just questioning

Can you tell me where your strong belief came from? As a child, where did you get it? I'm just curious...just questioning!

You know, I'm not really sure. Let's see... we went to a different church all the time. We'd go to one for about a year, then quit church for a while, then go to a different one. We tried all the different denominations of protestant Christianity (which just means we protested Catholicism and are "just Christian").

I think around age fourteen we just stopped going. But I still went to Wednesday youth groups on my own. There was one walking distance down the road.

But once I turned 16 working and living life was more important.

Diego and I got married by my friend's dad who's a pastor. So then we'd go here and there to the church he worked for (and now going back to it on Christmas I can see why it didn't inspire me to keep going- it's like the old painting of velvet elvis in the basement, it's beautiful to the old people who bought it, but I need an electric elvis for my wall). Then I didn't go to church again until my relationship with Adam was coming to a close.

I suddenly started listening to AirOne (Christian alternative) and then started attending the church across from my apartment. I was still going there during the breakup, but I just wasn't really feeling "it" about that place. I liked the band, but didn't feel like the pastor was very educating. Then a guy I worked with invited me to this one.

The first sermon was about how Jesus' first miracle was to extend the party by making more wine and pointing out that while Jesus and his family had been invited to the wedding, all the diciples had not. So he crashed it with his buddies. His mom is the one who confronted him to make the wine. So the Elvis in the basement was suddenly more relatable... no longer some dingy old velvet canvas that everyone else "got" but now he was this electric Elvis who was a little more like me than I thought.

So I started attending regularly because I wanted to see what he had to say. I wanted to see if the pastor was just spinning things so people would hear what they wanted. But what was happening was it was actually making me take a look at my own faith. It was challenging me to think for myself. He was able to apply biblical teachings to things that were happening to me right then (my pastor is 30 and the congregation averages between 20-35 years old).

Did you read my blog: Strokes on the Canvas? It was really what happened that night that solidified my faith to the unwavering it is now. I was nonchalantly Christian before, comme ci comme ca... I believed but wouldn't have wanted anyone to ask me questions about it. And now I say, "bring it on!" I don't know much about doctrine- but that's why I don't practice "religion."

"Religion" is about changing what you do on the outside in order to appease a higher power. That's not what Jesus taught. He wants you to change yourself from the inside out. He said "what good is it to only love those who love you?" He instructs you to love those you wish ill of you, because that's where the struggle is, that's the action that deserves reward. But how do you FAKE LOVE? You can't fake love in your heart, you can fake act like you love someone. But He wasn't telling you to ACT like you love someone. He was directing you to facilitate a verb.

That's the difference. Religion is doing what you are supposed to do because you were told to do it and if you do it then you are right. Following the guidelines. Walking the walk, talking the talk... maybe... no one's perfect...

To me, this is about more than that. It's about changing who I am on the inside to reflect my beliefs. It's about learning to forgive, and then doing it. When you change the inside, your mind, your heart, you invariably change your outside and end up accidentaly following doctrine... That's what he was getting at.

You don't use people. You don't use yourself.


Send me the link to your blog! You're freakin' amazing!

I just can't get into religion. I see too much of it around me here and it seems very hypocritical. Then there's that creepy Pastor on TV who wrote the Purpose Driven Life. He's kinda gay.

I may have said this before, but I admire Christians to a degree. I admire that they find peace in thinking that some higher power will take care of them....although all one has to do is look at the poverty and suffering on this planet...so do they think that they are better than the staving child in Rwanda? It's just so illogical to me.

Ha! Thinking too deep to be @ work!


To answer your question, no.

Well, in any industry or religion you'll find hypocrites. The Starbucks mogul who abhors coffee, the libral who pickets abortion, the pot smoking hippy who secretly listens to the Backstreet Boys, the petitioner for the spotted owl who buys paper products from the very companies cutting down his favorite forest... I feel that people hold Christianity to a higher tier because it's so popular and it's easier to find fault.

Also, there are all those people who misrepresent. There are teachers out there belittling and degrading students and giving the educational institution a bad name. There are bankers who embezzle, but that doesn't mean the bank itself is shady. Are all Islamics bad because there are those terrorists? Does that mean the terrorists represent the true fundamentals of that faith?

No. Christ came to an unwed teenager during a time when she would be stoned to death for sex outside wedlock. It was blasphemous to even talk to lepers. Jesus ate with rich as well as poor. He said to the rich not to only throw dinner parties for their friends knowing the friends will repay them, he said to feed the people who cannot feed themselves because that is the principle behind our life here on Earth.

No, my sweet sister/aunt, it is by the GRACE of God that I was born in this country and that my biggest problem is that I have school paid for and a mom who is kind of weird. One of the things I have always felt called toward is working in the Peace Corps. I truly believe that when Aidan is a little older and I am more financially and professionally stable I will be able to use this experience in banking and my education in psychology to do something great for impoverished lands. I would love to bring Aidan, go on missions, go help others in some way.

I believe that all of our souls look beautifully and uniquely the same. Just as no matter what race we are, we all have red blood in our veins. We all make our choices, we all have an obstacle to overcome- some greater than others, but deep down, we are all loved equally by God. I can't quote the bible, but from my learnings and readings the way I understand it, the poor, beaten, starving, etc are all guaranteed places in Heaven. It is you and I. The ones who have it easy. The ones who are not persecuted who have the greatest responsibility of all! We need to be humble, we need to not be arrogant thinking that we are above those less fortunate, we need to use what we have to help and to be of service the best way we know how.

That does not mean that we must put ourselves in their position. For then we will need the help! What good is that! But we are not to walk by. We are not to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. We are to love those who don't love us. We are to TRY OUR BEST to live the way Jesus taught us to live. But we can't beat ourselves up either, because we are HUMAN and God created us to fail. If we weren't meant to fail then we'd be perfect, we'd be God.

It's the struggle. The the falling down. It's the acknowledging that you're not perfect and asking for forgiveness. It's realizing that you don't have it all together and you don't have to.

It's not being a teenager saying that you don't know what job to get or keep because you're going to let God decide (you mentioned that before). If he wanted marrionettes he would have built us with strings and without FREE WILL. We are still responsible for the decisions we make and paths we take.