How it is.

As I sit here the day after Christmas I have come to the conclusion that Christmas and all it's trappings are better when you're a kid.  The best memories I have of Christmas have kids in them, either I'm the kid or it's my own kids, okay that's not totally accurate, one of the coolest Christmases I remember is our second Christmas.  We didn't have a regular tree in or apartment, instead Joyce taped a tree to the one wall made of paper, ribbon and ornaments. Simple times before life began it's inevitable trudge towards whatever this thing is now.

I want to say thanks to everyone who has been reading posts, and reaching out.  I know it may not seem like it but I do appreciate the effort.  I just want to make sure people understand a few things I guess. 

I grew up with a certain set of beliefs about God, Church, and Christianity.  Most people do so that's not really news to anyone.  We all come at the God question from whatever angle we are taught to view it.  If you come from an evangelical upbringing you answer the question, many times through very narrow windows of understanding.  You come to the Bible with a certain set of preconceived ideas as to what it really means and you are right and everyone else is wrong but that's not really exclusive to evangelical Christians, or any religion for that matter, we all take a we're right and you're wrong approach to religion.  What gets me is how we all are so positive that we are right and everyone else is wrong, usually based on our feelings, not based on anything more.  People read their faiths chosen texts and cherry pick what they like.  The gather together with other people just like them, that think and read said text the same way, they become a church and begin to make rules of inclusion and exclusion, usually based on their own ideas of what God meant when the holy book they read was written. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pantheist, nor am I Unitarian.  I happen to believe that Christianity is the one that has it right, what I refuse to believe in any more is christianity (small c on purpose.)  I am so very tired of platitudes, of we're right and you're wrong simply because, for whatever reason, we don't like or agree with or understand you. I'm done with artificial sanctification, the kind that comes through a membership class,or getting baptized the right way, tired of christians in general, myself included itching for a fight about worship music, or service style, or eschatology, or LGBTQ issues, tired of the idea that scripture is to be viewed through the lens of personal conviction and current experience as opposed to through the lens of context, and historical accuracy.  Tired of evangelicals giving the president a pass as the one that will stay the hand of the apocalypse bound to start in America because I mean lets face it we are the center of the universe.  Tired of liberals claiming the moral high ground, or the real understanding of scripture knowing the real truth. 

Most of all though I'm tired of myself.  Tired of trying to straddle both of those worlds, not feeling like either is a complete fit for my faith in God.  I am not as far as I can tell an evangelical, or mainline, or liberal, I just am. I have said for years that I am a Christ Follower as opposed to a christian, but even that is a bit of a struggle at times.  It's hard to follow in the steps of the one that got it right because, well lets face it, he was God of course he got it right.  It's hard to accept that in this journey I am supposed to be on I'm not ever going to be like the one I am trying so desperately to be like, and worse yet, when I try and lead people to be like him they may or may not accept that I have it right.  If they do, then I run the risk of yet another group of intolerant people putting qualifiers on what it means to have a faith of consequence. 

I have asked that people not tell me what I already know, not tell me Jesus has me in the palm of his hand, or that God is preparing me for something.  I have asked not to be given the Jesus Loves Me answer, simply because I know those answers, have said them to  myself and others, and don't really need reminded of them, what is equally off-putting and makes me realize how far we have to go if we really do want to effect the world the way we were told to is the complete lack of respect for this request that I have seen evidenced...

Growing up one of the things that I was told on a regular basis was Jesus was a gentleman, that he would never force himself onto anyone, the idea that we were all given a free will to choose was drilled into us, but there was always a catch...Jesus was a gentleman as long as we realized that the way our church said was how Jesus worked, and we were given a free will to choose the Jesus that was the one our church or denomination liked to follow, the one that affirmed their understanding of Old Testament scripture etc.  That was the qualifier to Jesus being a Gentleman, he was as long as we understood that the only Jesus that mattered was the one taught by our church...our denomination and this Jesus may or may not have been the  Jesus that walked the earth with 12 guys and a few women over 2000 years or so ago give or take.  Why we think we can be the gatekeepers to a relationship with God is anathema to me but we all do it, and in doing so we turn away whosoevers by the bucket load.  Jesus consistently called religious leaders to task for making it impossible for people to know God and yet religious leaders today keep setting the bar higher and higher for what constitutes a true believer. 

Recently I have had people tell me that I'm not like any pastor they have ever seen, they have said I can talk to you, if you were my pastor or if you had been my pastor I think I would have stayed in church, with that in mind I posit this question....if you are in the Baltimore area...would you and yours be interested in being a part of Baltimore's un-Church.  The place that people who want to explore their faith, do what the Bible talks about.  Hanging out together, having all things in common, taking care of people who can't take care of themselves, doing good, talking not so much about the God we serve and the rules to get to him, but the struggle to become more like the one that God sent to show us how to live and move and have our being in him?

I am posting this to two different Facebook accounts...opening the Pastor Aaron Facebook back up, it's been rather dormant for the past 10 weeks but I think it may be time to explore what it looks like to do something that looks different and hopefully fresh, that reaches to all the rest of the Un's...

Struggle

...Funny how those three little dots can have so much meaning.  For me they evidence my thoughts on life, God, Church, fill in the blanks.

It's been a little over 8 weeks, I have been told I need to get over it, that I choose where I am, that depression is not of God.. that "the enemy" is attacking...bla bla bla, dot. dot. dot.

For the record. I used to say the same things, I used to think that God was intimately involved in the daily life of the people he created, the people that follow him, that when we read he orders our steps, it actually means there's a plan and path that is set out for us and all we have to do is "read the map" the map being the Bible.

More and more I am leaning more toward a deist view of God.  God exists, don't get me wrong, but I am increasingly coming to the conclusion, at least for me personally we are set down into this world and then he kinda walks away...things like the Big Bang theory shouldn't be seen as a lack of belief in God, rather as God creating through word, deed, volition, and then watching to see what happens. Feelings of being called may come from God or they may come from the fact that we are created in the image of God and as such find our worth in doing something beyond our own human capacity for survival and the pursuit of happiness.   The degree to which we "tap into" the image we were created in then determines the vocation we choose.

I am fully aware that the above paragraph is going to further alienate me from the people I grew up with.  I understand that for many of them as it was for me, this need to have God involved in an intimate level with their activities of daily living is life and breath and faith to them.  If at any moment they begin to doubt, to question, to wonder, they look for and find a space, usually their church or small group, or family members that will offer the encouragement that lets them quickly slip back into the Jesus Loves me this I know type of faith that is so much easier to live in, but for me at least has become hollow and meaningless.  We choose the call, we choose the work, we choose the fight, or we don't.  God watches, God sends the butterfly to flap it's wings at times, but ultimately it falls to us to do what it takes to fulfill the calling we FEEL is placed on our lives.

Which brings me to where I am now..

There's a much better song that fits where I am but sometimes we realize that it's better to edit...

As it stands now I have been gone from the Church for two and a half months, it has not gotten better, I have not gotten better.  People talk about being dead inside, and while there have been times in my life where I have understood this feeling to some extent, I am not sure I have ever lived in it as much as or as acutely as I am at this point. I am so angry at the people involved but no where near as angry as I am at myself. We gave a lot, and before you say but Jesus gave more please don't this is not news to me.

We are hurting, I am hurting, we are not going to see family because the leadership of both the church and conference decided that they didn't need to help though a very trying time financially.  Yes I am working but Joyce had to take 8 weeks off for surgery.  Oh well deal with it, seems to be the take away. I have never hated anyone in my life, yet that is where I find myself, hating others, hating myself, angry at God beyond imagining, and still so many people want to tell me that God cares, that God sees, that God knows that God is ordering our path and steps, to which I reply...then God can stop doing so.  God can go spend time with someone else for a while.

If anything this has not served as a push me to my knees time as much as it has to a push me away because of all the times I have fallen to my knees the Heavens have rung hollow.  People will point out when Joyce was ill...I would point out there was no reason for it, people will say but she survived cancer, to which I say she never should have had to deal with Cancer.  I know that's silly, I know all the answers but for me I yes I can't do it any more.  I can't listen to God cares platitudes, I can' hear you the evangelical right wing christian friend from my past tell me again that I must have done something or that the trying of my faith works patience, or that God has something on the other side that is huge and important and wait to see what he does.

I don't want God to do anything else...

Merry Christmas.