Outside the Pigeon Holes

After stepping out I still find that it is safer to keep my 'faith-digging' to myself. Relationships are more important to me than arguing and risking the feeling that A) I become a spiritual charity case B) I will lose more friends over it. LOVE WINS. Period. That's all I' m gonna say except to my Papa (who knows my heart), my man, and my girls.

A recent facebook convo allowed me a chance to articulate my view of the Bible: This may get me reamed, but here goes: Kris Vallaton once said: "You could destroy all the Bibles on the planet and not destroy the word of God." The 'word of God' (if you mean Scripture) has been rewritten a number of times during its course of translation from the original texts. All of us interpret the words we read according to our faith traditions and personal walk with Jesus Christ. To an extent, we rely on human scholarship under the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit in the transcribing of the original texts. The Jewish people (of which Jesus is) rely not only on the written word, but also the Talmud which is a collection of discussions and interpretations of the written word by Jewish rabbis. We do the same as Christians when we choose who we 'sit under' for teaching and understanding of the Holy Scriptures. To simplify it to "it says it, therefore it is, we...

There's a place that I love to run and play There's a place that I sing new songs of praise Dancin' with my Father God in fields of grace There's a place that I lose myself within There's a place that I find myself again Dancin' with my Father God in fields of grace There's a place where religion finally dies There's a place that I lose my selfish pride Dancin’ with my Father God in fields of grace I love my Father, my Father loves me I dance for my Father, my Father sings over me And nothing can take that away from me -Big Daddy Weave It is amazing the lightness of spirit I feel when I am able to break off from the pursuit of living up to mainline Christian ideals. That's not to say I completely disagree with them. I am just letting myself not really care whether or not I please ...

I was nervous about praying at Shiloh...I didn't feel worthy. So I did it anyway. The Holy Spirit said "Whatever - open your mouth and say what comes to you". It was good. I got weepy. Then I was asked afterward to join in on a prayer with a guy who wanted to be healed of addiction. It was also good. I want to invite him to have a Sozo. Love Wins!

It's crazy how many times a day it happens and how 'natural' it seems to entertain the 'voices' of the mafia (see, even there it was a struggle just to leave that sentence say 'voices' because I started traveling down a path which worried that people might think I am hearing audible voices when 'voice' is refering to thoughts, not exterior voices. I did put the word in quotes though to indicate the figurative way I was using the word...Is that a compromise I should avoid in the future? :) ).... Just about everything I think or do is run through an internal approval system. It's very efficient because if I wasn't paying attention I wouldn't have noticed, that's how engrained it is. At least 5 times in the last 24 hour period I have had to stop and remind myself of my freedom. It will be interesting to learn the difference between a healthy 'stop and think before you act' (I am guessing that for everyday decisions this is ...

This idea has been bubbling around in my head for quite sometime - probably since a prayer dude at VCC said to me years ago "You need to truly experience grace" when I told him of how I often get rule-bound. I have hedged toward this when I renamed my blog "Renegade, reports from the road of grace" and in becoming less afraid to voice things that I think that might go against the grain of my evangelical Christian background. There are lots of Christian books about 'living free' that are great, I love folks like Beth Moore. She has some great studies on getting free, but in the end if I was honest, I'd say it usually ends with me thinking 'this is a lot of work for something that is supposedly FREE because it was paid for in advance by God. Inspired now by this book: I am going to practice sort of the opposite - I am going to buck the system. I am going to live how I might if I had not been indoctrinated as a child into the rules of churchitud...

At my Monday group this past week someone mentioned that the reason children were sensitive to things in the spiritual realm (angels, etc) was because they were 'pure'....I was thinking about that today and wondered what exactly that meant since I thought I was to believe that we're born into original sin and therefore no one is actually pure until they accept Jesus. And if kids are pure, how long are they 'pure?' What makes them 'impure'? Is there a magic age at which no matter what they have done they are suddenly considered impure? (I suppose the Jewish age of accountability at thirteen being an example). I have also heard the ridiculous notion that when a child first disobeys their parents (picking up the glass when told not to sort of thing) they have sinned...So, if that is true, then I guess that child would then be defiled and thus less sensitive to things in the spiritual realm....Seems really complicated. So as I was driving home today I was thinki...

Most folks who know me eventually learn that I struggle with what I call "Spaghetti head". It's an anxiety disorder (maybe OCD, maybe Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Who knows what)...Whatever its clinical term, it can be miserable in my brain at times and tends to act up when I am under stress or at um, certain times of the month. Since I just finished a days long bout I have it fresh in my mind so I can maybe help folks understand why I sometimes have to avoid things that I know might trigger one of these episodes. Here is an excerpt of my thought process from a simple decision about grocery shopping. It's amusing looking back on it. But when it is going on and has to do with issues of more substance it can be exhausting. I need to go to the grocery store. I will go to Kroger. But maybe I should go to Biggs because a couple of times I felt led to go to Biggs and cool stuff happened. I really prefer Kroger. But maybe God likes Biggs better. I should always ...