Author Archives: Michelle Langley

06/8/14

Are We Being Unfair to School Shooters and Other Mass Killers?

mass shooters and scapegoatsIn ancient Jewish culture, they had this tradition of symbolically burdening a goat with the sins of the people and then releasing it into the wilderness.

From Leviticus 16: “Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated man. Thus the goat shall carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.”

Of course, today most of us read things like the book of Leviticus and find them hopelessly antiquated. The thing is, as a culture, we do this exact same thing. We have failed to realize that Jesus has showed us a different path.

Certain people play the role of scapegoat in our culture. These are folks like Aurora theater shooter James Holmes, Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, Santa Barbara killer Elliot Rodger, and the latest — Seattle Pacific shooter Aaron Ybarra.

We can argue about the causes of such shootings and seek to eliminate them. Gun availability, violent media, mental illness and social rejection seem to almost play a role. But these “causes” are like blaming money as the cause of poverty. It’s related, but the root of the problem lies in our group consciousness and behavior.

I believe people like these young men bear our sins and are then punished for them — even after death. Most likely sensitive folks, they have internalized the dark side of our culture and are now expressing it. Once they express it, we get to point our fingers at our scapegoats and talk about how depraved they are and how much better our society is off without them. Our sins, at least in our own eyes, are absolved.

You may think that the creation of such scapegoats has nothing to do with you. The thing is, though, is that all of us play a part, some more than others. Here are a few things to take a look at. Until each one of us addresses these issues in our behavior and our hearts, we will continue to foster a consciousness that creates these bearers of cultural sin.

If you’ve ever looked down on another person.
If you think that violence is a solution.
If you support our violent media with your dollars and attendance at the latest mind-destroying flick.
If you’ve turned the other way when someone is being mistreated.
If you let your kids play violent video games.
If you think that your thoughts, actions and beliefs have no bearing on the whole.

There are many other causes of this scapegoat-creation, some of which I am not yet aware of. And I still struggle with some of this. But I’ll tell you what — I want to uproot each and every one of them from my consciousness and throw them on the fire. I want NO part of this sick ritual of creating such ugliness and then blaming the one who fully embodies what WE have created.

Just because we do LESS of what the scapegoats do doesn’t get us off the hook while they run into the wilderness of prison or suicide. For example, if I spend time denigrating another person, I am engaging in the same behavior — I just haven’t taken it as far. Why should I get a pass to engage in hateful talk about an “enemy” who is also a son or daughter of the Most High while being able to point the finger at a school shooter? When I allow him to be my scapegoat, I am spared examining the hatred within my own heart. And that is like allowing myself to continue to eat Oreos and Cheetos because, hey, at least I’m not 400 pounds. I’m still going to be unhealthy.

Jesus showed us that the scapegoat system was unnecessary. That God could forgive even people who tortured and killed an innocent — “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

We can forgive these scapegoats. We can forgive them and love them and in doing so, acknowledge our own darkness and walk forward on the path of accepting the enormous love that God has to offer. If we persist in allowing the scapegoats to carry our burden, we’ll continue to allow our hatred and other dark slimy things to fester inside, stalling our spiritual growth.

And if we all made this decision to look inward? Well, I doubt we’d have a problem with mass shootings.

06/8/14

The Two Words of the Bible You MUST Believe

God is our fatherI’m not going to mince words here — this is ridiculously simple. Jesus gives us the key to recognizing not only who WE are, but who OTHERS are as well in the Lord’s Prayer. Without further ado, the two words that will transform your world are…

OUR FATHER.

When you believe this — and I don’t mean intellectually, but from your HEART — that the supreme creator of the universe is your genetic FATHER… Well, then.

You are a SON or DAUGHTER of God. Period.

Not only that, but everyone else is ALSO a son or daughter of God.

Whoa.

So how would that change how we treat ourselves and others (love our neighbor as ourselves)? I have to say, if we aren’t treating EVERY SINGLE PERSON in our lives with love borne of the recognition that we are borne of love itself and are interacting with the sons and daughters of love, then we don’t really get it. Not yet.

It can be difficult to understand. Our culture puts up blinders that obscure reality. We’re told that we are evil, and indeed, there are impulses that we must fight that certainly are. But who we are at the core? Sons and daughters.

Not servants, not slaves, not sinners. Sons and daughters.

If you truly believe in your heart that you are a genuine SON or DAUGHTER of the Most High, then you will love yourself. You will be free to express your true self, the opinions of others be damned.

You will find it impossible to judge. After all, some of the other sons and daughters might not have seen their birth certificate yet, but that doesn’t change who they ARE. Our only role is to shine the light for our literal brothers and sisters so that they know their true identity. And how better to do this than by treating them as sons and daughters of the most amazing royalty?

Do we treat everyone in our lives as the royalty that they are?

If not, why not? Could it be that we haven’t truly internalized the truth of our lineage?

06/7/14

My Rock in the Storm

Jesus is my rock Last night I dreamed that I traveled to a far away island. There were a chain of islands, and a boat dropped me off at the most distant one. There was only one other person on the island, a man. I don’t know who he was, but he had an appealing assurance about him.

The island was very small and had no shelter of any kind. This was potentially a problem, since there were often severe storms and tornadoes that would appear. I told the driver of the boat that I wasn’t worried about it, and he drove off, leaving me there.

The man showed me a rocky ledge that I could climb up onto when the storms hit. And sure enough, soon a very strong storm arrived. I climbed up onto the ledge. Clinging to it, I watched the storm. There were buckets of rain pouring out of the sky and strong winds. I got a bit wet, as a few of the drops hit me, but I was protected from the majority of the rain.

Looking at the storm, I found that I was able to see through it. On the other side was the most gorgeous sunrise. I knew what awaited once the storm passed — peace and beauty.

I love how I stood on the ROCK during the storm. That’s exactly what I do in my waking life. Knowing how much God loves me definitely protects me from a lot of the fallout from the storms in my life, which have been numerous lately. This dream comforted me.

Before I had went to bed, I had asked God a question — something that I have been doing more and more often lately. I asked him how I could help my husband to not suffer from the fibro-type thing he has been struggling with.

As my dream continued, the answer to my question was revealed. My husband picked me up from the island in a fairly big boat. We cruised through the water, and I was filled with joy. Soon, however, I noticed that the boat was leaky and had about two feet of standing water in it. My husband was fine with it, but I told him, “We can do better than this.”

Then we were on an ocean liner. My hubby was the captain of the ship. The ship, which was in perfect condition, ran on lettuce. When we stopped at a port, I’d run into the store to buy some more fuel — spinach, carrots. On this fuel, the ship traveled all the way around South America.

When I woke up, I realized that I can fuel up my husband with lots of veggies and he’ll likely experience some relief from his symptoms. 😀

I love writing these dreams down. I want to remember them, and I want any interested parties to know that God is present and available. Ask and you shall receive.

06/4/14

WARNING: Disturbing Content Ahead

Art by Caia Matheson.

Art by Caia Matheson.

This post carries the title it does because some of these thoughts have sent me into anxiety attacks in the past. It can be very frightening to question your reality.

As usual, most of my thoughts here come from my dreams.

Last night, I met a powerful religious leader. He had set up a communal society that looked like freedom from the outside. Inside, however, it was very repressive and dark. He had a forceful personality that was able to pretty much control the minds of whomever he came into contact with. People believed that their roof was supposed to leak because he said it should, for example. It made me think of how we say, “God meant for that (bad thing) to happen,” because a preacher has told us that’s the way the world works.

A woman was crucified on the side of a cliff by this man. Her bloody wings of flesh spread out in gruesome magnificence as she hung there. Religion does indeed crucify women, does it not? The people who participated in this crucifixion did not know they were doing wrong. They were following the religious leader.

They say that Jesus died for our sins. I think I have an inkling of what this means. Jesus was crucified by religion and other world power (government). He allowed it, I believe, so that we might see that religion and other world power is DEATH. To participate in those powers is to sin — ie. participate in something that brings death rather than love.

Not that love can’t be an outcome of someone who is participating in religion. It’s obvious that religion, to a point, can steer people to love, and that there are many loving people who practice religion. But at the point where religion becomes a hollow structure of mind control, well, that’s where the evil starts. And when you are the one leading people into mind-chains, well, woe unto you, right?

It’s okay to question things, even things you’ve been told about God since you were a child. I think God WANTS us to question. In fact, when we ask questions, He ANSWERS them! 😀

I also dreamed of worlds within worlds. When I woke up, I Googled, “world within worlds,” and found this article about theosophy. A lot of what I read rang true. I had already been imagining something very similar. This was like confirmation that my hunch could actually be true.

The thing is, matter vibrates at different frequencies. So you can have matter vibrating at a high frequency that you can’t see around you and matter that is vibrating at a low frequency that you can’t see around you as well. The article describes our visible world as an “octave on an endless scale.” So it’s possible that there are entities going about their daily lives in the same physical space we are in — we just can’t perceive them.

Unless you are born with superpowers, that is.

My sons have superpowers, as do many other people who have been labeled intuitive, psychic or schizophrenic. If this theory is true, they were born with senses that can perceive matter vibrating at frequencies that elude most other people.

It’s kinda scary to think of all this, and really cool at the same time.

I’m also starting to realize just how involved God is in my everyday life. I’m perceiving him in my reality more and more, and I simply love it. I asked him a question about some things Jesus said about the Kingdom of God the other night, and that very night he gave me a dream and woke me up at 4:44 right in the thick of it so I would remember His answer!

This is the type of thing that makes life truly joyful. It is the treasure in the field that makes you not care about owning anything else but that treasure.

05/29/14

MORE Good News

joy of the lordI’ve said before that I don’t think the Good News that Jesus talks about has anything to do with accepting a particular story about his life or you go to hell. That seems silly, to be honest, and not a little depressing. I think the REAL Good News that he wanted us to share is at least two-fold, and has little, if anything, to do with what religion often tells us.

First of all, the Good News is that God is LOVE. He loves us incredibly and enormously. Unconditionally. We don’t have to earn it — only see and accept it. And that’s more difficult than it seems. The dream I had about God’s transformative love literally changed my life, and I try to keep its truth in mind every single day. Once you can accept God’s love, its enemy FEAR goes away. Because if God loves you — wait, if GOD THE CREATOR OF THE FREAKIN’ UNIVERSE LOVES YOU — then you have absolutely NOTHING to fear. Nothing. Not even death. Death, in the light of God’s love, is like changing from a raggity outfit you bought at the Goodwill into some Armani duds, I’d think.

The second part of the Good News is that we don’t have to wait for Jesus to come or any other future event to access the Kingdom of God. Nope, as Jesus said, it is HERE. Now.

Think of it as another dimension that sits comfortably around us. To access this dimension, you have to have a certain frequency — the frequency of love. That is a very high frequency. In the worldly dimension that most of us are currently in (the time-based linear frequency), we are operating at a much lower frequency — the frequency of fear. Hence, war, hate and all that other bad stuff.

You can access the Kingdom by deliberately raising your frequency — your vibe. 😀

Let me give you an example.

I woke up this morning feeling absolutely joyful. Note that I have some good reasons to feel the opposite way right now. A good friend is angry with me and much worse, my mother came over to my house crying because she is fairly convinced that my older son Sky has “passed to the other side.” She had a dream in which he came up to her and spoke to her, woke up crying and has been crying on and off ever since. You know that I think dreams can reveal truths, and this dream was SO real to her. When I called the sweet lady he stays with to check on him, she told me that he took off over a week ago without saying goodbye or letting anyone know where he was going. Disconcerting.

As soon as I heard this news, lower-dimensional thoughts began to come. Vivid images of myself cutting my wrists, shooting myself in the head came to mind. Regretful thoughts about my parenting entered. For a moment, I thought about simply walking out the door, sticking out my thumb and going somewhere — anywhere but here, as if I could escape grief.

Then I remembered that I didn’t have to subject myself to these thoughts and the feelings that accompany them. I reminded myself that my son was very happy and well in my mom’s dream. I reminded myself that God loves my son more than I ever will. I thought about how my son astral travels on a regular basis and could have simply stopped in to say hello, which is what his friend told me is likely the case. I thought about how God has him in His amazing hands no matter what form his soul is in. Then I focused my thoughts back on my new business, which is where they had been before the drama started. And I ended up having a very good and productive day.

Not giving into fear and despair is stepping into the Kingdom. It feels spectacular.

Here’s a quote from the apostle Paul:

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…

The war is our thoughts. And just like the Third Amendment says that we don’t have to quarter soldiers in our homes, nor do we have to give space to thoughts that war against the knowledge of Christ’s presence in our lives RIGHT NOW. For me, following Jesus gives me the insight and direction to wage an intelligent war against this crap.

So when I catch myself thinking an ugly thought about the argument my friend and I had, or worrying about Sky, I DESTROY it. It’s my choice, and I have been given the power to do so. And then I get to feel that comfortable heavenly dimension settle around my soul. It’s wonderful.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. 🙂

04/28/14

Heresy

I’m really glad I don’t live in the 16th century. Or even a hundred years ago. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t be able to share my thoughts as I am now — at least not without getting burned at some stake. Here’s why.

I’ve been asking God to reveal the truth to me about Jesus. Who He is. How things work.

Last night, I had a dream that was very disturbing.

In the dream, I lived in dorm with a bunch of other girls. Everyone was happy and well-cared for. It came time for me to get my hair dyed. The tradition was that the girl’s father would take care of this matter for her.

To have my hair dyed, I had to stand underneath an platform while an innocent child’s blood dripped on me. I was appalled. I thought, “How could the child’s mother have made this deal with my father to allow her child to be killed for me?” I was enraged. I stepped out from underneath the platform and went back to the dorm.

I was ratty-looking and uncared for. The other girls all had gorgeous hair and were happy and enjoying life. I was miserable because of my unbelievably cruel father.

I returned to the platform. There was the boy who had been sacrificed on my behalf. He was lying there, almost dead. Next to him was an almost identical boy. Whenever I tried to ask the hurt boy what had happened to him, the other boy would answer, “They hurt me,” and go into details of the torture as if it were his own. He seemed spaced out, brainwashed.

Again, I was appalled at the cruelty of the boy’s father. Not only did he intend to kill the boy, but he was using the boy as a whipping boy for the son he truly loved. And even that love seemed twisted, as that boy was not a shining example of happiness and mental health.

An odd element of this dream was that on the platform next to the child who was being sacrificed was a big pile of bacon.

So here’s what I think it all means:

First of all, I think the bacon symbolizes something unholy. While lamb was an acceptable sacrifice back in the day, pig was most definitely not. It would have profaned the alter. So whatever was happening there was unholy. On the surface, this seems obvious, like DUH — of course a father torturing his son for someone else is an awful thing to do!

I think the whipping boy is Jesus. I think the father is a false idea of God. And the boy who was spaced out is the brainwashed person who thinks that God would torture his son on his behalf. And me, well, this dream was a pretty good representation of my spirit’s grief at considering the idea that I might have such a father.

I mean, God is my strength. My healer. My provider.

My rock. My shelter in times of trouble.

He is living water.

His love is enormous.

Yes, I doubt the atonement theory of the crucifixion. My conscious mind becomes frightened when I question orthodoxy, but apparently, my subconscious (spirit?) doesn’t have an issue with it.

04/22/14

Dandelions, the Ego, Karma and Jesus

flowers1

This morning, I took the latest clothing that I sold out to the mailbox and was simply astounded at the beautiful day. So I plopped down in my front yard and laid there for a while. While I was down there with a bug’s-eye view of the dandelions growing in our yard, I felt thankful not to be rich in the typical sense.

I mean, I’m sure the overgrown yard with the dandelions and the woman with dirty bare feet lying in the front yard would go over really well in a ritzier neighborhood. I like not worrying about these things.

I feel really rich in the sense that matters, though. I am abundantly blessed. I cannot think of one way in which I am not blessed.

……………………………………………………………………

Sage had a horrible dream last night. It was his brain torturing him again. I’ve noticed a pattern in his life and my own. Whenever we are glorying in the beauty and goodness of God, the ego throws a fit. The more the ego is denied its way, the more it behaves like a small, evil little child. It’s freeing to step back and simply watch while it has its tantrums instead of thinking that’s who I am. I think I got that point across to Sage as well.

……………………………………………………………………

I’ve been reading Sikh scriptures the past couple of days. They’re really beautiful.

Endless are His Praises, endless are those who speak them. Endless are His Actions, endless are His Gifts. Endless is His Vision, endless is His Hearing. His limits cannot be perceived. What is the Mystery of His Mind? The limits of the created universe cannot be perceived. Its limits here and beyond cannot be perceived. Many struggle to know His limits, but His limits cannot be found. No one can know these limits. The more you say about them, the more there still remains to be said.

I know God is in those scriptures.

There’s a lot about karma there, as well. Karma makes sense, but ultimately, the whole idea bothers me. If I am being nice only in an effort to increase my own karma, then my actions are not coming from my heart. And if I believe that an abused child was an abuser in another life, then that thought kills compassion.

I’ve wondered if Jesus came to obliterate karma. After all, we no longer have to sacrifice lambs to pay for our sins. I was sitting in the yard thinking about this, when the parable of the vineyard workers came to mind.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

To me, this sounds like Jesus might be saying that there never was karma in the first place. After all, he told this story about the Kingdom of God before His death. Karma doesn’t exist if a worker for the Kingdom can be hired at the last minute and reap the same benefits.

I like the idea of no karma for me or anyone else. No karma…only open eyes.

04/13/14

No One Knows Anything and We Are All One

sheepOne of the things I like about the book of Job — in fact, the ONLY thing, really — is how God chews out Job’s friends at the end. He tells them that they have no clue how the Creator made the universe, and that their attempts at offering an explanation to Job for his travails was pretty much pathetic.

So in light of this story, it’s strange that so many people are absolutely certain about God and how He works. To some extent, I am one of them, since I am convinced of His love.

Still.

I had a dream the other night that hammered home how much I don’t know.

What happened is that I was protesting the Westboro Baptist folks. Then, God told me that I was exactly the same as they were. It was like I was looking at them, only it was really a mirror and I was seeing myself. The whole idea was that neither I nor the Westboro folks knew much of anything.

The other point that was embedded in this dream was that we are all one. Me and Fred Phelps — ONE.

When we commit violence against another, we are committing it against ourselves. Think about it. How much Fred must have hated himself.

Sometimes, it’s like I approach God as a hobby, hoping to become more proficient in time and learn completely what he is about — much like I might eventually become good enough at knitting to create an intricately cabled sweater. This is just not possible, though. Not knowing God to that extent, and in my case, probably not learning how to knit that well, either.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about some anger I have tucked away toward those people I perceive as blinding others to the Kingdom of Heaven. I’m thinking that God is telling me to drop the anger and just love them instead. Because they are me, and I am them, and God loves all of us.

04/7/14

From Animal Consciousness to God Consciousness

michelle and biddlesworthFirst of all, I know this post is weird. My mind runs around in all kinds of directions. This is the kind of thing that can happen to a person when she is working at home all day instead of being distracted by coworkers and work drama.

I want to tell you about the mind-meld that I (inadvertently) did with my cat Biddlesworth. Seriously.

For a few months, Biddlesworth would go absolutely nuts every time I put on my pajamas and got in bed. Before I got the idea of putting him in a time-out room when necessary, I would put up with his racing, jumping and clunking around until he wore himself out.

One night, I was particularly tired, and he Just. Wouldn’t. Stop. I must have lay in bed listening to him race around for 45 minutes before I drifted off. When I did, I had the most bizarre “dream.” In the dream, there were claws, the glee of torture and lots of lizard guts. The claws were mine. It was unlike anything else I had ever dreamed before — very, very real (and more gruesomely disgusting than words can convey).

I think, that in the semi-conscious delta wave state I was probably in, that I tapped into his little kitty consciousness. When I considered that, I was alarmed. Really? THIS is what goes through my little furry kitty’s mind?

After waking up from that five minute interlude of altered consciousness, I felt a bit uncomfortable when Biddlesworth climbed up on the bed and snuggled next to me. Then I deliberately put what had happened out of mind, at least for the time being.

I think of God as consciousness. You know how people say hell is separation from God? And that God can’t be around evil? Well, it makes sense, in a way. I am too uncomfortable with my kitty’s consciousness to ever want to mind-meld with him again. I can see how it would be the same way with God. I mean, if I’m a selfish jerk to people, God is probably not going to want to connect with me. If He does, he might feel that same shuddery ickiness that I did after the kitty incident.

So to be part of God consciousness — what I think of as the Kingdom of Heaven — I have to BE God consciousness. Not killer kitty consciousness, or selfish jerk consciousness, or whatever. Living and walking in LOVE is God consciousness, at least the way I see it.

A simpler way to say this is that it is probably a good idea to raise our vibe so that we can tune into the channel that we want to participate in. I mean, personally, I’d rather be hanging out on channel 95 listening to an amazing jazz concert than watching the horror movie on channel 3 or the low-budget game show on channel 15. Or, in the case of Biddlesworth, whatever channel Animal Planet is on.

Another thing. Do I know anything? Maybe yes, maybe no. And I don’t trust anyone who says they are certain about it all. I feel like I am a blind person grasping on to an elephant’s tail and thinking I’ve found a snake. No, make that a blind person grabbing on to a hair on the elephant’s tail. Maybe.

So what I wrote may or may not have a grain of truth in it. You’ll have to decide.

04/3/14

Why I am unChristian

guns_god_country_flag
I find myself at theological odds with almost every Christian I know. So much, in fact, that I question whether or not I should continue to refer to myself as such. In our culture, there is very little similarity to what I believe and to the cultural baggage that the word carries.

Here are some beliefs that seem to make me unChristian in today’s world:

    Violence is wrong under any circumstances. Jesus didn’t fight the oppressor Rome. Rather, he continued to try to open everyone’s eyes until they killed him — a death to which he submitted peacefully, forgiving his killers. Until Constantine legitimized (Romanized) the Christian religion, all Christ followers believed in non-violence. This is so far from the truth today, where we are perfectly comfortable supporting war in the name of our religion.

    Pointing out other’s moral failings is not the way of Christ. The only people who Jesus condemned were the folks who were criticizing others. Calling gay people “unrepentant sinners,” criticizing the movie Noah for not being Christian enough and looking down on others in any way is a distraction from the love and peace that is present in Christ. Culture wars — yuk.

    Many of the writings in the Old Testament are not literally true. Christ shows us what the spirit of God is actually like. I don’t believe, in the story of Noah, that God is a regretful killer who exterminates mankind. That is not the God I know. I think that story, and many like it, consist of layers of historical, cultural and philosophical meaning, some of which are obscured due to lack of context. For example, perhaps the story of Noah is about the death of the ego. Who knows. On the other hand, when the prophets cry out against injustice against the poor, I do indeed hear the actual voice of God speaking through them. How do I pick and choose what I think is true in the Old Testament? It’s simple. If it matches up with Jesus’s words, then I believe it. I am a Christ follower, not Jewish or a hybrid of Jew and Christian.

    Religion holds us captive. Jesus came to set the captives free, but religion puts chains on our minds. Why is it so scary to contemplate that our sacred writings might not be the actual words of God? Because we’ve been taught that to question is to be condemned. This is not freedom. Jesus continually referred to the Jewish canon as “your scriptures.” He didn’t call them “my word” or anything like that. He wanted people to open their eyes and be free.

    I’m not really worried about anything Paul said. I like the apostle Paul, especially what he says about the fruits of the spirit. But I don’t fret anymore over trying to figure out his writings. I don’t think he ever fully released the bonds of his culture, and this is reflected in his writings. Whenever there is a conflict between something he wrote and the freedom I find in the words of Jesus, I choose Jesus.

    I think sin is a lack of love. For example, promiscuity is wrong not because of the act, but because it’s not loving to sleep around. Not to the resulting child who will then likely grow up without two parents or to the broken-hearted partners that one leaves in one’s wake. Selfishness is a sin because it ignores the needs of another. The only cure for a lack of love is to show love, not to point it out in a self-righteous manner.

    I’m sure there’s plenty more things that disqualify me for Christianity in many people’s books, such as the fact that I can’t stomach attending a church that doesn’t believe in female clergy, for example. I am definitely at odds with American Christianity.

    I am content to not label myself at all, but if someone asks, I suppose I’ll keep saying that I’m a Christ-follower and leave it at that.