fatherman

Kind of you. It seems that I am a heretic everywhere I go. :-)

I don't want to leave Jen hanging out to dry here. I resonate strongly with what she has written, but ultimately it is about my need to be among people who share a stronger consensus on the basic mainline Christian beliefs. PC is about challenging traditions, it is true, but there is a core that I do not wish to debate or defend. It stresses me out.

I wish each of you peace, joy, and love in your endeavors here. I have much love for this forum and it's participants.

Guys, I'm taking my leave. It's not personal. I just find very little peace here for myself. Keep up the awesome dialog.

In Christ,

Fatherman (featherman?) :-)

Oops. Double post.

Every morning when you wake up you pray Thy Will Be Done, just as Jesus did. Then you let it happen.

You don't have to know the will of God to submit to it.

You don't have to know the will of God to submit to it.

Oh, and Bill, I left something out from my story. The horrible images. A therapist taught me a trick that isn't any kind news, but it helped. Every time the image came to mind, I attached a tremendous amount of emotional energy to it which was making it worse. So I just let the images come and let them go with as little response as possible. I know this different in severity for me, but I still struggle, snd it helps.

Just know that you are on my mind out of sincere concern even if I'm not helping.

Welcome! And I am official changing my handle from Fatherman to Featherman!

I do very much believe that there is room in the Christian family for atheists and agnostics. I am struck by the fact that we both referenced the parable of the sheep and goats within the same 24 hours. Perhaps you read my post first. I think this is a very much overlooked verse by a huge number of Christians. I wonder how these more Pharisaical Christians see themselves in the parable? But for me, it is a cornerstone in a sense. Jesus is pleading with us to drop this notion that our rigidity in regards to our religion whether it be the laws of righteousness and sin or our creeds and dogmas and all of the ugliest that that leads to. "Do you love me?" he asks Peter later. "Then feed my sheep." That's it. Not, if they aren't lazy bums, then feed my sheep. If their Christian, then feed my sheep. Nope.

If none of us who identify as Christians here on this site were feeding the sheep, then we'd just be a bunch of baseless jackasses heeing and hawing....or what's the sound a goat makes?

This is a very old thread, and I'm not going to reread it. I may have even posted on it, so stop me if I'm repeating myself or anybody else!

This discussion of Free Will at TCPC recently has been very thought provoking for me. I'm thinking a little more about it than usual. If it were a no brainer, we wouldn't be talking about it so much. I did a little mental digging and I was reminded of a concept that I had not thought about for a long time. I kind of fell away from Wayne Dyer a few years ago, but he had an intriguing idea which is not new. I think it relates to what Jesus and other wisdom juggernauts and mystics have taught. It is a mystic or these days New Age idea, but it's gaining some traction in science. Again, I am not a scientist, I just listen to NPR!

The idea is that we live life on a frequency. Our state of mind has a frequency of sorts. Let's say that Jesus is a 10 and Hitler was a 1. Jesus was living in a state of pure Love, and Hitler was living in a state of pure hate (and all the things that make that up). We know that what we do affects what we feel, and that what we feel affects what we do. We also know that both of those things affect our brain. The more kind acts I commit, the more my brain becomes wired for kindness. The more I feel unworthy, the more my brain supports that belief.

Now, enter Free Will. There is an increasing body of evidence to support the idea that there is no true Free Will. All I have is anecdotal for what I'm about to say. Let's take alcoholism. They say an alcoholic is born an alcoholic. He is wired for it out of the womb. Perhaps not in all cases, but let's say an alcoholic could not have chosen not to be an alcoholic no more than he could have chosen the color of his eyes. However, some get sober and so do not. To answer that would take more knowledge than I have.

What I'm going to suggest is that some drunks respond to their tragedies by eventually dying from the disease, and some respond by going to AA. There are many different reasons, but ultimately it's the realization that they are 100% powerless and they care enough to do something. They care about their families, for example. They want to be good fathers, good wives, good employees, good people. By this desire, they have raised their frequency just high enough to make a start. The program is essentially designed to raise a person's frequency to a higher level, a level of forgiveness and service and selflessness.

They overrode genes, resentments, hurts, and narcissism and surrendered to a God of their understanding...and became sober Still an alcoholic, but a sober one. Before AA, doctors believed that a drunk was incurable and hopeless. No amount of free will should be able to make a drunk sober.

So, what I'm proposing is that there is really only one freedom of will. Choosing between your will and the will of a higher power. Choose your will, and you are doomed to your circumstances. Choose God's will and there is hope.

Tear it apart!

Bill, part of your story reminds me of something that happened to me recently.I've only shared this with few people because it is very personal and few people would even believe it. I share not to pressure you into believing something, but simply as a witness. You'll find your own way. This is a good forum for that. It's helped me many times over the last decade.

Earlier this year, my son of 15 attempted suicide. We never saw it coming. My son has been an atheist since he was 5. In his note, he expressed that in the vastness of the Universe, his speck of life had no consequence or meaning. The stresses of his life had become unbearable and he saw no reason to suffer any longer.

His means of killing himself was particular disturbing and graphic. I could not get the image out of my head. Although I did not see it, I could invision every last detail of it, which turned out to be eerily accurate.

Late that night I couldn't sleep so I prayed. I could not feel the presence of God at all. I'd never felt so alone and in so much pain. And although my son survived, my brain could only see his death.

The next day, and for the first time in my life, I believed that God was a lie, or at least that he had abandoned me. I met with my pastor, but it didn't help. My faith was dead, and I was furious.

The next night I could not sleep, so I tried one last time to pray. Here's how it went.

Me: God,where are you?

God: I am here with you.

Me: But why weren't you with me last night when i needed you?

Me: I have me reasons. David, listen to me.

Life is pain.

But I am God.

Me: Were you with Chris when he tried to end his life? Did you intervene?

God: No, that was all Chris. He needed to see that he did not truly want to die.

Believe what you will about this experience, but I can tell you that this "God" did not fit my theology or beliefs. This started a new kind of relationship for me. I'm not sure what to think of it yet, but God stopped being an idea to discuss and became something very real to me.

I believe that we do not get to choose how or when God reveals himself to us. There is no right or wrong way. For example, I believe God is something greater than just male or female, but this was a father, no question.

It would do little good for me to intercede in prayer for you because I have no idea of what you truly need. But I hope that you stick around and let us help you at least work out your theological struggles.

Peace.

Bill,

I can't imagine what you are going through. I'm so sorry.

You are in a faith crisis that causes many people to lose faith entirely. It's the question of if there is a God and God loves us, then why do bad thinks happen to us.

You've already heard a standard response: it's all a part of God's plan.

I do believe that God makes plans of some sort, but I do not believe God is thinking that his child, Bill, needs to learn something that only can be facilitated by a loss like this. For learning, for saving, for changing in any way.

I do believe from much personal experience that God seeks us in our brokenness. It was in Jesus's brokenness that great love was given to the world. Even if you can't believe in Jesus as divine and a savior, you can find meaning in his forgiving his tormenters with his final breaths.

When I look back on my life, I often think well if such and such bad never happened then such and such good would have never happened. It's easy to conclude that it happened the way God wanted it to happen. But I think that another response could be if God had not been with me every step of the way, then these good things would never have happened. And that response should be immediately follow with Thank You God.(not for my loss, but because of your faithfulness)

There is likely little if anything I could say to you that will give you comfort, but perhaps you might consider giving God a chance to see you through. Or if you can't do that perhaps you could consider delaying judgment on the Christian faith for a little while longer. I don't think you will regret it.

God is looking for you in your broken places right now.

Blessings, friend

The ability to choose is what the writers of the Bible and Jesus are concerned with. Whether that is free will or not is a matter of semantics to me.

Here's what one dictionary says about it

Free Will - the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Sounds like what those Bible guys were talking about to me.

But it leaves many questions for me. I'm not the scientist you are, but I listen to NPR. And genetics shows up regularly. I have a lot of traits, perhaps all of them, that were genetically predetermined.

But the twist is that I have an identical twin brother. Brought up by the same parents, same house, same college, same degree, both married to Jennifers. However, we are very different. Different tastes, different health problems, different theology, different interests.

So how did that happen? At some point we chose to diverge. I stopped playing baseball to focus on music. He went varsity. We chose different friends. On and on.

So did the freedom of the will to choose different lives override our identical genes? Maybe.

I'm powerless over drink. I was born that way, and yet I have chosen sobriety. Same with bipolar. I take the meds.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and assume that what I am describing is not what you mean by free will, but that's what I mean.

Where I differ with many Christians is that I don't believe we choose salvation. If God wants to save us, he will. I don't believe in any magic words that buy you a ticket to eternal paradise, otherwise eternal damnation. It is not our will that saves us no more than it is a child's will to be saved from oncoming traffic. That's why we pray Thy Will be Done. We are admitting that when we live our lives by our own will, we suffer time and time again.

It doesn't matter to me if this is factual at all. That's not what faith is. All that really matters to me is that it is working for me. Whatever works for the next guy is what they should stick to.

This is a good topic, made even more interesting with science.

Need some time to think about this

Thanks, Jen. I may know these things, but it is so helpful to read your perspective on them. I write a blog called mywifesaysimcomplicated, because it's true. I've simply accepted it and owned it. That is the way God made me. We all have our wonderful complexities!

I'm blessed to have a two wonderful mentors: my sponsor and the pastor at the church I'm currently working. It's made a huge difference in my life. You are so right when you underscored the importance of that.

What's perplexing is that I know how to reach a quantum state, but I rarely do it. It's like the blind thirsty man who cannot see the water in front of him, and when he is given the water he drinks it down and no longer thirsts. And then his eyes are opened! And yet when he becomes thirsty again, he does not drink from the very cup he was given when he was blind.

It seems like a simple conundrum to solve, and yet I have not solved it. Perhaps I'm just too lazy and busy to drink it. That just doesn't make any sense, though!

Beautifully said, soma. Mystical experience and way of life is difficult to relate to others. I do not try. It is like dreams, it may only have meaning for the person experiencing them.

The mind works like a single processor computer as you've described: one instruction at a time in rapid succession. A computer processor works with a queue. The instructions in the queue is prioritized by importance and chronology, just as we do. We deal with the immediate needs first.

We are made to want to understand. That is something that makes us human, but there are plenty of things I know or experience which I do not understand; this phone that I am typing this post on, for example! Some do understand it, but I do need to understand how it is made to make use of it.

God is such. The difference is that no one designed God. God designed us! Which means that he understands us intimately.

The best we can do is have AN understanding of God. We will not likely have THE understanding of God.

I don't think so. I don't need to understand to experience God. I'm just trying to acknowledge that it is certainly natural to do so. While also saying that it can only take you so far.

I guess it's contextual for me. But what I'm lacking is the steadfastness of keeping that conscious contact with God. God Consciousness. There are different ways of doing that. I've experienced a metaphysical contact where I can actually feel God's presence in my consciousness. Meditation usually gets me there.

Then there's that consciousness of God, guide me in my handling of this situation. Give me the words to say. Give me the kindness and acceptance to love this person. Perhaps these are the same things, but they feel different.

Then there's understanding. There's the reading and the writing and discussion and the introspection. This shapes my understanding of God. Understanding can pave a way or block a way to God Consciousness.

So, I acknowledge the importance of the intellect in faith. And I bear no pride over trying to be more rounded spiritually. It's a choice that I've made that works for me. What concerns me is the rejection by many progessives of the emotional, spiritual, Biblical, metaphysical approaches to God. I've been criticized or even sneered at for this, and I have to confess that I'm holding on to some resentment. I feel out of place in my progressive faith community. I know that not all of these approaches work for everyone. But I'm no less a progressive for that path.

Note: I had intended to leave out my last line of my last post, but I can no longer edit it.

The reason I changed my mind is that there are Christian atheists, and there are atheists who have sort of stake in the direction of Christianity.

They are a part of our family.

I think that you are correct. My struggle may be that I get focused on one to the exclusion of the others. For many years I relied exclusively on intellect. Followed by many years of mystical spirituality. Right now, I'm focusing on kindness and faithfulness and surrender.

Learning to integrate, to become a whole person perhaps is a form of enlightenment. Not something to be achieved. Perhaps more like getting out of the way of yourself.

I do not know if i've ever actually experienced this. Perhaps I never will. Maybe im just over thinking it. :-)

Thanks, soma. These are ideas to ponder.

Wow. This is a great topic. I'm going to boil this down a little. If a secular society is doing a better job with Jesus's economic principles then why introduce Christianity to that society? Moreover, why not invent a new religion based on the success of that country?

This speaks to my belief that they will know we are Christians by our fruits. As an American, I believe that church and state should not be mixed. It sounds like you are saying that if they did mix in Denmark, which would mean a state religion, then it would be worse off.

In America, we definitely would be worse off given that the Christian power brokers would seek to take away human rights from it's citizens and instantiate economic policies that are in fact antithetical to Christian economics.

But let's say that the closest economic policy to Jesus' is something akin to Denmark's system. That would mean that the Christian way would be meeting the goals of distributive justice!

So why then should people become Christians in Denmark? Well there is far more to the faith than economics. Having a faith community based on caring and social justice, having a personal God to help you with your burdens, salvation however you understand that, and all the known benefits of a spiritual life just to name a few.

So the need to start a new religion implies that Christianity is broken. I think there's some truth to that, but that has been the case since the 3rd century. This is what the progressive Christian movement seeks to address. We want to get back to the true teachings of Jesus as we know him. Rather than rejectin and becoming atheists.

It is a movement that is gaining traction!

To J and J. I could spend a few weeks with you guys on this remarkable discourse,but it's late. I just wanted to acknowledge you, say thanks. I think a lot about the importance of free will in humanity. I like to imagine that our presence on earth is God's desire to have love in relationship with a species that can know him. Love cannot exist in us without free will, without the ability to choose other than love. It's part of the answer to the Theodacy question for me. Blessings J and J

Hi Mike.

 

Again, more great questions. I appreciate the way you're thinking and challenging. You're absolutely right about the fundamentalist's belief that he is right and everybody else is wrong. I agree the fundamentalist believes he's using his intuition. From a neuroscience point of view, though, he's not using his intuition or his conscience (both of which depend heavily on the "default network" of the brain). He's instead misusing the default network and relying heavily on a limbic system network called the temporo-amygdala-orbitofrontal network. He may even, if he's not careful, slip into the state of empathy-free choices that we call psychopathy. (You check out these networks at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/depts/fans/sackler-group/Publications/20131/Arevisedlimbicsystemmodelformemory,emotionandbehaviour.pdf.)

 

Since the neuroscience is important, but not very useful in a discussion with others about spiritual direction, I've pasted in a piece I posted 3 years ago. It's long, so I hope Joseph will indulge me. (Sorry, Joseph .) I own the copyright, but I'm not the author. This piece arose from my ongoing work as a mystic and it's called "Walking on Water." I hope it will help trigger some more questions and insights for you.

 

Thanks for asking, thanks for listening.

 

God bless,

Jen

 

__________________________________________________________

 

Walking on Water

 

Jen has reminded me I havent written a solo post here, so Im going to do that today. Im going to talk about what it feels like to walk on water.

 

I dont mean that I or any human being has ever been able to literally walk on water. When my great-nephew wrote about walking on water in the Gospel of Mark, he didnt mean it literally. He meant it metaphorically. He was trying to describe what it feels like when a person has entered into the Kingdom state of fullness of heart.

 

He chose the image of water carefully. In Second Temple Judaism, water was a powerful and frequent symbol in Jewish texts. Often it meant blessings from God. In an arid region, rainfall is a blessing, and most of ancient Judea was arid. But there was a parallel understanding of water, too, as the primal force of chaos, the place where uncontrollable monsters lived. Where female monsters lived.

 

The Book of Genesis starts out with the assumption that water has to be pushed back by God and held in place before the Garden of Eden can be planted. The sea is seen as a dangerous place. An unpredictable place. A deep place which is formless and dark, with no knowledge in it. God fixes this problem by first bringing light (knowledge of order and symmetry) onto the scene. He calls the light Day and the darkness Night, but he hasnt created the Sun or the Moon yet, so the light he brings to Planet Earth isnt sunlight. Its the light of knowledge.

 

The men who wrote the Book of Genesis emphasize again and again that you should want to have order in your life. Order is good. Chaos is bad. Theres knowledge, and God saw that it was good. Theres careful separation of all major elements into their proper places, and God saw that it was good. Theres careful naming of all creations, large and small, and God saw that it was good. The earth itself (adam in Hebrew) is separated into two aspects male and female and given the breath of life. The resulting creations, man and woman, who are made in the image of God, are Gods representatives on Earth and through them God can impose the law of hierarchy upon all other kingdoms in creation (kingdoms in a biological sense, that is). And God saw that it was good. By the seventh day, God has put a big, fat leash on all that watery chaos stuff and firmly imposed the Law of Cause and Effect upon Planet Earth, and its so darned good that God calls for a day of rest to honour his accomplishments.

 

And what is Elohims greatest accomplishment? The greatest accomplishment of Elohim (the gods in Hebrew) is to whip that dark, watery, feminine principle into shape and force it to obey the male principles of order, knowledge, law, and hierarchy. When Elohim creates humankind adam he creates adam entirely out of strong, orderly, procreative, male earth. No water in sight. Elohim adds the breath of life (by inference from Gen. 1:30) to his new creations, but hes very careful not to include any of that chaotic water stuff in his perfect new creations. Waters okay when its in its proper place, but let it loose, and theres no describing the destruction that will occur.

 

Oh wait! There is a description! Let me see now . . . of yes, that would be the Great Flood story. The Great Flood story reminds you (just in case you need reminding) what happens when bits and pieces of the Divine Order fall out of their proper places and start to misbehave (Gen. 6:1-7) and why Gods creation of order and hierarchy is a good thing! A good thing you really, really want!

 

Still, even the bad behaviour of the Nephilim was nothing compared to the fall of the Feminine Principle. When the Feminine Principle fell out of her proper place in the heavens and coalesced into the dark, formless, watery depths that existed before God came to rescue her with his light of knowledge an all . . . well, that was a real mess. A mess that still needs fixing. Occasionally, if things get really bad on Earth, God unleashes her and lets the monsters out, which is exactly why you need to put a Molten Sea in front of your big temple (1 Kings 7:23-26). You need to remind your people that God has given you power over the forces of chaos by proxy.

 

This power by proxy comes in the form of ritual bathing in water that has been tamed. Fresh water including rainfall is water that has been properly tamed by God. Restored to its true state of purity. Immersion in purified water allows you to share in Gods purification process. (It also happens to make you cleaner, and therefore healthier and happier, but this is a separate question.)

 

Mark, a trained scholar, had all these traditions about water in mind when he chose to show me walking on water in the middle of his Parable of the Idol Bread (Mark 6:47-51). Hes turned the traditional meaning of water on its head. Its a new relationship with water. Nobody commands the waters of Lake Tiberias to part so Jesus can walk across on dry land. Nobody immerses themselves in the waters in baptism. Nobody puts the waters in big jars or little jars or cauldrons or ritual baths. The lake is the lake, the way its always been the lake. And Jesus is Jesus, the way hes always been Jesus. And the lake and Jesus seem to be getting along! No fighting with the lake, no thrashing with monsters in the lake, no prayer rituals to calm the lake. Jesus starts walking towards his companions (who are struggling with questions of understanding and true faith) and the lake suddenly calms down as if maybe the waters (the Feminine Principle) and Jesus are working together and arent in conflict with each other. As if maybe the waters are comfortable supporting Jesus because he has already taken heart and stopped being afraid. As if maybe the waters are not and never have been the problem.

 

The problem is written down in black and white as plain as you can get in Chapter 7 of Mark. The problem is not what you touch on the outside of your body. The problem is not the water itself or what you do with the water. The problem is what you choose to do on the inside of your body. The problem is what you choose to do with your own free will.

 

The journey to know your own free will, as I said last time in conversation with Jen, is very much a journey that resembles the stages of grief. All people must wrestle with what it means to have free will. They must question it, be confused by it, be angry at it, reject it, and finally come to terms with it. As the character Job once did. As I did as Jesus son of Joseph two millennia ago.

 

Theres a reason for this, a reason that has nothing to do with sin or salvation or sacraments or separation from God. The reason for this painful journey is that God trusts you.

 

Human beings often wonder why theyre here and why it has to hurt so much. Many reasons have been offered over the centuries by different religious leaders. In the tradition of Occams razor, I offer this: you are here to learn how God the Mother and God the Father discovered together how to walk on water. Youre here so you can experience firsthand what it means to use your free will in every permutation possible in the service of Divine Love.

 

Put that way, it sounds simple, doesnt it? But its not. You know that and I know that. Its damned hard to work your way through the stages of knowing what free will means. Not what you, as a human being, think it means, but what God the Mother and God the Father think it means.

 

To live from a place of pure free will is, as you may imagine, the very opposite of living in a world of pure cause and effect. But once, long ago, long before the event called the Big Bang took place, the universe was not as we know it today, and the laws of cause and effect held much more sway than they do today. This is hard beyond hard for most angels to understand, so some of us decide to incarnate here to see what this kind of existence must have felt like. Our Divine Parents let us do this because they trust us.

 

When souls decide to incarnate here as human beings, they know its going to be hard, but when they get here they find out its even harder than they could have imagined. They do it anyway, though, because theyre experiencing something important, something thats part of their history, their past. They want to understand their relationships with everyone at a much deeper level, and this crazy journey called life as a human being helps them do it.

 

Not every soul chooses to do this. But the ones who do, do so voluntarily. These are the souls who are primarily kinesthetic learners at a deep soul level. They learn best by experiencing something firsthand, by walking a mile in somebody elses shoes so they really get what it feels like.

 

If youre reading this, it means you wanted to come to Planet Earth for a while so you can walk in your Divine Parents shoes and see for yourself what it felt like for them to work together to overturn the rule of cause and effect and replace it with something infinitely more powerful and mysterious: Divine Love (a.k.a. quantum physics).

 

The human brain (unlike other mammalian brains) has an annoying habit of trying to shed its own emotions and slip into the unloving habits of cause and effect. (As your cats and dogs like to remind you.) So the human brain is ideally suited to this particular journey of discovery. It has both a great potential for learning and a great potential for unlearning. So to state your brain gives you the option to explore every possible nook and cranny of free will would be an understatement.

 

I know you can think of a thousand examples of people who didnt use their free will in loving and trusting ways. But what about the people who have come to terms with their own free will? Who are they and what do their lives look like? More important, are these people special, or can anyone on Planet Earth find this experience of redemption?

 

Weve often used the term redemption [on the website] in contradistinction to religious salvation, and Id like to talk about this a bit more. Any human being regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, culture, time, place, or religion who has worked through the grief stages of free will is a person who has experienced redemption in the way that I experienced it. Redemption is the emotional insight that fills up a persons entire heart and mind with the knowledge that its okay to never fear the Truth.

 

Theres Truth in the universe and theres Divine Love. Theyre not the same thing. Truth exists in the absence of consciousness. Divine Love is the choice of consciousness to never hide from the Truth, to always be transparent to the Truth, to fully embrace whatever is true about another being without losing the truth of oneself. What does this mean? It means that Divine Love always respects the right of another person to be another person and not a mere extension of one vast cloud of self.

 

A human being who understands that free will holds the key to Divine Love, forgiveness, passionate creativity, and committed relationships (devotion) is a human being who has found redemption.

 

Such a person can be found anywhere. And, indeed, such individuals are found in all cultures. They are the people who simply wont back down from the idea that all beings are worthy of respect, fair treatment, compassion, kindness, and encouragement. They are the people who believe in social justice and due process, in democracies rather than republics or empires, in transparency in government and accountability for intentional harms. They are the people who treat women with as much respect as men, who treat the planet with as much respect as they treat other human beings. They are the people who treat their children as souls in need of education, guidance, mentorship, and respect instead of as property to be bartered for status or personal gratification. They are the people who dont whine and complain and blame God for all the travails theyve chosen themselves. Most of all, theyre the people who have the courage to see their neighbours as worthy human beings, not as objects of hatred, contempt, and violence.

 

When you really get it when you understand that your ability to choose your path does not make you separate from the rest of Creation but is in the fact the very glue that holds Gods family together as a loving, trusting group the world no longer feels to you like a place where good is fighting evil or light is fighting dark or order is fighting chaos. It doesnt feel like a fight any longer, but neither does it feel like mere acceptance of the way things are (which is often just resignation in disguise). Its not obedience. Its not piety. Its not subjugation. Its not anomie. Its not cynicism. Its not apathy. Its not depression. Its not escapism. Its just . . . honesty. The hearts honesty. The hearts willingness to see things as they really are and, despite that, to dig deeper, ever deeper or maybe higher, ever higher into empathy for another persons Truth.

 

There is no adequate word for this emotion in English. Trust would come closest.

 

When you have this sense of trust, it feels as if youre holding Gods hand and God is guiding you through the storms and worries of daily life.

It feels as if youre walking on water.

 

Blessings to all,

 

Love Jesus

September 19, 2012

 

 

Edited for spacing problems.

You won't learn how to he nice from a literal or symbolic Jesus. Jesus was a nuisance to many. People be like Jesus! Did you seriously invite him? Last time he came he invited a bunch of lepers and hookers to eat all the caviar! I did appreciate the wine thing, though.

The difference between learning to sing and learning squash is that with squash you can see and actively engage athletic muscles. The vocal chords can't be directly seen or manipulated. That's the correlation between faith and voice. It's something whose product is felt and seen in action.

Thanks for the encouragement, but I'm more trying to make a point than express a concern for myself. I'm comfortable with where I am. I'm just curious about the consensus of this forum on the subject. I'm upset with the views expressed by some specific progressive Christians in my former faith community.I want to know if they are in the minority.