Outside the Pigeon Holes

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...