times article:

“I need God in my life, but I told the pastor, I get sleepy,” she said. “You have to stay in church from 1:30 to 5. I think if services were shorter, more entertaining I’d go.”

It wasn’t until I read this that I had my first glimmer of guilt – but it was only a glimmer. The issue right now is that I’m in a period of spiritual flux (as evidenced by recent postings) and need something a bit deeper than the usual that I get at my new church (which is in all fairness not quite up to what I got at my former church).

I don’t feel that same ecstatic sweep of godly passion, I’m not learning in the same way, and I’m just not feeling it.

But that is QUITE different than putting off God because I can’t get my butt out of bed. And, “make it more entertaining” ?? Are you kidding? Now I’m not advocating stern, stiff services, like the kind people older than me experienced with Latin Catholic masses and such. Not at all.

But you don’t go to church for entertainment. You don’t go because you have nothing better to do on Sunday mornings (like sleep). You don’t go to catch up with friends, or show face in front of your priest/pastor/peers, etc. You don’t go because it’s what you’ve always done, and you don’t know what else to do. You don’t go because the Word will be fed to you so you don’t have to study on your own that day (guilty!)

You GO because you WANT to.

You GO to share worship with a community of (hopefully) similar minded believers.

You GO to feel God’s presence and fire in your life.

You GO for God.

We are so RIDICULOUSLY soft in this country, it’s sad. Think of Christians (and Jews and Moslems and all other faiths) in communist, anti-religion countries where people can be jailed or worse for creating a house church, which is the only way they can worship.

And here we are bothered by the inconvenience of going out of our to publicly worship our Creator, who gave us EVERYTHING?

Argh. It’s upsetting.

If you don’t believe don’t go. If you’re having a crisis of faith, well, maybe take a week or two off, or find another church or religion or path to God. Or find another day and way to worship the Lord regularly. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

But don’t be lukewarm and say it’s too hard to spend a small part of your Sunday in church.

I always worried about this verse:

But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. Rev. 3:16

But now I get it. I may be confused, lost, unsure, uncertain, and trying to find my footing, but I hope and pray that I will NEVER be lukewarm about my Lord, because I’m always passionate in just about everything else (a real flaw of mine, btw).

FUNNY TIMES
This has been a funny time for me. I’m attending this conservative church, somewhat feeling the love, but again, feeling less than Christian, JUST AFTER feeling SO Christian.

The pastor asked for who needed prayer a few weeks back to get Jesus in their life as king so I raised my hand.

When I do my day to day, and try to visualize Jesus there, what he’d do, it works, but it’s not the same as literally believing him to be God.

EVIDENCE?
I had read “More than a Carpenter”, I’ve read most of “Mere Christianity”, but in all deference to the other side (and my REAL opinion), I found myself in Borders bookstore after years of wanting to go. It was NO New York City store, pickings were WAY slim and none of the books I wanted were there. I ended up with “Bee Season”…and “Misquoting Jesus”. I stumbled upon it, but we already know I believe there are NO accidents, right?

TRUTH AND THE WORD
“Misquoting” turned out to be the book I was looking for all this time. I skipped to the end, very disappointed that the author was now agnostic (or in M. Scott Peck’s world view, which I embrace, he’s on the 3rd step of spirituality), for reasons I was surprised by. This book lays out for the lay person the real deal regarding scholarly Biblical translation, much of which I had already suspected since way back in high school.

Then I had some Divine confirmation. Chapter 2 reviewed how early scribes – intentionally and unintentionally – had the problem of miscopying texts. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that the earliest copiers were members of the church it self – and barely if at all literate. Many were just transposing symbols. It was a few centuries after the death of Jesus before trained, professional scribes would do the copying.

I longed to hear God’s opinion on this. I sat up and read chapter 2 through in the night, and in the morning went to my Bible – as I do daily – for my daily bread. What verse? Jeremiah 8:8:

But, behold, the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely.

In NLT, it’s far worse than that, but it echoed what the book wrote about it (which in fact, enlightened me about that threat in Revelation about adding to or deleting from The Word). So for me, God confirmed that it is NOT literally divinely inspired…and THAT I can get to.

CHRISTIANITY ON THE DEFENSE
The fact is that no matter how hard I try, or do not try, how hard I push OR let go, I cannot believe this Christian thing. I know that real Christians will come down on me, or pray for my soul, or have some very sound – sounding arguments and why I should “get” them, but it just doesn’t ring true.

Back in the Christian seminars I was taking – 101, I believe – we were told that “it just has the ring of Truth”. I understood that, because Real Truth speaks to your soul and DOES have that ring.

Christianity doesn’t have that sound to me. Perhaps at a certain level, it does, or did, or will, but where I am now the truth sounds frighteningly silent.

THE LONLINESS OF THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED
Unfortunately, I’ve found that rather than being reassured that my earlier journeys on the Path were not ONLY a tool for God to bring me to Christianity but in fact indicative of The Real Truth, I am being deeply saddened. This is strange, though, because I’ve long thought it fool-hardy to believe the Bible as literal (no offense to anyone).

I’m wondering where I head from here. I had a chance to join a group that had some alternate thinking on Christianity – even though much of what was said sounded fairly Orthodox and traditional to me. I had to let that opportunity go because of a choice I was required to make with a loved one, and that’s ok.

The pastor at the Wesleyan church prayed over us during the passion service on Friday and wants us to get involved in ministry. Do I? Don’t I? What do I do? I will continue there for my husband, anything that brings him to God is a good thing, but how do I serve when I don’t share the faith? Do I continue with communion?

I am so lost. I am so alone.

And the kick in the pants is that I KNOW I’m not alone, I just don’t know how to connect with others like myself.

I thought I would take these first few moments of Good Friday to read about the Last Supper, pray, be still, and share with you some thoughts I had today on the events of around Jesus’ death.

After 40 years of being taught the story of His death and resurrection, it only occurred to me today that it these events transpired on Passover. Not that I didn’t know that logically, it’s just that I never considered the implications.

The Passover is the Jewish holiday to celebrate the angel of death “passing over” the homes of the Hebrews when they were in the final days of slavery from the Egyptians.

And who did that angel of death slay? The first born sons of every non-Hebrew family.

How ironic, then, that the first-born Son of God is slain on Passover.

That is when it hit me. The children of God who were saved by this act? US.

Perhaps it’s just that I have the kind of mind that seeks symmetry in all things, but it’s certainly doesn’t seem coincidental that we are “passed over” in eternal death because Jesus took this fall at the time of this celebration.

I do of course realize that Passover was celebrated with actual animal sacrifices, but because of Christ’s sacrifice the angel of death doesn’t have real, final, destructive power over us. The blood is on our homes, just as it was on the homes of the Isrealites in Egypt so many thousands of years ago.

Just some food for thought.

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