I am not going to tread lightly here. I am going to stomp over feelings and mindsets and long-accepted ideas and traditional avenues of right and wrong. I am going to speak bluntly, transparently, from my heart. I am going to shed light on my perspective, illuminating the path that has driven me to my truth. I am going to smash the ceiling of religion. I don't ask you to agree, only to be respectful of my narrative.
~~~~~~~~~~
Growing up inside of a conservative home, inside of a conservative religion, smack dab in the midst of conservative country, led to some pretty conservative experiences. I played the game, never questioning the black and white truths being preached at me from every angle. I swallowed them down and regurgitated them on command. Do this, don't do that. This is right, that is wrong. Your aim is heaven, but it looks like we are all doomed to hell.
.
Disillusioned with this overly narrow road that my exceedingly wide thinking never seems to fit onto, I have chucked it all to the wind, more than once. Sometimes, I have abandoned it entirely, feeling lost in the futility of rules and standards that I cannot possibly meet. Other times, I have waited to see what sticks. And I am not disappointed by what remains, for it is always love. pure, undiluted love.
.
.
And love does not discriminate, or force change, or recite a long list of your shortcomings. It does not shun you for your differences, your uniqueness, or your opinions. It does not run an exclusive club filled only with those that have love boldly stamped on every utterance, on every street corner of their falsely positive lives. No, love has no list of club rules posted on a tiny ornate door, granting passage to but a few.
.
.
Love never had a door.
.
.
Love is a wide open wonderland, filled with any and all who wish to reside there. A home without walls and doors, where flaws are made strengths, where individuality is accepted and yet, all are as one seamlessly. It does not boast of its power, but flows quietly down the gutters to find the lost, the trampled, the forgotten, those struggling with the reality of both the good and the bad of their beautifully real lives. Love is a heaven that we can choose to walk in every single moment.
.
Religion tainted love to meet its own agenda, twisted it with rules meant to trip the unsuspecting, to fail the outcasts on some arbitrary test with ever changing questions and corrupted answers, to include or exclude based on their biased definitions of good or bad. Religion has effectively become its own god, serving its own needs, and becoming prosecutor, judge, and jury to the world.
.
Do I sound resentful? I am. I don't lie to myself, and I won't lie to you. I've had experiences with religion that were less than pleasant, that, at times, made life a hell to live in. Recently, I saw the movie Boy Erased. As I watched a scene where they beat one boy with their bibles, literally, my mind ran back to every time that I saw those upraised arms, that I figuratively felt the blows filled with condemnation and exclusion, crashing down with their judgment, again and again and again, using love as a loaded weapon, forcing a surrender with their unrelenting terms.
.
.
Religion tainted love to meet its own agenda, twisted it with rules meant to trip the unsuspecting, to fail the outcasts on some arbitrary test with ever changing questions and corrupted answers, to include or exclude based on their biased definitions of good or bad. Religion has effectively become its own god, serving its own needs, and becoming prosecutor, judge, and jury to the world.
.
Do I sound resentful? I am. I don't lie to myself, and I won't lie to you. I've had experiences with religion that were less than pleasant, that, at times, made life a hell to live in. Recently, I saw the movie Boy Erased. As I watched a scene where they beat one boy with their bibles, literally, my mind ran back to every time that I saw those upraised arms, that I figuratively felt the blows filled with condemnation and exclusion, crashing down with their judgment, again and again and again, using love as a loaded weapon, forcing a surrender with their unrelenting terms.
.
Submit and find mercy.
Change and be accepted.
Repent and be saved.
Obey and be loved.
.
That is not how Love talks to me. Love holds my very heart inside of Him. He engulfs me in His arms with such a simplistic notion that who I am is who He created me to be. I was made this way, for purposes beyond shouting my truth over yours, for touting my way over yours. I was born this way to live this way, unique and wild and different from you and yet, with you. Withness looks nothing like being the same and everything like walking our own paths, with love, with one another.
.
Love. it is the way.
.
That is not how Love talks to me. Love holds my very heart inside of Him. He engulfs me in His arms with such a simplistic notion that who I am is who He created me to be. I was made this way, for purposes beyond shouting my truth over yours, for touting my way over yours. I was born this way to live this way, unique and wild and different from you and yet, with you. Withness looks nothing like being the same and everything like walking our own paths, with love, with one another.
.
Love. it is the way.
Comments
Post a Comment