Changing Facebook

Q: And What are your religious views?

A: Religious views? Ha, do you have enough time? I suppose my answer is…that…I don’t have answer. 

Q: you think you’re smart don’t you?

A: Generally speaking, yes. Maybe you’re just mad that I didn’t give you a canned answer- a quick response. Shouting from the rooftops with all assuredness that I have the answer the world is looking for…. I can tell you’re not amused. Well, I’m not a Christian. I know that.

Q: Well then what are you?

A: What am I? A Human? A person without a clue? Why do I have to prescribe to some set of beliefs? Sure, I know people who claim to not be Christian anymore. They feel like they don’t deserve the title. Like they aren’t good enough because they don’t actively participate. See, I’m not a Christian because, well, I’m not. It’s about identity [coughs]. Let me tell you something. I was a vegetarian for three years. One day I just decided that meat might not be that bad and I started eating chicken, then pork, and lastly beef. Now, that was two years ago and for a while I still called myself a vegetarian but I wasn’t. That’s the key [pause]. It was one of the identities I gave myself. It was one of the boxes I felt I fit into. Religion is just another box.

Q: Religion is a box?

 A: YES! It’s all a box. Democrat, Republican, Christian, Atheist, Aggie, Longhorn, Right, Wrong. What does it matter? I write; does that make me a writer? It’s all a box. Life is a box! Life is the ultimate box because it confines our every action. People see the face of God when they look at people; I just see dignity. The atheists I know are the most moral people you’ll ever meet. You wanna know why? Because they don’t live for anything other than what each person knows is right or wrong. When you are looking to yourself to see the answer, then the answer is much more beautiful than anything I could read out of some book…I mean…

 Q: Excuse me. I would actually just like to go ahead and get your answer so we can move on.

 A: oh…right, of course.

 Q: What are your religious views?

A: Can I check “other”?

KILL ALL OPTIMISTS

Every short intake surely precedes while in turn succeeding its equal return. The air flows in and out again...Again; I am found breathing without even realizing. It’s been four years of continuous continuing, a fact that is nothing close to living. My best friend is an objectivist and he explains that objectivists believe that there is no perception: there is an ultimate answer to every question. I want to understand his simplistic stylings but I am left looking at life like a modern art painting- always seeing something different with each glance. My own personal mosaic of moments has added up to twenty-two years of life and still has yet to make a rhyming sequence of scheme. Like the bride on her wedding day, I am struck by the realization that I never planned for the after- the aftermath of growing up. Graduate. Get a job. Get Married. Have Kids. I am twenty-two and have nothing to look forward to but a fifty year march to the grave; the day when the breathing stops and my body finally catches up to my brain.

I’ll stop before you begin to think this will end in suicide. It won’t. I can say no to life but I can’t say yes to that…that dirty word that creeps up behind us until we are so disgusted with the everyday that we turn and find it staring us straight in the face. Shocking us with its unearthly grin, we forget the careful tedium of balancing the positives and negatives of one more day of living. I am the heart patient on table feeling the shocks of electricity race through me once again. Yes!! Today I will love living!! Yet the heart knows its own security and falls back into the slow pattern I have crafted these past years.

I’ll do you one better, you believe I need the Lord. Glory Hallelujah, May Christ be praised!!! The religious always believe that their faith will save you from despair, make you believe in living again yet they fail to see the great irony. Christianity is a religion obsessed with death. You talk of our Heavenly Reward and the Judgment of the Wicked. When will these things occur? Today? On this earth? No. They are tasks assigned solely to the creator who we might get the chance to meet after we are dead (if we do everything right first). Have you ever played a game with all rules and no result? If I were a Christian, I would want to die everyday just so I could see if I guessed it right. In this light, martyrdom is not such a sacrifice after all. Surely this is a waste, just as my friend fails to understand. We are standing in front of that great painting and the religious man is shouting that the painting is so obviously a dog…. Really? Cause I just saw life pissing on a fire hydrant.

I am breathing again but this time there is something I must explain. It’s called perception. Every hurt, each affliction, is filtered through it and it is that which measures our level of tolerance and pain. You call me a pessimist. I call myself a realist. Either way, I say we kill all the optimists. Ah, finally a smile from your lips and I know my rant as found its mark. Tonight I will wrap my arms around this grown up life and remember what it felt like to have that swift bolt of electricity race through me once more. Today I say Yes.

Twilight, Nighttime, and Dawn

"Have you lost your faith?"

"Lost implies I am searching."

"You used to breath life into me"

"Not all things are as they used to be"

Look Mommy, It's an Evangelical!!!


I read this recently and found it to be quite an accurate description of the evangelical faith these days. For those who know me well, you know that my unfavorable opinion of the church is not a new insight. Over the past few years, I have come to question the glamorization of the christian faith. The large projection screens, small orchestras, and stadium seating begins to feel like a show that all have gathered to watch each sunday. We are fed our daily bread, repackaged in a more appealing way because the plain stuff just doesn't cut it anymore, and then we go out into the week filled with the good feelings that boosted our soul as the singers and orchestra reached their crescendo. As lost souls come forward to recommit week after week, I begin to wonder how genuine all this pomp and pageantry truly is. Even in my holiest FCA Presidential days, I would get the feeling there was something missing in the equation. We were livin' for the lord and saving souls for the cross...yet... the words, the actions, and the endless tracks being passed out on city streets never seemed to change a thing. We were filling an empty world with bright caricatures of Jesus and three step guides to salvation.

-----------------------------------------------------

"We are distinctively unspiritual people, by and large. Individualistic to a fault in many ways, yet looking for our churches and pastors to provide spiritual experience as a commodity. We criticize Catholic rosaries and visual spiritual aids, yet have a multi-million dollar chain store stuffed with Christian trinkets and merchandise in every mall. We buy and sell spiritual experience shamelessly.

If our Catholic friends were charging $50 to come to a mass at the local stadium, we’d all be shocked, but the major CCM groups make millions from tours and record sales. Even Osteen sells seats to hear his vapid talks. Tetzel was the bad guy in the reformation, but it’s among evangelicals that Paula White, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyer proliferate and profit from the devotion of the Christian public; all because they promise genuine spiritual experience. I haven’t seen any Catholic teachers openly promising a dollar return on your financial giving lately. Evangelicals have enough such con-artists posing as ministries to fill several television channels. I loathe indulgences, but I’ll take them over the promise to get rich by way of Jesus.

It is among evangelicals that one can write literally endless books promising more, more, more and more spiritual experience. We are Experiencing God, but we still want Our Best Life Now and our Purpose Driven Life courtesy of the Prayer of Jabez. We all know the next 7 easy steps to Being a Better You is in the mail. Christian consumerism is just one witness to the state of our spirituality. There are many others. Ministerial burnout. Pornography addiction. Divorce. Prayerlessness. Church hopping. Sexual promiscuity. Rampant materialism. Pastoral turnover. Addiction to fashion, sports, pets, opinions. Hours spent in front of video game screens, staring at web sites, reading MySpace, talking to our friends on the cell, saying nothing.

And then we’ll go to church on Sunday and hear the minister say the LOST are living empty lives and don’t have the joy of the Lord. It’s a good thing the few lost folks in our churches are too polite not to laugh out loud.

"http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/post-evangelicals-and-the-path-of-catholic-spirituality

In the Quiet Places

Matthew 6:1-8

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your father who is in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by en. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 “But when you give to the poor do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Kathy Griffin is being censored for comments she made that were found offensive. She is quoted as saying “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."
She went on to make some other comments but I found this one particularly interesting. Our culture is saturated with Christianity. There are those who would go so far as to say that America is a “God’s country”. I don’t follow this line of reasoning. Generally because I believe that God is far bigger than national boundaries. Also, considering the fact that I frequently leave and many times don’t wish to be a part of this country, I find it hard to believe that an omniscient God would not rather choose the coast of Italy as a suitable place to call home.

I mean, seriously.

As I read her words, I was reminded of the scripture mentioned above. “When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father.” Last weekend I attended church with my aunt. I had promised her that I would attend a service with her at her church before I left. Last weekend was my last in Livingston, so it fell upon that Sunday to the great delight of my Aunt. As I sat in her small evangelical Christian church, I began to wonder why it was that I had waited so long to come here. The people weren’t too bad and the preacher was actually quite nice. Then, 10 minutes into the opening prayer, it hit me (no, not the floor because I feel asleep after ten minutes of praying): I like God in the quiet places. There’s something about these loud hot-air preachers that are going to storm the gates of hell if you will repeat Jesus’ name ten times with them that really get under my skin. When I imagine prayer, I am in a room alone, with the door closed, quiet before the almighty. What is the purpose of prayer? Do we believe that the “prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16)”? If we do not pray for something, will it not happen? Or is prayer a mode of communication between our soul and its creator? If this is true, should we pray in public? Would you put your phone on speaker when you are talking to the one you love?

So, back to the beginning. I would like to think that if I won an Oscar, or some other note-worthy award, I wouldn’t say a thing. I would stand up there tell everyone that really it was the director that made me look so good and then whisper a quiet thank you to the lord above.

Black River, Dear Savior, Sweet Whiskey

You're gonna take my bottle, my bible, my mess?
You're gonna take all of my empty and my loneliness?
Gonna take all the sadness inside of me?
Gonna take it all and set me free?

--Amos Lee

Something Good......

"Obviously I believe the RCC is true. If I didn't, I wouldn't be Catholic. For me, it represents the fullness of Truth, insofar as we're able to perceive it in this life. Other people find their Truth with a capital "t" in other places. If my path is true for me, and yours is true for you, maybe we're seeing little pieces of something bigger than either of us. I like the fact that Catholic theology allows for this, and at the heart of the matter, salvation and who God decides to give that grace to is a complete gift and mystery. Asking a Catholic if they're saved will probably get you a puzzled look in response. The right answer is, "I don't know!" or "God only knows." There's no positive assurance, but there's hope in God's limitless mercy. This is stuff that keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday through all the bullcrap people like to sling at each other in the name of orthodoxy."

http://bigumuse.blogspot.com/2007/05/cfoyc-part-3-salvation-other-religions.html

Mommy and Me

We are the same person separated by 41 years. Our physical similarities are obvious; we share the same blond hair and speckle-green eyes, but it is our personalities that are most similar. My mother is an adventurer- in every since of the word. She doesn’t find her happiness in routine or stability. She loves fiercely and gives dutifully. She approaches people unafraid; as though she has never known hurt before, but when you speak with her you quickly realize she has lived a long life of ups and downs.
In truth, I can only hope we are the same person separated by a 41 years.
When I first told her I was thinking of moving to France to work after I graduated she responded, “of course”. This weekend when I timidly told her that I was thinking that I wanted to stay overseas for longer than a year she responded, “I was wondering when you were going to tell me.” She knows and understands me so well that it amazes me at times. She is smart and quick, always looking for more information to learn and expand her horizons. She understands it all but there is one point where we stand at opposite ends of a chasm- religion.
My mother is a missionary. I know; I can’t believe it at times either. She travels to India and Haiti to work with orphans. That’s right- ORPHANS.
Mother Theresa is my mother and sometimes I don’t know what to do about it. I want so badly to talk to her about my own struggles with the church. I want to tell her that I’m trying; oh I’m trying, to understand how the Sunday-school stories and the newspaper speak of the same planet. That I’m trying to understand how “God told me” is a valid answer to any question when this is the same woman that never believed in using the phrase ‘Because I told you so”. She raised me to question and to pursue everything yet when it comes to Christianity she becomes docile and submissive. I want to understand why my mother has cried over her inability to speak in tongues. Why she has been made to feel less-than because she is unmarried and, well, a little weird. I want to love her and believe her with everything but my skepticism begins to creep in and I suddenly need more than a calm pat on the hand. I need more than her clear green eyes closed in prayer, but I’m going to keep trying because I want to believe again. I want to say “God told me”, just so I can have one ounce of assurance in my life. I want to lie in peace, enveloped in a love that is strong enough to break this wild horse.
I want to be the same person separated by 41 years.



*for clarification- My mother was 41 years old when I was born. She has led a very interesting life as a war activist/ labor union president/ free-loving hippie. She is finally doing what my friends have told me to do for years- she’s having a book written about her. She has asked me to write a chapter; something that will explain my perspective on her life. I’m not ready yet but hopefully I will be soon.

Well, I Remember
conversations #2

The air was warm and thick, the way East Texas summers are. The lazy atmosphere consumed even the sun during its nightly descent, as the golden rays seemingly basked them for hours. The crickets sang a chorus that complimented the silence that sat between them. Lovers that had once found comfort in every utterance were now separated by the immense time that had left their relationship fragile. The woman that now sat beside him was a mystery; her green eyes presented an enigma as they coldly gazed over the lake.
“You came to see me the other day.” His statement felt safe in the myriad of questions that surrounded him. He could see that her heart was full of them, questions of purpose and meaning. He felt his statement was feeble and lacking, but he concentrated his gaze on her face, looking vainly for a flicker of response.
“You came to see me and I wasn’t there.” This delicate dance was going to be slow. Her eyes remained fixed ahead, watching an unknown scene.
“No.” He was struck by the quiet but strong word that had materialized between them. Her face remained unchanged but her voice had been too definitive to be a figment. “You were there.” She turned to him slowly, but her eyes remained fixed ahead as she measured her words. “You were there and you left. I reached for you and…” Her eyes darted to her hands as she gathered the strength to go on. “…and you pulled back. You left. You were always the one that was there, quietly unassuming and reassuring with your constant love. Now…I don’t know you anymore.” Her words cut him deeply as her eyes finally looked into his. The emerald of her eyes had shifted into a hard jade. Her gaze fell back to her hands and a revelation suddenly gripped her mind. “I reached for you.” Her hand shot out at the precise moment she awoke alone in her bed. Her cry was filled with confusion, hope and despair, “oh God,” but silence was her only answer.

Remember it well
Conversations #1


She breathed in a sigh of relief and listened to the wood creak in response. Old wooden benches, laid down with piety, rubbed worn from trembling hands. “Remember us?” she spoke softly to him. “Remember us in this place, when I was young and you were so wise. Remember when you held me here and made me believe? I remember it well, my skin on fire with the warmth of your embrace; I can feel it now.

“Remember us?”

The sweat of her palm left a print on the antique wood, an unseen mark to her tightly closed eyes. Her memories plagued the moments that surrounded her, causing her fear of what she might see if her eyes were to open. The air around her was thick, warming her through her thin blouse.

“I know we can be together again if we just…”

She reached her hands out to touch him but only grasped the air. Her eyes opened in a flourish of despair and she was alone again. There were no accompanying palm prints to remind her of the presence she had felt so clearly next to her. There was no sound that could fill the void that permeated the dark wooden walls. Her eyes quickly pressed tightly together again but the words were gone. Her throat choked back a cry, the air whitened by the condensation in her warm breath. She placed her palms squarely on the altar, and lifted herself up from her knees. With her eyes squarely on the cross she turned and walked slowly out of the sanctuary.

Debate Exposes Doubt

"[If Christ] burst out from the cross, `My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." --Life of Pi

An awesome review of an even better book-

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Pi-Yann-Martel/dp/B000KYAV7I

'If you have no doubt, you have knowledge- not faith'

Wonderfully Made


Throughout the writing of my blog, I have made it no secret of my fumbling within religion- specifically Christianity. I chose to become a Christian when I was 13 years old. I wasn’t raised in the church, unlike many of my friends. I am unsure if this has hindered or helped my beliefs, even though I know what I did was a conscious decision and I continue to stand behind it. With all of this in mind I've been thinking about something: someone made a comment on one of my earlier postings, and they wrote that I shouldn't look to others for my belief in God.
I understand this.
People break each other’s hearts everyday. The pain I have seen working in this family law office in the past two weeks has made me reconsider my choices for a family. I have seen people use children as instruments of revenge and these actions sicken me. Yet, I am reminded of something I told a friend once. My friend asked me how I was able to forgive a certain person in my life. I told my friend that I believed that there was a quality, a dignity, to people that existed and that I must respect whether they respect me or not. Forgiveness is about yourself, it’s about letting go of the other person’s control over your life. This is my way of forgiving. I believed, even before he told me, that he was sorry and didn’t know what damage his actions had caused. I had to believe that his actions were not the sum of his being and that there was a part of him that God loved and I must too. This is why I can’t be an atheist. I can’t believe there is nothing. I know that there is a soul in man that makes us higher than the animals.
This is also why I disagree with the comment on my blog.
I look to people to find God, because if we are made in his image then we are the only traces of his divinity on earth. When I am overwhelmed, I am reminded of the beautiful souls that reside in us all. People act in fear everyday because they do not understand the world they live in. When people act in fear they produce hate and evil; therefore, we must realize that we are the instruments of change in the world.
We can give love or we can give hate.
It is your choice.

Love is the truest thing we have on this earth; it is the closest to God we can be.

A Man who Stands for Himself


I don’t believe in labels, people rarely adhere to them.

I spoke recently to an old friend. I told him quietly, firmly that I was no longer a Christian and that I could not identify myself with this label any longer. He seemed perplexed by my words. His head tilted to the side as he said, “You were, but now you’re not?” I knew that this would be a difficult conversation to navigate. The label of Christianity is a salve for many. The word that slides off men’s tongue is familiar and tells others that he can be trusted, that he is part of their select society. I refuse to offer comfort with this term. It might seem as though I am disgusted with Christianity, but I am not. I don’t believe in basing one’s identity on labels. Men who have told me they live by other great moral standards have still failed. They say they do not lie and then spout venom with their tongue. They say they do not break promises and then leave the ones who love them standing alone. I do not stand for these men either. I can not stand for any man who wishes to identify himself with a power greater than himself because if so chooses this path then he will surely fail. Why not be honest for the sake of yourself? Not because it is moral and right, but because you are the master of your own dignity. I wish for a man who can not only stand but testify that he stands for himself alone. He stands for the purpose that is born within him, and if he lies or breaks his promises it is because he is a flawed man- not because there is a flawed moral code.

Religion covers a multitude of sins; it acts as an insurance policy for those who are unable to stand on their own.

"what if I got it wrong
and no poet or song
could put right what I got wrong
or make you feel I belong"--Coldplay, What If

I was reading some other blogs yesterday and I realized that there are issues I have yet to address on mine, namely Christianity. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to my own personal feelings on the subject. I have been a Christian since I was 13 years old. As I look back now it seems so young but my life has always been full of heartache so at thirteen I was far from the innocent girl you might think. Though the biggest test of my faith came much later at the age of 18. It's amazing how close two years ago can still seem sometimes. A number of factors came together to leave me feeling alone and unable to control my surroundings. If you have read earlier entries then you know about my battle with various eating disorders, namely bulemia. After reaching my bottom I went to Christian counseling and it quite literally saved my life. Now being here has been a test on its own. Europe is not religion central, to say the least. Out of my core group of friends, two are athiests, one is an agnostic, and the other is a struggling Christian like myself. One of my athiest friends tried to break my resolve toward Christianity by showing me how foolish it was. We would go rounds around each other and I tried all the basic "salvation arguments" in the book. Finally I told him about the things I had gone through two summers ago and what Christianity had done for me. I told him that I could never turn my back on God completely because of this experience. Finally he understood and we haven't fought over it since. We occasionally talk about theology but I'm not trying to convert him and he's not trying to convert me. Maybe there are those out there who think that I'm not doing my Christian duty by letting his beliefs be. Maybe I'm not. But in the end God isn't insecure and neither am I. My Christian walk is more of a stumbling, meandering stagger. I don't read my Bible like I should or go to church at all. I get annoyed when people act like Christianity is the only thing in their life worth talking about, namely my mother. As someone once so eloquently put it, "i'm not one of those christians that oozes with Godliness".

I don't know what any of this entry was supposed to mean except that my friends back home don't need to start worrying about my salvation yet and my friends here don't have to worry about me throwing a Bible at them yet.