I M Perfect lady

In reading the Extoots.blogspot.com post today, I felt the two sides of leaving a very strict religion and the joy outside of it, how it is twofold, for you have to reconcile the beliefs you were raised in, while integrating yourself into what was preached as a sinful world; to go out and explore what it offers as well as engaging with folks outside of religion; to open up and trust yourself and them.

I love to read how others are managing the entry into the great big world and how it feels.

It wasn't that I was not out in the world, but it was my viewpoint of those outside of the religion, this deep seeded belief we were taught to believe, that arose in the face of anyone outside of the church.

They are pre-judged by the preachers…all put into one category, dumped into a depository labeled Worldly and Sin Full; people going to Hell.

What is so liberating and thrilling is to greet the world and let them show you who they are; to arrive empty waiting to receive what they have to offer…to sit with an open mind…to not feel their inevitable doom, but instead see them as fellow travelers on this journey called life…equal.

When you can see others as free spirits, you are seeing yourself in them.

You are free.

What a tragic crime so many religions preform, when they gather groups of people and toss them away…by filling our minds with beliefs we were too young to ward off.

Our invitation to the living in the world had so much of it off limits and filled with sin and evil…it was a fearful place to be.

And yet, at the same time, the church had this haven like description, while it preached against so much of life.  It didn't allow for most of living…what it wanted most was a crippled version of our selves.

Stunted and deformed.

When we do exit these cult like religions, it is like we get new eyes in which to see. Eyes that are not covered by the preachers words of sin.

Hard to wrap your brain around, unless you were raised with this mutilated view of the world.

What I love is the experiences that are written about the horrors of what we were taught, and then the delights to go out and explore and see what was labeled Evil is really Joy, Love and Peace…and that the Evil was in the church.

To watch the dawning and feeling their joy…the freedom that is hard won, the reward for leaving!  And I know, there is one less suffering soul…