Going Home

This will be short, but I've been wanting to say it for a couple of months now because I'm beginning to sense a shift in my journey. It's as though, somehow, I'm being directed home. That doesn't mean I'll be going anywhere near my old church. Not gonna happen. When I get myself back in church it will be at All Saints. (If you haven't checked out their website or listened to one of the messages online, please do so. I can promise you it will touch your life.) I'm not quite ready to take that step yet, but there are moments when I almost feel as though I'm being "shepherded" in that direction. And we all know who's responsible for that. LOL.

However, I'm finding that God and I are talking more often, and I'm really beginning to engage Him about stuff. Rather than just thinking about the questions I have, I'm talking to Him about them.

Back in November, I started to sense the shift underway, and it really began kicking in after the first of the year. I was just driving in my car one night when that Daughtry song started playing on the radio, and I swear to you that song was to written for me.

I'm staring out into the night,

Trying to hide the pain.

I'm going to the place where love

And feeling good don't ever cost a thing.

And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain.

Well I'm going home,

Back to the place where I belong,

And where your love has always been enough for me.

I'm not running from.

No, I think you got me all wrong.

I don't regret this life I chose for me.

But these places and these faces are getting old,

So I'm going home.

The miles are getting longer, it seems,

The closer I get to you.

I've not always been the best man or friend for you.

But your love remains true.

And I don't know why.

You always seem to give me another try.

So I'm going home,

Back to the place where I belong,

And where your love has always been enough for me.

I'm not running from.

No, I think you got me all wrong.

I don't regret this life I chose for me.

But these places and these faces are getting old,

So I'm going home.

If You Want To Know What's Really Inside, Don't Read the Label

Ha! Hard to believe I've neglected this blog for two months, but between the holidays and going through a breakup, I just haven't had any mojo for writing, let alone much time. Besides, I don't really think anyone reads this thing, so I don't suppose it matters whether I write or not.

Anyhow, I've been thinking a lot lately about the huge chasm that exists between Christ followers and non-Christ followers, and I have this theory that I think has some merit. I think the problem comes in because of our tendency to use mental labels on people. Whether we like it or not, we humans have this bent toward categorizing everyone and everything, and this really stirs up the pot when it comes to living in relevant relationship with people who don't share our fundamental beliefs.

Not so many years ago, I remember being almost fearful of "non-believers." My reasoning: I can't relate to them. What a joke that turned out to be! The truth was that I couldn't relate to them because of the mental label (category) I'd created for them in my head, not because we had nothing in common. It's only been in the past two years that I've learned to throw away my labels and start taking people one on one. And what a difference! I've developed meaningful relationships with people I wouldn't have ever been able to relate to before. One's a homeless climbing bum who barely scrapes by and spends a lot of nights sleeping on his friends' couches. I don't see a label when I think of him. I see him, his face, his name. I see an intelligent, capable and courageous man who dares to sacrifice in order to live the kind of life I wish I could enjoy, free of the clinging arms of corporate America. Another friend is an atheist. We don't agree on anything, but we're real with each other, and she's one of the first people I hunt down when I need a sympathetic ear and some solid advice. One of my friends is a lesbian, and it never ceases to amaze me when I find myself catching up with her and being solicited for relationship advice. Me of all people giving relationship advice to a lesbian! But she isn't a lesbian to me. She's just herself, my friend. She's not a label. She's a person.

I have other friends that labels could once have kept me from: a convicted criminal, an alcoholic party girl, a crack addict. And I love them all dearly. To me they are faces, names, personalities, shared memories. They are the souls who fill my life, the ones who hug me and care for me and offer me the hand of unconditional friendship.

This use of mental labels in the church separates Christ followers from non-Christ followers much the same way that labels have always separated people. I won't use the horrible label that was so often applied to African Americans in days not too far removed. But there have been other labels throughout time. Slaves, serfs, peasants. People have made labels based on race, class, intelligence level, type of career, religion, sex, size, and the list goes on and on. And with those labels they have included a list of assumptions and beliefs that give definition and meaning to the label. Whether those assumptions are true of all those who are labeled ceases to matter. The label defines them and dictates how they should be treated.

I think it's time we did away with labels. I think it's time we stopped looking at people and defining them as wicked or depraved. They're just people. They're just names and faces, broken dreams and broken lives. They're just hearts and souls looking for the same love and comfort and home that we're looking for. They're just looking for it in different places and ways.

Sleeping with the Enemy

I've been reading a book lately with a character whose storyline has really been turning my mental wheels. She's fairly complex, and I really resonate with her.

As a young woman, her home country is attacked by an evil tyrant. When he wins the war against her people, he savagely destroys its cities, even obliterating the memory of its name and history from the minds of all but those born in it. Women and children are brutally killed in his thirst for vengeance until few survivors are left, most of whom are refugees who try to make a life for themselves in neighboring kingdoms. In a short amount of time, this character loses her father in battle and then her mother to mental illness. One of the few survivors, she vows to avenge her kingdom by entering the tyrant's harem, gaining his trust, and then killing him. But something unexpected happens. As a member of his harem, she becomes addicted to the pampered life he provides her and the pleasures of his bed. Before she knows it, twelve years have passed during which she's become one of his most favored courtesans, and during which some part of her has learned to love the evil creature who destroyed her homeland, ravaged the innocent families that once lived there, and destroyed the memories of all that it once was. She hates him, but she loves him. She knows what he is and despises him, but she can't break herself free from her sexual need for him. She even goes so far as to save the life of the man she once vowed to destroy.

Like I said, the complexity of the character really has me thinking. I think she's far truer to most of us than we want to admit. She knows who her enemy is. She's seen the havoc he's wreaked among her people. She's tasted the bitterness of his cruelty in the loss of her own family. But she can't keep herself from loving the pleasure he brings her. It's like the overweight woman and her sweets. She hates what they're doing to her health. She hates what they do to her appearance. She's seen the havoc they've wreaked in her self-esteem. She knows very personally the tears she's cried over what they've done to her. She hates them. Yet she loves them. She craves the pleasure they bring her. She wants to stop eating them, but she can't. She's sleeping with the enemy.

I hate the fact that we humans are like this. I hate the fact that I'm like this. I hate the fact that I can know what my enemy (the devil) has done to destroy the people God loves and still be unable to stop myself from biting into his poisoned fruit. I hate the fact that I can look at it and know it's poisonous and still find my hand reaching for it and my mouth aching to take a bite. I hate the fact that, like the character in this novel, I know my destiny is to restore what that enemy has destroyed in my life and the lives of all God's children, but instead of doing what I was meant to do, I'm enjoying the comforts of his harem and the poisoned pleasures he offers. I hate that I too am sleeping with the enemy.

Perhaps the Fundies AREN'T so Bad!

Just found these online. Please forgive me. I know this is DREADFULLY inappropriate, but I was looking at a list of gifts no one really wants to get. The rest were completely appropriate. I swear. But come on... how can you not laugh at this when this whole blog is about... Fundies! LOL.

Kind of puts a new spin on things, yes?

Cheers! And Happy Thanksgiving!

And may Jesus forgive me for posting this pic on my blog.

Looking for Someone to Blame

Trish and I have talked several times recently about a phenomenon we're both experiencing, her moreso than me. Despite the good times we both had in our Fundy years, we both walked away with a lot of soul wounds. And we now find that we're looking for someone to blame. As Trish said a few weeks ago, "I wish there were one person I could look at and say, 'This is your fault. You're hurting a lot of innocent people. Stop it.'" But there isn't anyone. That's the sad thing about Fundy-ism. You can't point at any one source and say, "You're to blame." Certainly you can find someone to blame for specific incidents, but there are wounds that are more general - and interestingly enough, these tend to be the deepest wounds - that can't be credited to anyone. They're just there as a result of having been a part of that movement for so long. And the lessons they engrave on your heart and mind follow you for years, crippling you in some ways and making you question and doubt and fear what you know to be true.

I talked about this with my boyfriend for awhile last night, and he had some things to say that I agreed with. He said that, in essence, the only person you have to blame is yourself. Ouch. But I wonder if he's right. I've said more than once on this blog that I bear more responsibility for the wounds on my soul than anyone I encountered in Fundy days. It was as though Fundy-ism taught me how to wound myself and then set me loose to see how much damage I could do. But that just makes me want to find the person responsible for pounding these things into my brain. Sure, I could blame my leaders and teachers, but what good would that do? There was no malicious intent on their part. In fact, they too are wounded, victims of the same weapons wielded by invisible hands.

Trish and I talked just yesterday about how there are times you feel as though you've been a victim, but no perpetrator existed. It's quite unsettling, really. You desperately want someone outside yourself to hate or to do war with or to hold accountable, but you can't find anyone. And even looking at yourself and blaming yourself for the ways you created your own state of fucked-up-ness, you still want to find the person who trained you to do such a thing and demand restitution. But there's no one, and it's a most frustrating thing.

Welcome to Weirdville

Last night I had the chance to catch up with an old friend, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. She's been reading my blog, so that came up more than once in our conversation, and she asked if I would write about our conversation in the blog. I told her I wouldn't. LOL. And I won't. At least not much. Haha. I didn't lie on purpose. :) However, I will say a big hello to Joanna and tell her it's great to be able to share with her and find a place of grace. :)

Without getting into too much of the personal stuff, I want to touch on something that came up briefly because it's been on my mind several times lately. As we talked, the subject of charismatics and their fondness for dreams and the prophetic came up. OY.

As a former charismatic, I've seen just about everything (and was told about some pretty crazy stuff I didn't ever see). And I want to be careful in dealing with this subject matter because I'm very mindful of the fact that God sometimes chooses to work in very mysterious ways or speak to us outside the realm of the comfortable. Also, despite some of what I have to say, I do believe that God speaks through the prophetic and through dreams, and I do believe that He does stuff sometimes that looks pretty crazy to us humans. The Bible's full of examples, and there's no reason, in my mind at least, to think that all of that was meant just for the folks who lived in Bible times. But that having been said, I saw and heard a lot of things in my charismatic days that didn't sit right with me then, so it's not surprising that in my near-heathen state (not really) now I would find a lot to eye with a more-than-healthy dose of skepticism.

Even when I was "walking the straight and narrow" with the rest of the Fundies, I remember thinking that a lot of the crazy stuff I witnessed was more about someone getting carried away and overly emotional than about God doing something that looked quite nutty for some ambiguous reason of His own. That's one of the ugly facts in the charismatic church. I know a lot of really wonderful, sincere people who saw or felt things primarily because they worked themselves up so much they were able to convince themselves they saw something or God was throwing them around the room. And I'm not saying that all that stuff is fake or the fruit of too much emotion mixed with too much expectation. Some of it really does happen. But I tend to think now (as I privately thought then) that most of it was the result of someone wanting to connect with God so badly that they fell off the deep end.

There's another side to some of this stuff - particularly the prophetic - that's truly ugly and not simply pitiful. Far too often, the prophetic is used to manipulate. As a rule, I don't think this is done with sinister intentions. I think it happens because people begin to believe that their opinions and convictions are spoken to them by God, and as a result they try to force those things on others. They may sincerely believe that a person needs to see or do or experience something, and the next thing you know they're having prophecies and dreams about that person and passing them on as a "thus saith the Lord unto you." And if that person doesn't see it or agree or embrace it quickly, the "prophet" declares him or her to be stubborn or deceived or rebellious against God's clearly revealed will. It's pretty scary stuff, and it has done a lot of damage to well-meaning people. I don't want to share some of the really personal examples in my life out of a desire to protect those involved, but I can give you an example of this that still rankles, even after seven or eight years have passed.

Quite awhile back, a "prophetic" friend (acquaintance - Haha. Get it, Joanna? LOL) told me that God wanted me to go to a conference that was being hosted by a prominent charismatic minister, who shall remain nameless. I didn't really have the money and didn't really feel led that way in my heart, but I trusted my "prophetic" friend and plunked down my credit card for a plane ticket, hotel room and conference registration. (I'm still paying these off, by the way.) I hate to say it, but I have never seen so much "flesh" (as the Fundies call it) running rampant amongst a group of "Godly" people as I did that week. It was ugly. But that's beside the point. As the week went on, it appeared that the conference speaker's overpriced books, CDs and T-shirts weren't selling so well because she suddenly received a prophetic word that God was commanding every attendee to purchase one of each of these items and He would pour out His anointing on them. Yes, you read that right. And even at that time, I saw right through that prophetic word like I could see through Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. "Um... sorry Ms. Prophet, but I think you had a bad connection with heaven when you heard that." But you know what, the women I had traveled to the conference with all felt that God spoke through this woman and that we would be rebellious if we didn't obey the "revealed will of God." So despite knowing I was giving in to someone's self-benefitting, pocket-lining prophecy, I ponied up more money I didn't have because I didn't want to look ungodly and unspiritual to my friends. What a foolish waste. I'm ashamed of my cowardice now.

How's this for another example? I had a dream several years ago that I shared with the same prophetic friend who sent me to the conference. (Not slamming this person, by the way. She just figures in these stories of mine rather often.) After discussing the dream and what it might mean, she interpreted it to say that I was supposed to join the women's ministry at our church as the right hand assistant to the new leader. Though I felt no enthsiasm for this project or call toward that ministry, I went forward with it... and spent the next year feeling miserable and resenting the fact that my Monday evenings were tied up with a leadership position in a ministry I had no real heart for. In fact, the "assistant" position I was supposed to occupy was shifted fairly early on into the hands of another woman who had both the heart and the gifting for it. She was clearly "called" to be there; I was clearly not. And had I listened to my own heart and not allowed myself to be talked into doing something I didn't want to because my prophetic friend was convinced that God was trying to say that to me in my dream... well, I would have been a happier person all around.

I'm not blaming my prophetic friend, mind you. She wasn't malicious in the things she said to me. She sincerely believed she was hearing from God and passing on His will to me. But she was wrong. And like so many in the charismatic circles, she at times used her "ability to hear from God" as a means to manipulate me - "for your own good" - into doing things that were more her idea for me than God's.

This is the kind of stuff that most non-Christ Followers never see, thank God. They see enough charismatic weirdness on TBN and movies like "Saved" to drive them away from God and not toward Him. Let's just be real. Some of the things Christ Followers do in the name of the Holy Spirit are pretty damn strange and scary, and even with the perspective of a former insider, I'm mainly inclined to say, "Pass." I know the Bible talks about us being fools for Christ, but I don't think that means Christ is asking us to make Him look like a fool with our oddball behavior. And if you must hear my honest opinion (since it's MY blog, I get to control what I write, which means you "must" hear my honest opinion. LOL), the people who acted the strangest were generally the most emotionally unstable people in the church. Or the most fleshly. Not always, mind you, but as a general rule. And yet because they were "sensitive to the Holy Spirit" they were more Godly than the rest of us.

Yeah, I don't buy into that so much anymore. Thanks anyway. I'm saying all of this to make a point... which I've failed to get to yet. LOL. My point is that, while I believe that God does some of the things that happen in these meetings, my heart tells me that His real interest lies outside the doors where people need a hug more than a dusting of gold flakes on their sleeves, and a listening ear more than a wild dance around the room. My heart tells me that when the church puts out its "Welcome to Weirdville" sign it frightens away the majority of rational thinking people who already have doubts about the validity of the Christian faith. And finally, my experience (as well as the experiences of more than one dear friend) tell me that sometimes this "Holy Spirit inspired" behavior leaves deep wounds on the souls of those who become the unintentional victims of its ugly side.

Chasing Rainbows

It seems like we spend our whole lives chasing rainbows, beautiful illusions that seduce us with their shimmering promise, only to disappear when we run toward them. I’d say it was just me, but I see it all throughout the world around me. We’re all looking for something that’s just over the next hill, just around the next bend, just out of reach.

If we could just find the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend…

If we could just get the perfect job…

If we could just afford that bigger house, longer vacation, fancier car…

If we could simply be free to do whatever it is we desperately want to do…

If we could have a baby, finish writing that masterpiece, lose that weight…

It’s always something. And it happens to all of us.

When I watch myself chasing rainbows, I can’t help but agree with the medieval philosophers who identified this phenomenon as man’s search to find his rest, peace and fulfillment in God. It’s not that having dreams and goals is bad. In fact, it’s healthy. The problem is something else: the desperate search for satisfaction that we’re sure we’ll find if we could just get “there,” wherever “there” is.

I’ve been chasing a rainbow lately. It’s a lovely rainbow, one of the loveliest I’ve ever chased. But I’m beginning to wonder if it, too, will turn out to be nothing more than a disappointing illusion that will leave me hungry for something of substance. In fact, I feel fairly certain that the illusion is already worn too thin for me to chase it much longer, and I'm sinking down to that sad, angry place where hope is a rare commodity.

I’m tired of being dissatisfied. I’m tired of striving. I’m tired of chasing rainbows.

The kicker is this: I know the answer is God. I know it. It’s not just wishful thinking or faith. I know it. The problem is how to find God.

As I’ve shared before, much of my experience in the Fundy church was a form of chasing rainbows – always pursuing a pretty ideal, always hiding from my reality, always striving for peace (what a contradiction in terms!), always reaching for love.

What do you do when you know the destination but you don’t know how to get there? What do you do when you can’t read the map through unbiased eyes? How do you stop chasing rainbows long enough to lie down in the grass and realize that rainbows are meant to be seen, not captured?

Perhaps that’s what I’ve been missing lately, and perhaps that is why soul is starting to feel so weary. Perhaps I’ve been running and reaching too hard, and I just need to lie back in the grass and watch the clouds float by, enjoying the beauty of the rainbow, accepting that it’s an illusion, realizing that perhaps it isn’t meant to be owned; it is merely intended to enhance the view.