Warning!!!: Rant Ahead....

I'm afraid of Christians... sort of sad to admit that, but it's true.... I'm not scared of them like I'm scared of the dark or afraid of snakes or of monsters in my closet... those are sort of irrational things that grip me in all kinds of odd moments & are sort of hard to fight against.... I mostly have this fear of judgement - it's not a sense of terror, more an expectation than anything else... See I sort of 'know' some of what it takes to be a 'good Christian'... I remember this time back a couple of churches ago where a youth/college pastor was talking to me about what it means to be a growing Christian.... it's to be reading your bible every day, praying every day, being accountable, plugged into a community, etc.... he had the list down that he could evaluate any of 'his' student's lives & know if they were growing or telling him lies... I stood there in his office listening to him as he ran the photocopier & stayed silent 'cause I was in the middle of a time of heartache after I'd been dumped by my 1st actual girlfriend (as opposed to those imaginary ones you dream you have) & I wasn't reading my Bible 'cause I'd been going there to hear from God & it all seemed like just pages & words that had no meaning - only confusion & random condemnation for my lack of, lack of something - for the ways my love couldn't hold the relationship together on it's own, for the ways that I didn't read the signs better, for the way the breakup hit me out of the blue & I, thinking it was God's 'will' that this girl & I be together, was wrestling with the reality of how God pulled it all apart & how I apparently had no idea what God's 'will' was..... and so I didn't tell him that... I didn't tell him either that I wasn't praying so much... the heavens were like brass & every prayer for help seemed to bounce off the ceiling.... I wanted to tell him I was growing, that I was learning about the silence of God, about the dark night of the soul. I wanted to talk about the rich stuff I was getting from "The Gospel According to Job" by Mike Mason, about how I was learning about Gethsemane & the cross & how beautiful it was to step into that place of woe, to find yourself alone & yet not alone... to find yourself somehow mixed up with the One who sweated blood that night....

....but I didn't fit the list.... I was 'not growing' by his definition.... and so yeah, I hid myself 'cause I knew he (or at least figured he) wouldn't understand.... The dude was a bit of a putz.... he had the theory stuff, but hadn't really walked the roads that led outside of the theories... I didn't really respect him or his view points, but yeah, it's funny how the subtle judgement things still kind of affect you....

....and yeah, I remember another woman I met - she was this lady who came from a totally unchurched back ground & she just met & fell in love with Jesus. She'd spend hours talking with him in her kitchen & just chatting with him about anything & everything.... & I remember her talking one day about how bad she felt at a Bible study 'cause she didn't know what half of the terms meant or what all the Bible stories were that they were talking about & how she'd really have to try hard to learn all that stuff so she wasn't so 'bad' a Christian.... and yeah, I tried to counsel her away from that. I told her to just keep chatting with Jesus.... I was afraid that if she tried to fit in, that it'd kill her.....

And yeah, I'm pretty messy... I'm a pretty real person with all kinds of stuff that is 'in process' - nothing in my life is 'set' or 'secure' or 'stable'.... I know people worry about my sanity (I worry once in a while, too, but not as much as others).... but yeah, it feels like around Christians that I have something to prove... that I have to jump through some hoops to show people that I'm 'OK' to be in the club.... and really, more than anything, I'm looking to be accepted as me, but yeah, I live in the expectation that 'me' isn't good enough for what people are looking for in the church.....

...and yeah, I've been (and likely still am) guilty of it, too.... I try now to just listen to people, but yeah, I still do it, I still judge, I still look at people & weigh out where they're at in their lives... some of it is a defense mechanism, I am cautious with who I talk to these days... but a lot of it is still the crap of figuring out where people sit on the scale of 'spirituality'..... sad, sad, sad....

.... I sort of hate the word 'holiness'.... it's a great word, but I just don't think we know what it means any more.... I hear about Christians striving towards holiness & I cringe... Maybe if I thought I could get there, I'd cringe less & try more, but I know I'm not much good at 'holiness' in terms of 'not sinning'.... there are some sins I like - they help fill the holes for a little bit... some of it I just know that I'm not strong enough/don't have enough will power to be flawless... some of it I just have this idea that 'sinning' is really just 'not loving' and yeah, I know full well that I don't love anything like Jesus does.... I'd like to, but that'll take miraculous intervention on His part to open my heart to receiving love & enabling me to give it....

But yeah, often it seems to me that those 'striving for holiness' are just trying to be really moral & not do anything 'bad'... it's like a diet program where you're not supposed to eat chocolate & everyone in the room is talking about all the chocolates they haven't eaten while I'm going, wow, I really like chocolate & don't want to give it up & afraid I'm going to be stoned (with rocks, not weed) if they find out that I'm enjoying chocolate when I'm not around these people.... There are often different standards of 'holiness' to live up to & I sort of have to remember who I'm around to remember what I can talk about or can't talk about.... & yeah, I've tried doing that, but I forget....

I often wonder sometimes whether the pursuit of 'holiness' doesn't become a cloak for our pride or our insecurities.... I hear people talk about wanting to 'please God' and I wonder sometimes whether God isn't just pleased with us being us... that He just really likes us even with all of our self-destructive behaviour... He wants the self-destruction to go 'cause it's killing us, but He really likes us.... and yeah, I find in my own life any time I'm pursuing 'holiness' or 'spirituality', really I'm just trying to impress God with how worthy I am to be loved by Him, trying to show to Him how 'good' I am while I'm sweeping all the other stuff under the carpet & hoping he doesn't notice the mound that is piling up under the rug.... and in all of that, I'm trying to ask Him to love a mask when all He wants to do is love me (and my collection of captive & [poorly] concealed dust bunnies).

I'm not sure I like the concept of 'spirit' any more either. The last church I was at talked about 'alignment' a lot - about how humans are made of body, soul & spirit & how that the body & soul are 'bad' if they're not placed under the spirit, or driven by the spirit.... and yeah, I've got to admit that I sort of don't understand the concept. The idea of body I get - 'cause I have one... one that seems to be getting bigger & more noticeable every year.... I understand the concept of soul, if we define the soul as our mind, will & emotions, or the collection of our personality - the internal stuff of who we are... This, though it's not as noticeable as a body, I also understand to some degrees 'cause I can think & rationalize things - therefore I figure I have a mind.... I feel stuff & so figure I have emotions, I choose & therefore figure I have a will.... and I know that 'me' is somehow more than just the physical & there is an internal life that I call 'me'..... and so this is what I assume 'soul' is...

...but 'spirit', I don't understand.... it's not something I can put a finger on. My definition for it is the part of me that is 'God-conscious', the part of me that is alive to Him - though even in that it's blurred 'cause I know God is evident to all of me - spirit, soul & body - in different ways... perhaps more subtle ways.... I just know there have been moments of thoughts, or emotions, or choices, or eating good food, or movement, or laughter, or tears, or something where I've felt God's presence - felt perhaps not in some nice tangible way, but sort of had an 'understanding' of His presence with me - that He was enjoying the fact that He could share a moment with me, live in my skin.... and yeah, it's hard to define I guess.....

...& I've asked people to define 'spirit' to me... It's fantastic when you ask 'cause you get all kinds of answers. Most are pretty vague... Lots of times people look at you like you've just asked 'who is Jesus' or something... Other times people just get flustered & go, "well, you just know when it's your spirit - it's just obvious" - which never really seems to cut it for me... it's like the explanation of how do you know when you're really in love - people tell you that "you'll just know when you know" - which is impossible to try to implement as an imperical test.... how do you prove that? I've had to begrudgingly accept that people are probably right with the love answer thing, but yeah, it still frustrates me when the best answer I get about a persons 'spirit' is that it just is & you 'know' when God is speaking to your spirit....

...I've had one guy in a pulpit talk about how the spirit is right there in your belly - in the center of your being - and you can talk to your spirit there & he was trying to get us to focus on our bellies & listen to what they had to say.... I talk with my belly every so often... usually it says 'hungry', 'not hungry', 'almost full', 'full', 'too full', 'way too full', or 'what makes you think we can fit into these pants?!' Lately it tells me it's too big, but it's threatening to cause pain to the rest of the body if I try to exercise to decrease it's size....

...and yeah, it bothers me sometimes when people talk about what they 'feel in their spirit' or what they 'feel God is saying'... I mean it's cool & all when you know that God is saying something, but it sure changes the context of a statement for the hearers. If someone tells me what they think or feel, then I'm cool with listening & weighing it out to see what I think/feel about what they said.... but when someone tells me "thus saith God", well, that comes with a whole different set of options - it's either agree with the statement or your disagreeing with 'God' - though there have been lots of times where it hasn't been God talking, it's been opinion talking trying to look like God so it'll get listened to....

and it sucks... I love that verse in Psalms 68 about God puts the solitary in families... I think that's a beautiful idea for the planet & for me 'cause i know what it's like to be solitary & I know what it's like to long for family... but yeah, I've been disappointed that the 'family' I've looked for in the church is often the people who I feel least safe around, least free to be myself & actually talk about what's going on in my life....

...tonight I had a phone call with an old friend & yeah, the fears came up again... he asked me how much time I was spending in 'The Word' (which is Christian code for "the bible" in case you didn't know) & whether I was growing & stuff.... I told him I'd hardly been reading anything. I'd read some other good books, but not too much in the Bible itself. I told him I thought I was growing, but it's hard to tell & it really depends on whose measuring stick you use.... & yeah, I'm afraid of talking to old friends. I used to look like a much better Christian than I do now... I used to feel like the 'great white hope', like someone that God was going to do something with, that I'd help Jesus change the world... & yeah, now I'm just a dude who works & goes home & sort of hangs with people... I'm 'normal' and 'average' and there are moments where that is the most beautiful, the most brilliant & wonderful thing.... moments where there is a euphoria just from being alive & breathing.... but yeah, it's the time around old friends, or around church folk, or really just those places where I feel like there's an expectation on me that I'm afraid that just living & enjoying life & enjoying the gift of being me isn't enough... that it disqualifies me somehow....

...and really I suppose the biggest fear in all of this is that the other voices are right, that God is on the 'side' of those who are 'holy' or 'spiritual' or 'righteous' and that really He doesn't like me, doesn't want me unless I 'clean up my act'.... See that's the image of God I got when I was little & I've tried to escape that idol, but it seems to haunt me a lot.... My view of Jesus the lover is sometimes a fragile one & hard to maintain with all the voices around telling me of the 'not enoughs'.... and yeah, sometimes I forget who Jesus is, or lose confidence in what I've learned about Him.... after all, I could easily be wrong, I could be totally deluded & lying to myself (which is often what I wonder if people think).... but yeah... if that's the case though, I'm growing in this place where it sort of doesn't matter.... if the Jesus that I love, worship, believe in isn't the Jesus of the cross, the God who would leave all for the sake of love, who would give up all to win me back from the hell I've chosen, the one who loved me when I was His enemy, the one who broke down all the walls to be able to call me His friend, His beloved... if this isn't the real Jesus, then I don't need to worry about religion... The only God I want is the one who gave Himself on the cross for the sake of love, the one who gave only son because of His love for the world.... if the real God isn't that God, then I don't want him... 'cause it's a waste of my time to serve petty deities who won't accept their worshippers unless they jump through a million hoops to get to them....

Anyhow, that was the rant. Time to sleep now....