I have never been one to toe the party line.  I was a good obedient child on the outside.  There were times when I was echoing many who went before who thought ‘I’m sitting down on the outside but I’m standing up on the inside’.  I rebelled in my mind.  I would sit in one of my religion classes and scream “NO!” in my mind to what the professor was saying.  He wasn’t necessarily wrong, he just refused to accept any other belief system than his own.  My favorite religion professor relished a good debate.  He wanted you to make a case for what you believed.  He didn’t have to believe it, you did.

In my journey, I have seen too many people try to “prove” God or the Bible.  Prove as in a mathematical proof.  Define God in 4 easy steps.  I can prove the Bible is an accurate historical document in 7 easy lessons. The thing about a matter of faith is that you can’t prove it.  Faith is accepting that a given thing or object or person or belief is true without any proof.  There is this guy who can “prove” that the Grand Canyon was formed in about 4 months in the aftermath of Noah’s Flood. Why try to prove a book of faith stories is an accurate historical accounting of anything?  We don’t argue that Aesop’s fairy tales are true, yet they hold a great deal of truth in them.

I digress, again.  I have no problem with people of Faith who are genuine and willing to admit they don’t know, but they still have faith.  I am at the point where I want to KNOW.  I have had faith and saw all my cherished beliefs crushed in an instant.  You are correct to say that my faith wasn’t strong enough.  I read my Bible religiously and encouraged others to do the same.  I was reading the Book of Common Prayer.  I read My Utmost for His Highest so many times, the cover came off.  I read C. S. Lewis and Philip Yancy and Brian McLaren and Bill Hybels and so many more.  Yet at the moment of my greatest need, God seemed to have vanished.

What happened?  I don’t know, but the teeny tiny little bitty God of my experience didn’t matter.  He wasn’t big enough.  Or I was too hurt and angry and just plain pissed off enough to see Him or hear Him or care about Him.  I know that those are fighting words to many.  Don’t try to make excuses for God.  If He created the Universe, he don’t need you to fight His fights.  What I did come to see is that the teeny tiny god I had been told about and taught about and studied was no god I needed.  I need a great big God\Goddess\Supreme Being who refuses to allow Him\Her\Itself to be scrunched down to fit humanities idea about what kind of Orderer of the Universe they are comfortable with.  I don’t necessarily want a kindly meek just believe because someone thought they heard me tell them this is the way to believe god.

Yeah, I’m using a small “g” because that kind of God deserves a little “g”.  The Supreme Being of the Universes won’t get mad because I am looking for a genuine expression of who\what\why\when\where the Almighty is.  You mad yet?  Well, you ought to be.  We have been taught in our American Protestant Churches that “we” have the corner on truth and only a “Biblical” worldview will right the ship.  BUT, only if your idea of a Biblical worldview meshes with mine.

Sorry for that outburst, I kinda lost my focus and had to breathe for a minute to get myself calmed down.

Now that I’m mostly calm again, relatively speaking, I will proceed.  What do drinking to excess and theology have in common.  Simple, too much booze and too much theology make you say things and do things you either won’t remember or will regret in the morning.  I am tired of all the nastiness being spouted in the name of “Christ”.  A being who cared enough to inhabit a human form and die on our behalf wouldn’t have a problem with same sex marriage or abortion.  He would have trouble with people who call themselves by His Name saying disgusting things about the very people He died for.

I will muse about a lot of things spiritual.  I will make you mad.  I will ban you for making hateful comments.  I will encourage you to ask thoughtful questions.  I will not accept “Because it says so in the Bible!”  No, it doesn’t.  I probably don’t believe what you believe and I will respect your right to believe, as long as you respect my right to not believe.

An unused mind is a waste.