Over the past few days I've been reflecting back on 2005 and this blog. It's been a sort of spiritual journey for me and this blog has been more of a platform for me to get things off my chest than to entertain others...and now I want to share my thoughts with you since you've pretty much stuck with me since I started this blog up.
To begin with, Linds and I are in the process of selling our home in Southern California and once that is finished we will fulfill a dream that we have shared since shortly after we got married; a move to Colorado and the beginning of our plan to have a family of our own.
The selling of our townhouse has been one of the most stress-inducing challenges that I have ever gone through and everyday seems to bring a new challenge in the process...My daily mantra to get through is simply a countdown of the days until we're done with the sale and on our way, followed by a deep, deep breath.
Lindsay and added a new family member to our little clan early in 2005, a little white puppy named Sugar that has become a 70 pound terror with a whip-like tail and teeth that don't quit...Flash in general is not amused, but they do get along like good dogs should.
I have decided that I am going to go to school after we move to Colorado, a career school to be exact. I'm considering one of two career paths at the moment, either a career in Radiography leading to Sonography or MRI...OR, a career in Ophthalmology. Either one is very exciting and rewarding with great opportunities, and both have an approximate time in school of 2 years...it'll be tough go to school and work part time, but it'll be worth it in the long run.
Writing in this blog has been a big deal for me, not just the writing though but also meeting new friends and getting connected with old friends...it's been a blessing.
On a more serious and personal note, 2005 was actually a pretty hard year for me, and since I tend to internalize my issues; I didn't really go into detail with some of the harder things that happened. I don't know if this is to my benefit or detriment that I haven't been forthcoming with my hardships but I just don't think that telling the world my problems is going to make them go away...or make me feel any better.
To be as brief as possible...Hard times fell both financially and spiritually at about mid-year of 2005 when a person, who I had thought was my friend, decided that he was going to drop the hammer and be an ultra-micro-managing boss instead of the friend, community leader and pastor that he had always passed himself off to be. It was hard for me on many levels to understand and be OK with how things went down, hard enough that I wept bitterly for hours and still think about it on a daily basis, but I am a stronger and wiser person from the experience.
It pains me to write this now because I know that my family members and close friends from years-past read this blog, but I am tired, weary, of trying to make sure that everybody else is OK with how I am and who I am; when I am not OK with how I am and who I have been pretending to be.
Over the past several years, my faith has been shaken, and this past years events that caused me to quit the ministry I was a part of; was no exception. In fact it may have been the bell's toll for any reserve of faith that I had in The Church.
In fact, at this point in my spiritual life I don't know that I can ever go back to living in the suffocating bubble that I have found Christianity to be.
In brief, I've lost my faith in Christianity. Thank God.
What was shaken in me over the past few years is probably summed up best by a question that my friend Dean asked recently on his blog... "
Would Jesus be a Christian?"
Based on my perception alone, my response would be a firm "
NO" but, I didn't respond to Deans question right away, maybe because I don't think I was ready to say what I really wanted to say; which was "
Should I be a Christian?"
Christian, it implies a life of devotion to a set of moral and spiritual ideals, a service to God and Man with an inborn peace brought about by
the very spirit of God.
Yet, I see a gang of fools led about by pride and guided by people with no more sense than a flock of geese, condemning like-minded people because of insignificant differences in opinion, all the while making a mockery of the peace of God; which they so-boldly proclaim
lives in their hearts.
The Church was to be built upon a rock, to be
the very followers of Christ.
Yet, today the Church is nothing more than a fancy looking building where
Christians meet in a clubhouse type of atmosphere, a Sunday morning fashion show for the Faithful-Elite, a meeting place for spiritual-socialites to gather together for the purposes of Worshiping the Lord (See:
Showmanship), Prayer for the less fortunate (See:
Gossip) and Meditation on the Holy Scriptures (See:
Thinking about what's for Lunch. See also:
Sleeping)
And the Bible? What's that? It's like Poems and stuff right?
What
is Christianity anymore? Really?
It certainly isn't what Christ intended for it to be. Christianity has become a religion unto itself, a club with required membership, lifelong member benefits such as
life,
death and
fire insurance that will never expire as long as you show up on Sunday morning looking spiffy with a grin and a "God-Bless". Because of the judgmentality, aloof attitudes, infighting and general inability of "
Christians" to be
IN this world without damning it to hell on a daily basis, rather than just being
OF this world; Christians are now seen as Bible-wielding maniacs; and the savior who's virtues they espouse so vehemently has been turned into no more than a mythical patriarch who lords over a group of social pariahs that excel in contradicting themselves on a daily and public stage.
It seems to me that over the course of time and due in large part to the actions and/or inactions of well-meaning-yet-not-too-bright "believers and followers",
Christianity has become the new F-word; Socially Unacceptable.
I've lost my faith in Christianity, maybe now I can finally get down to knowing God.
