if when i started this blog a couple of months ago, i was at point A, on a table in a cup of religion, i would now be out of the cup, off the table and somewhere near the door getting ready to leave.

except that i am still holding on to the teachings of Jesus.

having said that however, i have to admit that it is the only thing that is still true about what i believe about how the world works anymore. what i mean by that is that i have had some super wild and super woolly experiences that have pretty much dessimated my boxes and it has been both liberating and scary. i keep thinking that i feel like i'd imagine those isrealites might have felt when leaving egypt. holy sh*t, we're free!!!! .... what's for breakfast, Mo?

to sum it up, i have basically moved into the realm of reincarnation. (!!!!!) this, for me makes so much more sense than the heaven or hell story. i still believe that heaven is/can be here on earth as the concept is translated into closeness to God. and that God has placed herself/himself into every being. the quote "we have eternity in our hearts," comes to mind but i don't know who said it. loving god and serving god is, i think, very much about healing our own broken hearts and then allowing ourselves to be so filled with Love that we can't help but "spill" into our lives.

i don't have all the answers, by a longshot. i still believe that jesus' life was the point. but that his death was still hugely significant. i don't believe in a bloodlust god. i don't believe we are unworthy of Her love or that we need to grovel and beg for forgiveness at the hem of his robe (is that how you treat your kids?) i believe prayer is much more about shifting our hearts than about shifting god's actions. i do believe this is one path to divinity - love - but that it is accessible by all. i believe that the sacred writings (thanks Deborah!) have some insight to offer but that they are not the be all and end all and must not be taken literally at all times.

i believed that i am loved in a way that i cannot comprehend. as are you. but that the tension opposite of that is that this life is only one six billionth about me (as worded so eloquently by Anne Lamott).

i am realizing the truth of what Christian said about the violence of choosing one piece of the whole and loving that one piece to the exlusion of the others. at first it really made my head shake like hold on a second, WHAT? but the more clearly i see dimly what love really is, the more i understand the craziness of the notion that one is to be adored more than the others. which makes no sense if we spirits are all part of the same whole.

to quote another insightful phrase by whom i cannot say and i know it will butcher it to be unrecognisable but what the hell, here goes: "we are not bodies with spirit inside, but spirits with bodies" or something like that. this is also from Anne Lamott's book Grace (Eventually).

but as obvious as that is, it helped to shift something in me that chipped away yet another small chunk of the remains of former edifice of judegement from which i loved to be right.

quite honestly, however, i don't think it matters too much WHAT i believe as long is i belove.

another wonderful thought beautifully articulated in yet another quote from a Book by James Twyman

so, my moment of peace is finished (here at the computer, i mean). i must go in peace to love and serve the lord. until next time... be love.

shameless plug

like the overstressed, overtired mom who forgets to take her pill, i have started yet another blog. (sad, sad, sad)

but there were things i wanted to talk about that didn't fit either of the forums of my first two. so, welcome into the family the newest blog Live! From the Fan.

if you are sensitive (yeah right), watch out - i actually spell out the words i've been abbreviating here. (WTF etc.) just to give fair warning is all.

see you around!

the first cut

i have about a million things i need to talk about and about 2 seconds at a time on the computer (these days).

so today, i am going to address my oldest question and i think the main reason i cannot call my self a christian.

ever since i can remember (all the way back to my quasi catholic days), i have always wondered "what about the people who live and die and have never heard of jesus?" and part b to that was "why should other people with their own god-beliefs and culture just drop theirs and buy ours?" these two questions have always, always been quietly resting in my spirit.

i do not believe that jesus is THE ONLY WAY to encounter Love. Of course i believe that he showed us how but just because one person invents something at one point, doesn't mean that someone else can't have the same idea too. do you see what i'm saying? i'm not saying that i believe there were hundres or thousands of jesuses. i do believe he was the only one. which makes him pretty darn special. but i also believe that there were other wise mystics/prophets who said much of what jesus had to say in different ways.

bottom line is the way to love is love. and yes, jesus was love. (possibly Love). but ...

would any caring parent turn his/her child away because she knocked on a window instead of the front door? or does a person have to know what a door is made out of or called to go through it? what does it matter so long as you're at the right house?

goal oriented love

so i had this thought:

god's love is not goal oriented. love is not goal oriented.

but the christian church? definitely outcome driven. let's love this person for jesus(ah)! let me show this lady kindness so maybe she'll one day see the light and get saved(ah). let me witness love to this troubled teen so he can someday come to my church(ah) and get saved(ah).

missionaries? great idea. help people. problem? a lot of the time it comes off as: we scratch you back, you get saved.

how about just love? no strings, no hopes. just love for the sake of love. because everybody needs to be shown love and everybody deserves to be treated with kindness - at least once. (what i mean is that there really are those who are unlovable and probably are unlovable because they were never loved and so they deserve to be show love and kindness just as much as the next guy.)

hey dude, you hungry? here's some lunch. shitty day? let's grab a coffee. screwed up big time? me too. but it's ok.

i think for many people, this is where the attraction lies in eastern belief systems: it's the same love your neighbour message as jesus' but without the series of unfortunate events (namely the inquisition and all that) attached to their history or ideology. sort of like two versions of the same house with identical interiors; only one is in a really undesirable area with dead appliances and/or cars on the dirt where grass used to be while the other has a nicely manicured lawn with lots of fancy landscaping and curb appeal. see what i mean?

bottom line:

just. love. and love will work out the rest (if there even is a rest.)

let's try that.

what i am (not)

at this moment. at this time and this place i find that i can not willingly or confidently identifiy myself as a christian any more.

this gives me great relief. because for most of my journey, i have never quite felt comfortable under that banner. primarily because all the other people - well most of the other card-carrying members didn't seem like people i wanted to be identified with. this is, of course, a huge generalization. as a group, however, i felt that people who call themselves christians tend to leave a bad taste in other people's mouths and more importantly, their fragile, often-broken hearts.

for me it's like having relatives that act really awful everywhere they go. so much so that no one really wants them at their establishments. and then you try to make a reservation and they hear your last name and ask: Are you related to so-and-so?' and then what do you do? you almost want to change your name so that no one will think you act like these people - because you don't.

anti-gay propoganda (louisana had it coming with all their gayness and lewdness) and marches, abortion clinic bombings (pro-life, but only for fetuses), the freaking war in iraq, the shunning of those who don't belong, the spewing of pompous self-righteous rhetoric - these are the kinds of things people think associate with right wing christians - the loudest of them all.

the thing is, though, i really like jesus. moreover, i really like what jesus had to say and how he lived out his message. (word being flesh and all that.) i don't really see much of that in traditional christian chuch today. i'm pretty sure i've already renounced religion a hundred different ways on this blog already. so, i guess it's the same old same old. but this is a process for me.

i'm reading a book called The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren and though it has some language in there that's still a little wobbly to me, the general message is shifting how i look at the new testament. which is a good thing. since i didn't want to look at it at all over the last year or so. deborah is now reading a book called (something like) "How to Take the Bible Seriously, Not Literally" and from what I hear, this is going to really shift things for me even more.

no matter how far away i walk from religion however, i feel as though i am moving closer to jesus. not necessarily as one to be worshipped, but more as the one who has brought hope and (the message of) healing for our lack of love (commonly called "sin") with his profound realization of the love of God.

i still have trouble praying and am generally uttering words of gratitude, thoughts, ideas, dreams, hopes and well wishes (for others and myself) into what i know is the constant presence of God but without any real intention except kind of "putting it out there". having said that, i will say that last sunday Matthew said a prayer that was the first real, moving prayer experience for me in ... months (?). it was the first time i could say amen to a prayer in a long, long time. so one year after the collapse of my artificial faith, i feel i am on a path toward recovery and healing. the path toward a much less grandiose but certainly more genuine kind of belief.

i know God is real and loving. and present in every breath. and perhaps, that's mustard seed enough.

Twisted Fate

here is the preamble: i really hate to see anyone self-deprecating. i think it's a sad sign of someone who doesn't realize how amazing they are. having said that, i will say that i am, myself, a recovering self-deprecator (is that a word?). and, somewhat hypocritically - sort of like a smoker stabbing the air with her lit cigarette admonishing you not to smoke - i am about to just, well, talk down to myself a little bit. you see, i think that i'm sort of like a pre-schooler about all things theological and lofty. i'm new to this arena and so i feel like my "big questions" are the kinds of questions that scholarly individuals would swat away like mosquitos annoying in the summer heat. so i have some insecurity to iron out - but at least i'm aware of it. so i am starting by saying that i imagine [more] educated minds furrowing their bushy brows and laughing down their long, biblical noses at me, then stroking their wiry gray beards as they shoo me away.

okay, enough of that. (really, even though i do feel all those things, i was trying to strectch my literary muscles just a bit and stylize my thoughts.)

let's get to the point. my latest so-called (sorry!) "big question":

is it at all possible for free will and destiny/fate to dwell together in peace or are they actually polar opposites?

we were talking the other night, nathan, deborah and i, about the possibility that God doesn't actually intervene. a theory, that as it was discussed seemed to make the most sense to me at the moment. what about all the people in the shit? the haitians, the africans, the whole god-damned bloody world, it seems. what about children who are being abused and FUBAR by their own parents? it's up to us, we concluded, to come together in community and do something for each other and for everyone else. i mean, OBVIOUSLY, god isn't going to appear as a burning stove and provide food for 10 million. OBVIOUSLY. and if it hasn't happened yet - my brother and my sister - it ain't gonna happen. god has not miraculously whisked people away from their shitty lives in recent memory. god hasn't spoken in a loud booming voice (or even the wind-like whisper) to the clergy of this great nation "how about not treating haitians and jamaicans like something foul and wretched? how about recognizing that they are people, just. like. YOU?" He hasn't appeared to the governments-gone-wild and told them to straighten up and fly right. In the places where it really counts, i cannot say that i have seen any evidence of a mystical intervention.

so how could i possibly believe that this god who chooses not to save the most desperate of souls with magic, would make a small whim of a wish come true for me? how can some christians believe (i'm thinking of some specific individuals) that god would give them a discount at the damn store and not answer to the plight of someone screaming or suffering silently in the dark? that's kind of math that will get you audited, my friend. so, if god doesn't intervene, and we are responsible for our brothers and sisters - it's up to us - then what?

mother teresa. UNICEF. WHO. the UN. bono. doctors without borders. oprah. the hunger site. the one campaign. live aid. bob geldoff. these organizations/people and many more like them are, in my opinion, the only manifestation of anything god like that shows any ray of hope and images of love. so then, we have free will. we can do what we want, but a lot of the times it's without love and therefore inconsequential.

another question: was jesus really "born to die"

if god doesn't shift things around on a checker board and we all actually have free will, god would have KNOWN ahead of time about jesus' death, but it doesn't mean that She planned it. so jesus was killed. and then he turned into something exra special by coming back.

could the christian church have missed it? spewing on about how jesus died for us when, in reality what jesus did was LIVE for us? if the church would quit talking about sin and jesus dying for our sin and talk more about love and the LIFE of jesus they might actually sound a little less dusty and a little more shiny.

i'll close by saying that all i can say is what the hell do i know? yes, i believe in a Creator. yes, i believe that jesus' life was more than significant. yes i believe that jesus recognized his divinity. yes, i believe in love. yes, i believe in here and now. no guarantees.

as usual - everything else is just questions.

how come i feel like i don't know anything?

less than six months away from my big 30th birthday, i ask the question: how come life still feels so much like trial and error? will i ever be able to make good, sound decisions? is there ever a time when one has 20/20 foresight?

i am at odds with living in the moment and planning for the future. can one even do that? small, slow sigh

i just told nathan that i can't wait to be forty. translation: i look forward to the day when i'll feel like i actually know something about what i'm doing.

to buy a house or not to buy a house?
where should our kids go to school?
should i start my own school?
when we will ever be in any sort of financial homeostatis?
how can i share in a practical way that doesn't feel like too much for me?

[more sighing]

the list goes on and on. the answer?

be

here

now

that's a tough one.

please take action

i am not going to go off on my soapbox tirade about the FDA (the EPA, the CDC etc.) and how they are simply puppets for american corporate giants.

i am going to ask you to please take action against the latest in a long line of questionable decisions being made by the FDA. this particular mess up is the one where they are going to OK the selling of meat and other products from cloned animals, and not require any labelling to that effect. ri-goddamn-diculous. honestly. no one knows what kind of implications or health hazards these products will have. they should AT LEAST make it mandatory to TELL people what they are buying. honestly!

please, you don't have to have a US address, just click here to send a letter to the right people.

signing off,
a very pissed of me

a Great Idea

so i have been thinking about this. and i wondered to myself - can human beings really love 'god'? for all intents and purposes, 'god' is really an abstract concept; an idea really. can we devote our whole hearts to this idea of god? some might say that jesus was the human manifestation of god and that we are to love jesus. but again we are faced with trying to be in love with a prophetic figure who lived two millenia before now. not an awfully long period in the grand scheme of things but we can scarcely imagine what jesus was really like - it's kind of like a long distance relationship through letters really. again, we have an idea but nothing concrete.

so my question follows this thought that in the same way an artist puts a great deal of himself into his work, can it not be argued that the Creator has done the same with all that She has made? can we not fall in love with "god" by being present with all living things that have come from Her hand? is she not within these things? could it be that the collective existence of life is the embodiment of God Herself? and therefore, loving God is really just loving Her work?

but we must be careful, i think, not to generalize and just say "i love every living thing." i think the crux of the matter lies with being present with the individual. see every person, every animal, every tree, flower, plant as an individual. Anthony DeMello says that once a child has been taught the name of something - a cocount tree, for instance - that child will never again see another coconut tree but the first one that was named to her. (very loosely paraphrased). it's in doing this, i believe, that we miss out on hundreds (of thousands?) of potiential encounters with God. if i could let go of the urgency to be somewhere else and simply be with the people i am with at any given moment, then i think that is where i will meet, experience, share, in God; in Love.

for me, salvation lies in the life of jesus, much more so than in his death because he modelled this kind of presence so well. he was where he was. i guess i would say that his life was made up of countless moments.

a life of moments. wow. what a concept.

[edited to add that i will explain/explore gender terminology with reference to God in another post.]

the divvying of one's heart

there's this church that i pass by fairly often and they have one of those marquis type signs where they put up a one-liner "message" each week. i kind of like this because it serves as theological fodder for me. i read what's there and instead of immediately dismissing it as CCR (crazy christian rhetoric), i think about it and ask myself questions like: do i agree or disagree? is there any truth to it? how can it be of any service to passers by? can they find Love through this one liner? (i mean, what is the point, exactly?)

this week it reads: make sure no one has a bigger portion of your heart than God.

hmmm... so the implication is that we are to devote only a portion of our love to God and a big portion, but a portion nonetheless. and then the rest is for i guess family and friends. but what if loving everyone was really loving God? could it be that we can really only love Love by loving everyone the same?

for me this is a daunting proposition. can i really love everyone the same? Mr. Phillip who washes my car on the weekends? The sour checkout girl at the market? My coworkers? My parents? My husband and kids? even though I truly believe that we are all one and that every single human being is my ... (counterpart comes to mind) .. and my brother/sister (including my kids, eventually.. ish) and that every one of us matters to Love exactly the same it still isn't a part of me like the way i say hello without thinking. Like the way i kiss ryan a hundred times in a minute without thinking. Like the way that sometimes when i look at nathan every fibre in my being just wants to hold him and feel him next to me - without thinking.

I am still having to say to myself "this woman is my sister. this man is my brother." and even so, do i really believe when i tell myself? sometimes when Mr. Phillip comes to wash the car and I have given him a paper plated meal, a part of me wants to ask him to come in and sit to share the meal with us, but that part (if i am to be honest) is greatly overshadowed by the 'sensible' me who says, what if he comes in and makes plans to break in after he says the layout of the house? and the unspoken thoughts too about the boundaries that exist between us.

do you get what i'm saying? (do i get what i'm saying?)

i don't know. but i believe that loving LOVE, the Divine is best expressed by loving who S/He loves too.

Going to Great Lent...s

as you may or may not know, it's lent. started on ash wednesday, which was just last week (for those of you non-lenters). i have been observing lent for as long as i can remember.

i was raised as a catholic. the typical tri-annual catholic: christmas, new years and easter. and even then it was usually me who was dragging my family to church. i also went to a catholic all girls high school where there was the obligatory chapel on campus and i faithfully attended lunch-time mass on Fridays for at least the last three years of school.

even after renouncing catholocism some years later and eventually becoming a staunch (crazy, left wing) evangelical, born again believer, i continued - for reasons unknown to me - to observe the lenten season. a tradition that, i guess, became a big part of my spirituality. i never did the whole no-meat-fish-on-fridays lent, but i did give up the usual things like chocolate, soda - i think even smoking (back when i used to fumar) - you know that kind of stuff. in more recent times i have gone without TV (an enourmous deal for me), chocolate again (a wicked big deal) and this year... ahhhh, this year - what a gem! guess what i'm going without? added sugar. added sugar? you ask. what does that mean, added sugar? well, it means that i am still eating things like fruit and honey. but no sugar in tea or coffee, no cereal (with sugar - which is every single one worth eating), no yogurt, no granola bars, no cookies (!!!!); more specifically no oreos (double !!!) - nothing at all that has been sweetened.

christian spoke last week about the practice of fasting and how it's really just practicing practicing to do without. so that, according to Dallas Willard", we can be strong and sweet when we have do without. at first i didn't understand what he (christian) meant by "doing through practice that which we couldn't do through direct effort" (slightly paraphrased due to poor memory). but then he opened by trying to juggle (trying being the operative word), spoke and then closed with AJ actually juggling. and i got it! practice for the spiritual things. what a concept! i need to talk more about this but i need to get ready for a birthday party. gotta run. but i'll be back.

welcome

so my this is my second blog. my other blog is about motherhood and such delights. but then i really started going off on a huge 'god tangent' and i figured i should now dedicate my big theological questions to their own blog. so welcome to my spiritual journey.

i'm going to move some of the posts (or maybe copy) from MilkShaken and put them on here.

Okay, gotta run.