7 years ago, when I started seminary, I was SO MAD at Jesus, I didn’t even want to relate to him. When we were asked to spiritually work with him, learn from him, ask him to assist us, etc – I worked with someone else on the spiritual level, because on a deep level, I really didn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus.
(I should say that within a year or so, that had completely changed. It took some investment in our relationship, and allowing God to heal me in a myriad of ways, but I am grateful to report that for a long time now, I have an ever-deepening, respectful, playful & loving relationship with Jesus, and we work Really well together!! I can’t say enough about how amazing he is ; )
But, back then, for many years, I was very mad at Jesus. And, worse, the reasons I was angry had absolutely nothing to do with him. It was all to do with my relationship to Jesus’ followers... Christians.
I couldn’t stand how ‘Christians’ were (in many public ways) behaving in the world, and I blamed Jesus.
More importantly, I was really hurt and angry about how I had been treated by many Christians, and I blamed Jesus.
Since my late teens, I did my best to follow where God led me. God led me to do and be and believe in many ways that are generally unpopular for Christians. So I ‘took a lot of c%^;*p’ from Christians. I gave some back, too ; )
• Part of this was just my path, I had to follow my path, and it was off the ‘beaten-track’. I had to be willing to do God’s will, whether it was popular or unpopular, whether it was in alignment with what I, and Christians in general, thought I ‘Should Be,' or not.
• Part of this was, I had to be re-trained. There are things that most Christians just know to be true: certain ways of speaking, being, understanding spirituality, God and the bible, relating to the world, etc. In the United States there is a generally Christian way-of-being. It has different flavors and variations, but although we fight like the siblings we are, we hold most things in a common ‘world-view’ in the Christian family. God pulled me apart from the 'herd' so I could get un-habituated to this Christian world-view and way-of-being. So I could see the habits more clearly. And mostly so I could drop them, un-habituate from Christianity, and instead habituate to following my unique path in God.
• Part of this was, I had to let go of being validated by Christians. I had to learn to be inner-directed, not outer-directed. I had to learn to listen and follow the ways of God and not be compulsively trying to fit-in, or obsessively needing validation from Christians. I had to learn to let their rejection and judgment pass through my space without “taking me off my game.” I had to learn to let my joy be full, ‘outside the camp.’
Through all this I made ‘friends’ and ‘enemies.’ I have ‘fixed’ and ‘broken’ (repeat) relationships and structures – both inside and outside the Christian 'camp'. Mostly, it has been the experience of going through amazing and endless cycles of feeling ‘fixed’ and ‘broken’ – sometimes both at the same time! All this was often hard and painful, although the fruit is very sweet. And of course this all is still in progress... I'm Not ‘baked’ yet, not nearly!
Meanwhile, after decades of being chased from the Christian 'camp' by God, and feeling like a square peg in a round hole (at best) with many Christians, there is a sea-change happening. I feel drawn back deeper into the Christian 'camp'.
I don’t know for how long? I don’t know how it will go? I am excited and afraid, hopeful and cautious. I guess no matter what, it will be a learning/growing experience!
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responding to someone about hate and God:
ReplyDelete1) Oh yeah! I have hate, and I have hate for God in my system. ~Everyone does, from my perspective.
For years, God has been helping me to consciously clear these energies, and to assist others with this as well.
I have seen more in myself than I have in most others who are willing to be seen and willing to let it go, but I believe ~all of us on the earth have this energy in our systems, to one degree or another.
Anyway, I see it as heavy, black tar – it couldn’t be more opposite than the ‘Light’
Sometimes it has the flavor of doubt energy
Often it has the flavor of hate energy
Many times, I can’t give it a ‘normal’ name, it is just anti-God energy.
Evil would be the obvious word, but there is so much ‘baggage’ around that word, it makes the flavor wrong.
Jesus spoke about the “outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – there is an Active quality Jesus gives to this darkness that isn’t quite what I see. Although I notice the blackness brings, holds, stores energy which could easily be seen and summed up by ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ I believe it is highly probable that he is naming what I am seeing. But again, after 2,000 years there is so much ‘baggage’ around that phrase, I can’t use it and be understood.
I will just say the black tar I see is truly Darkness, as opposed to Light.
And of course, in a higher perspective, all is in God’s domain: (Isaiah 45:7) Forming light, and preparing darkness, Making peace, and preparing evil, I am Jehovah, doing all these things.
But in this reality, playground earth, land of dichotomies, Darkness is against Light, in all the world and in ~each of us.
This is the long way to say, I agree with you, from what I see, there are parts of ~all of us which are actively against God.
My experience is: owning that takes us a good deal of the way toward allowing God to cleanse it from our system…
2) I own that I was very angry with and hating Jesus. And as God and Jesus and other spiritual helpers assisted me to heal that, I saw that the reasons I had, were primarily about Christian behavior.
Now, in present time, when I tune into it, I see I have some hate in my relationship with Jesus, it is a small fraction of what it used to be. It looks like it comes primarily from some competition with him, and resentment. He tells me I am in process with that, and not to worry about it. Ahhh, so I won’t. My plate feels so full right now ; )