I M Perfect lady

Category: FALC

  • When unaware…

    Here is another section that I found interesting….from "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" by Alice Miller. 

    "In "The Aetiology of Hysteria" Freud is struggling with this resistance on the part of the public. He knows that he has hit upon a truth that concerns everyone, i.e., the consequences of childhood trauma for later life (which is not to be equated with causal determinism), and at the same time he knows that the overwhelming majority of people will oppose him precisely because he is telling the truth."

    " The content of Freud's discoveries can be so widely denied because most people ignore their unconscious, all the more so if they are dominated by it in some fateful way. After all, we all have a per-feet right to consider our dreams insignificant and to dey the existence of our unconscious.  This gives rise to the paradoxical situation in which the newspaper readers described above can react to even the most bizarre human behavior without amazement and are willing to accept the most absurd reasans given for this behavior without any sign of emotion as long as they personally are left out of the picture. Yet they will react with anger, scorn if someone points out the unconscious motives for the incomprehensible behavior, for if they took these explanations seriously, the complicated defense mechanisms so essential to them would be threatened." Alice.

    The truth being so widely denied comes from the unconsciousness that people ignore. And, it is the unconscious of the unconscious that is threatened.

    I know this is confusing, but it is equally frustrating to be faced with. That it isn't my truth that is hard to face, but your unconsciousness you are not aware of and at the same time IT is from where you are making your choices in life.

    It is not about what I am saying so much as what you are defending.  

    Which boils down to you are defending that which is unconscious to you.

    And, it has nothing to do with me and my truths, so much as it has to do with what you are unaware of, but are defending.

    As long as I didn't come near your personal unconsciousness I can be heard…and understood, but if I am hitting too close to home, I will be shut out and disbelieved.

    This is true in my experience.  The truth of what I have to say isn't what pushes people back, but their fear to see that which is unconsious to them…the unknown known that is reflected in their lives.  

    What I have come to see is that even if you can't know…and are unconscious of, your life is reflective of this unconsciousness. For it is the unconscious that is living you life.

    It can't be any plainer for you are living the unconsciousness…while unaware of the why.

    When you find the why, you can start living consciously.

    Again, in my experience it was plainly clear that I didn't know what I didn't know…otherwise, I would have been making clearer decisions.

    I would not have been with my abusers, had I known.

    And, once you know, you can't not know.

    I am not popular in my speaking, not for what I am saying; but rather for where the others are in their level of consciousness. 

    It isn't so much about the truth…but what lies unconscious with in you.

    It is my passion and my desire to find all morsels of unconsciousness for I know the damage they can cause, when unaware.

     

     

  • The Baseline for how we live.

    In Alice Miller's book, "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" she writes about groups and our need to belong. 

    "How can it be explained psychologically that the same person who exhibits so much acumen and critical judgment concerning his enemies at the same time retains a touching, childlike loyalty and submissiveness vis-a-vis the dictates of his own group? Anyone who knows what it means to belong to a group knows how critical this membership can sometimes seem. Even a brief contact with a group can give one of feeling of maternal warmth, of a good symbiosis with the mother, never experienced before, which makes on feel secure yet at the same time free and comfortable to express oneself satisfactorily. This is how it actually would have been had there been a good symbiosis with the mother. But since a group is only a substitute, the search for what is missing can never stop. In order for this to happen, a process of mourning would have to take place. Every form of addiction, instead of doing away with the old longing, simply perpetuates the tragedy by repeating it. A glass of whiskey or a cigarette that can be held in the hand, set aside when not needed, and immediately reached for when needed, establishes the comfortable feeling that an available mother can give. Since the real mother was not available, however (or the child would not have become addicted as an adult), the child was not permitted to experience either a good symbiosis or a liberating separation and remains dependent for the rest of his life on the image of an ideal mother he wishes for but never had. the addictive substance thus provides not only a feeling of comfort but also the torments of dependency."

    "When a group takes over this ersatz role, although it gives the illusion of being an ideal mother, it mercilessly requires the same adaptation to its demands that the real mother once did. Since the origins of this situation reach back to the early beginnings of life, a person will have a hard time recognizing his predicament."
                                                                                                                    Alice

    What Alice Miller does in her writings, are to show the whys of our behaviors and that we don't just do things without a cause.  We are literally seeking that which we missed and are often blind to what is missing…while seeking it.

    Like craving something, not knowing what it is, but finding its substitute and believing you found it.

    Her depiction of what happens when a mother and child relationship is incorrect and what it means in the choices we make, is remarkable.  It is the baseline for how we live.

     

  • I had denied Me.

    In a comment on the Extoots blog post about Labels and the ensuing discussion about being judged by them, a comment struck me.  "If it isn't being said, then it doesn't exist."

    This technique is literally the blueprint of denial;  and the co-operation it takes to keep it in motion.  

    Denial isn't played alone, you need two people to not say what is happening.  Two people to not address and delve deeply into what is not being said, but what you both know is present…

    Two, who know something isn't right, but neither wants to know know know it exists.

    And unspoken agreement to not know.

    In our family arrangement of denial, you can't have one spouting off what isn't talked about and continue in the usual relationships.  

    The ones who don't want to say it exists and then have to consider the consequences that it would require; back up and talk less and less to you.  It isn't about you, but about what they don't want to know exists.

    I lived in this land for 46 years, where it was almost near impossible to say what wasn't being said…to the point considering talking about it, never was an option.

    And, I am not talking about abuse, but just things you know about another, but never bring up.  Or the way you feel about another, but not say.  Instead you agree to not talk about the differences, in order to get along.

    The church also uses this same co-operative denial, in the application of forgiveness of sins. Where we are not to bring up the sin…so if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.

    Now, if this is how we were raised in general, then it makes it rougher to talk about the abuse; to break the silence…to no longer co-operate in denial.

    My family doesn't know how to talk to me…for I don't play their game of silence.

    However, they talk about the unspoken, but just not to the person they have the trouble with.  Or at least this is how it used to be when I was part of the family.  You don't tell the truth to the one you are with; but about the one who isn't there.  

    How often do you hear, "I would never tell it to their face…"?

    I know there are more agreed denial relationships than ones who leave nothing left unsaid.

    I had a tough time, leaving denial.  I had to work hard to say what needed to be said and to feel the fear and say it anyway.  To speak of the unspeakable and live from there, and not placate myself and others by not being uncomfortable.  

    I had tons of uncomfortable unsaid things; for I had a built a life upon what wasn't said. And, in the end, we all know how that turned out. 

    It was what wasn't said that was the truth.

    My fear of my father…unsaid.

    My questioning the religion…unsaid.

    My absence of warm feelings towards my mother…unsaid.

    If you look at who I was compared to what I said.  I lived as the unsaid me, which was false.  The real me, that I left unsaid, was too afraid of what wasn't spoken…

    And, rightly so.

    When I started to speak from the 'unsaid' side, I was speaking my truth and I started to exist along side of it.

    How interesting is that.

    In the land of unspoken, the real me ceased to exist as well.

    What frightened me the most, was that I knew my first 46 years were built upon nothing…and I had no idea of who I really was.

    I had denied Me.

    IMG_4906

    Quilt owned by Northern Lights Clubhouse.

     

     

     

  • Discarding the lives of children

    The only way abuse wins, is if we accept the disgrace.

    The stigma of being sexually abused comes from the way others look at you….and can only be overcome when you look at yourself differently.  Changing their minds will not help with how you feel.  And is an impossible task.

    It is, as the wise men say, an inside job. Love, peace and joy come from within.  It isn't about how others see you, but how you see you.

    I don't see myself as a disgrace. 

    I do see though, how the stigma of abuse is created and upheld, and it isn't by strangers or folks who don't know.  Just as abuse is most often with family members or people we know, so is our stigma.

    One man's disgrace is another's man's hero.

    Interestingly, I have felt both. 

    Accolades for speaking out and sharing my journey…and disgrace.

    You would think, that my family, would be the one handing out the accolades…that my biggest cheerleaders would be from those who knew me best. Instead, it is the opposite.

    The environment within dysfuctional families leave little room for healing…okay, no room.

    I knew there wasn't a spot I could stand upon where they would see my innocence…the lens upon me always had me being the problem.

    The only way back in, is to give up my innocence and give it to my parents.

    The cost in doing so would be my sanity.

    I see this phenomena of holding the parents in the highest regards as the biggest obstacle in eliminating or reducing the stigma of abuse.

    When will we begin to see the numbers of abusers, that they equal or surpass the number of the abused, for each of us or most have two parents in the mix.  The stigma will be carried by the children until we turn our gaze upward towards those who started this…and those who knew and did nothing. Reported nothing… 

    In my family home, a father abused. A mother knew and was unable to respond in a healthy way. Uncles were abusive. Neighbors were abusive.  And, the children were taught, "not to go to that house" and yet the abuse flourished.

    Never were the adults in these homes held accountable.

    Never did they wear the cloak of disgrace for allowing or being abusive.

    They continue to wear "Good Christian" or at least Christian….labels.

    Parents are taken care of, included, believed, loved…understood, defended…no matter what. And, who is looking at the abused child?  Who is caring for their wounds?  Who is turning away from the parents…the adults who are acting disgraceful?

    We all participate in helping the stigma, each time we defend or stand with excuses ready for the abusers.  Each time you turn your gaze away from the child you are part of the problem.  You are sentencing a child into disgrace.

    We are the problem.

    Stigma is created by those looking on.  Not by those who have been abused.

    We don't manufacture disgrace…we are subjected to it.

    It is as Alice Miller writes about…the biggest problem when we are taught that good children "Love and Honor thy parents…"  Without first seeing if they are deserving.

    This blanket of love and honor they sleep under no matter what, is the wall that keep innocent children out.  

    Where is the innocent blanket for the child?  When do they get that….? Oh, I know, when you become a parent, all your sins and abusive behavior will be hidden behind this veil. 

    The church, society and we all….believe in the sanctity of parents…while discarding the lives of children.

     

     

     

  • How much have you changed?

    There is a cost for being a Leader for Change within dysfunctional families; it typically means you lose your place in the family.  You will no longer be part of it, except to be on the outside.

    Changes within families require you to go against your elders as well as family members, where the sentiment that "we are family no matter what" is destroyed.

    It is to wreck all the typical safety nests…and to break the silence of compliance…to become the one who dares to question actions, words and motives…to not accept "they did the best they could".

    To be the Leader for Change, you will have to see their short comings and make corrections NoT in their life, but in your own.

    To see where their actions led and to course correct so you are not party to dysfunction continuing on.

    A leader for Change is showing in words and deeds that they will not perpetuate the flow of dysfunction as usual; they will do the opposite and be shunned for it.

    Leaders for Change will face persecution and criticism and be hated and hollered at, lied about…they will take the brunt of the family's derision; more so than the perpetrator of the abuse and his accomplice.  Leaders for Change who dare to follow the choice to change, will suffer most from their family.

    What makes this journey particularly hard is this alone.  You knowingly do what is against the family's unwritten rules of cohesiveness….you pull and tear apart actions and words to carry the truth forward.

    Leaders for Change will see the truth where others don't…and will live it, and not just make it an exercise of the mind; but a way of life.

    Leaders for Change are for those who have been victimized by the old system…and not see it as being a victim or a survivor, but that they can literally live to change the whole system…by being the change they want to see in the world.

    Leaders for change will be a different mother, daughter, friend….

    Leaders for change will do what their parents were unable to do.

    Leaders for change will be FOR change and not just accept that abuse happened and life goes on….to forgive and forget, to find the positive among the garbage, but instead find how the garbage became this way and then do different.

    I am hopeful that each family has Leaders for Change…and that we can slowly see the numbers begin to drop…so that the percentages of abuse no longer happens within families.

    How can people not hear that.  That it is the way these families live and how they are silent or compliant that promotes abuse to thrive….that it is not the laws of the land or even the insane preachings of the churches that is the biggest advocate for abuse; but the family units themselves.

    Each individual within the dysfunctional family carries the burden or the virus of abuse. They will carry it forward, unless they are the Leader for Change.

    It is the families that slowly slip back into the sameness after abuse who are the ones contributing to abuse.  If you didn't change…abuse is still your friend.

    The treatment that I have gotten, the way folks look at me IS how they should be looking at abuse…instead, they see me as delivering evil…while evil is literally destroying these families…from the inside out.

    One child at a time….for generations.  

    When the evil doers are treated like I have been, then abuse will begin the downward spiral…until then, abuse flourishes while they direct all their anger and rage at me, a Leader for Change.

    You are either with it or against it.  Change will be the indicator….how much have you changed?  (and, is it enough to stop abuse?)

  • In a Heaven Someday.

    On Sunday Morning, why not one more section I love from "Velvet Elvis", by Rob Bell. 

    "In the accounts of Jesus's life, often the larger the crowds get, the more demanding and difficult his teachings get. In John 6 he gives a teaching that is so hard to swallow, everybody but a few leave him.  He is constantly trying to find out who really wants it. And so he keeps pushing and prodding and questioning and putting it out there until some leave and the diehards stay. We never find him chasing after someone, trying to convince them that he really wasn't that serious, that it was just a figure of speech.  He didn't really mean to sell your possessions and give to the poor.  If anybody didn't have a Messiah complex, it was Jesus."

    "This is what we are dying for – something that demands we step up and become better, more focused people. Something that calls out our greatness that we hope is somwhere inside of us."

    "Not only is the way narrow, but it involves suffering. To truly engage with how the world is, our hearts are going to be broken again and again.  Just this past week, I met a woman who is terrified her husband is going to beat her, and another woman who has a degenerative muscle disease that is causing her face to freeze up, and I can think of at least five couples who are splitting up, and…you get the picture. It is your world too. And so we are learning how to suffer well. Not to avoid it but to feel the full force of it. It is important that churches acknowledge suffering and engage it – never, ever presenting the picture that if you follow Jesus, your problems will go away. Following Jesus may bring on problems you never imagined."

    "Suffering is a place where cliches don't work and words often fail.  I was at lunch last week with a friend who is in the middle of some difficult days, and I don't have any answers. I just don't. I can't fix it for him. I've tried. And we sat there and talked and ate, and I let him know that I'm in it with him. It isn't very pretty and it isn't very fun, but when we join each other in the pain and confusion, God is there. Sometimes it means we sit in silence for awhile, not knowing what to say. And it is in our suffering together that we find out we are not alone. We find out who really loves us. We find out that with these people around us, we can make it through anything. And that gives us something to celebrate."

    "Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all need – hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it. I am learning that the church has nothing to say to the world until it throws better parties. By this I don't necessarily mean balloons and confetti and clowns who paint faces. I mean backyards and basements and porches.  it is in the flow of real life, in the places we live and move with the people we're on the journey with, that we are reminded it is God's world and we're going to be okay."

    "Central to reclaiming creation and being a resurrection community is the affirmation that when God made the world, God said it was "good."

    "And it still is."

    "Food and music and art and friends and stories and rivers and lakes and oceans and laughter…did I mention food?  God has given us life, and God's desire is that we live it. It is the job of the church to lead the world in affirming and, more important, enjoying the goodness of creation. We are not going somewhere else at the end of time, because this world is our home. And our home is good."

    "One of the most tragic things ever to happen to the gospel was the emergence of the message that Jesus takes us somewhere else if we believe in him. The Bible ends with God coming here.  God, in the midst of all the people who can imagine nothing better, celebrating life that we all share. The images that Jesus used were of banquets and feasts and celebrations. What do we do at parties such as these? We eat and talk and dance and enjoy each other above all else, we take our time. What does Jesus do almost as much as he teaches and heals?  He eats long meals. As Christians, it is our duty to master the art of the long meal."

    "If you find yourself wanting to take me less seriously, let me ask a question: What was the ritual the first Christians observed with the most frequency? Exactly. The common meal, also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. And what did this meal consist of? Hours of talking and sharing and enjoying each other's presence. Food is the basis of life, it comes from the earth, and the earth is God's.  In a Jewish home in Jesus's day – and even now- the table is seen as an alter. It's holy. Time spent around the table with each other is time spent with God."

    "My wife and I threw a party last summer and we called it "An Epic Celebration of All That Is Good." We had a band playing in the backyard and food everywhere, a DJ set up in the living room, all the furniture pushed against the walls, and there were cars up and down the street – and it was just the best. And what was the occasion for the party?  I was hoping you'd ask. There wasn't one.  That's the best reason you can have.  Relax. Slow down. Quit having a purpose for everything. Eat more slowly and enjoy it more. Ask people how they are doing – and mean it. Take more walks. You will get more done anyway."  Rob Bell

    I love how the churches will have to start meeting us where we live and not keep selling us the ticket out of here….for it annihilates us and our suffering, it negates our living here and now.  

    In my experience God was found in my suffering as well as love…it was there I found out who was who…who was for me and who was not.  

    Today I will be with God as I create, eat and just be me.

    Rob Bell makes God make sense in a way that the churches never did….he truly is bringing him into this world and not keeping him in a heaven someday. 

     

     

     

  • Spreading Hell on Earth.

    As odd as it seems to me, I once again will quote about God and Jesus from "Velvet Elvis".  I had give up these two names due to the way they were depicted in my old church…and now they have come back again with a very new and different approach, one that matches my experiences of God.

    "Two Realms"

    "Now if there is a life of heaven, and we can choose it, then there's also another way.  A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live.  The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth."

    "For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is the continuation of the kinds of choices we make here and now."

    "For Jesus, the question wasn't "How do I get into heaven?" but "How do I bring heaven here?" The question wasn't, "How do I get in there?" but "How do I get there here?"

    "I was in Rwanda two years ago doing research on the AIDS crisis.  It had been almost ten years since the massacre of 1994 when over 800,000 Rwandans were killed by their fellow countrymen. Yet driving down the street, we passed person after person missing an arm or leg.  Children woh had been struck with a sword were now high school students walking along with a crutch or sitting in a wheelchair."

    "If you do any reading on what happened in Rwanda, the word that you'll read most often used to describe it is hell."

    "A hell on earth."

    "When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter – they are all hell on earth."

    "Jesus's desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth."

    "What's disturbing then is when people talk more about hell after life than do about hell here and now.  As a Christian, I want to dow aht I can to resist hell coming to earth. Poverty, injustice, suffering – they are all hells on earth, and as Christians we oppose them with all our energies.  Jesus told us to."

    "Jesus tells a parable about the kind of people who will live with God forever.  It is a story of judgment, of God evaluating the kinds of lives people have lived. First he deals with the "righteous" who gave food to the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner. These are the kind of people who spend forever with God.  Jesus measures their eternal standing in terms of not what they said or believed but how they lived, specifically in regard to the hell around them."

    "The judge then condemns a group of people because they didn't take care of the needy and naked and hurting in their midst. They chose hell instead of heaven, and God gives them what they wanted."

    "For Jesus, this new kind of life in him is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place, here and now.  The goal for Jesus isn't to get into heaven.  The goal is to get heaven here."

    "Jesus tells of another story about a rich man and a beggar who lies outside the rich man's gates. the rich man dies and goes to hell, while the beggar dies and goes to "Abraham's side," a Jewish way of describing heaven.  This is the one story Jesus tells in which somebody is actually in hell after they have lived.  What is the reason? According to the details of the story, the rich man refused to be generous with the poor man, letting him live a hell on earth right outside of his front door."

    ….and he goes on to give more examples of bringing heaven to earth or bringing hell. 

    "True sprituallity then is not about escaping this world to some other place where we will be forever. A Christian is not someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that comes to earth."

    "The goal isn't escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to.And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work."  Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis.

    What I agree with is that we are either bringing Hell on Earth or we are bringing Heaven to Earth…by the way we live our lives.  

    It is pretty basic and simple; your actions will either side with hellish actions, hellish behavior and Hell or not.  

    Some how the christians believe that if they can make hell on earth seem kind and forgiving, that is good. That if you can find the kindness, regardless of the hell bringing behavior…you are a better christian and human.  That calling Hell, Hell isn't nice or christian like.  I love where Rob Bell notes that God would describe hell as hell and not heaven.

    This author's writing about the bible make the bible make sense, or perhaps the meaning of God and Love…and even shines a light upon how the religions missed their mark, when they focused on escaping this world to find heaven elsewhere.

    What does it mean in your life to bring Heaven to Earth?  How is this accomplished?What are the feelings of heaven?  Is it possible to not know the difference, IF all you have ever lived is in one place…mainly hell? 

    What is so amazing to me, is that if you don't have the correct perspective on your life, and you are in the position of preacher, you can literally be preaching on how to bring Hell on earth.  And, subsequently, if you are a parent whose actions depict hell, you will teach your children to create more hell on earth.

    This is the only explanation for dysfunctional families….spreading hell on earth. And, the only way to heal or remedy this, is to do the opposite.

     

  • Didn’t Value Me.

    Rob Bell is an author, who is reflecting my experiences with the juxtaposition between being a God created wonderful intricate moving living breathing piece of Art, and then what my church and parents believed about me.

    The space between is wide and expansive, the differences are too huge to even comprehend.

    My old self, the one of the church's teachings was that I was wretched and a sinner. My parents actions shown me I wasn't worthy. Hence, my self- image grew from my parent's eyes and in the eyes of the church…they matched each other.

    After leaving the church and family, I began to search for who I was…already knowing to the depth of my being, who they thought I was, but was this true?  I knew that their idea or view of me wasn't correct in how it matched reality; for I wasn't the one who created the family of dysfunction, at least not in my family of origin, however, I had taken their model and began to recreate it in my home.  

    My unworthy feelings about myself….were being passed on to my children. 

    I began to question everything; me, my church, my family, my mothering….nothing was beyond my reach.  Everthing was torn apart to find its goodness.  And I pretty much came up empty.  I had to start from scratch, rebuilding, relearning and reteaching and redoing….in order to not replicate unworthiness.

    The book, Velvet Elvis understands my total transformation….from old to a new me…he is able to show how the religions are upside down.

    Rob Bell is flipping the church on its head.

    Taking the model of christian and showing its flaws and the way it isn't right with God in how He sees us.

    Here is a part that struck me from the "Velvet Elvis".

    "These first Christians kept insisting that something so transformational was happening in the lives of followers of Jesus that they could refer to their old lives as "the life (we) once lived."

    "It is not that we are perfect now or that we will never have to struggle. Or that the old person won't come bcd from time to time. It's that this new way of life involves a constant, conscious decision to keep dying to the old so that we can live in the now."

    "Paul describes it as Christ being our lives."

    "Paul go so far as to insist in another letter that if we are having this new kind of transforming experience with Christ in which we are taking on a new identity, we are literally now a "new creation".

    "I am being remade."

    "I am not who I was."

    "I am a new creation."

    "I am "in Christ."

    "When God looks at me, God sees Christ, because I'm "in" him.

    "God's view of me is Christ."

    "And Christ is perfect."

    "This is why Paul goes on to say, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy, and dearly loved."

    "Did you catch that word in the middle?" "Holy" "Not, "going to be holy someday." "Not, "wouldn't it be nice if you were holy, but instead you're a mess." But, "holy".

    "Holy means pure, without blemish, unstained." "In these passages we're being told who we are, now."

    "The issue then isn't my beating myself up over all the things I am not or the things I am doing poorly; the issue is my learning who this person is who God keeps insisting I already am."

    "Notice the words from the letter to the Philippians: "Let us live up to what we have already attained."

    "There is this person who we already are in God's eyes. And we are learning to live like it is true."

    "This is an issue of identity. It is letting what God says about us shape what we believe about ourselves. This is why shame has no place whatsoever in the Christian experience. It is simply against all that Jesus is for. As the writer to the Romans put it, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

    "None." "No Shame." "No list of what is being held against us." "No record of wrongs." "It has simply been done away with." "It is no longer an issue." "Bring it up is pointless." "Beating myself up is pointless."

    "Beating others up about who and what they are not is going in the wrong direction. It is working against the purpose of God. God is not interested in shaming people; God wants people to see who they really are."

    "Let us live up to what we have already attained." "I am not who I was." "You are not who you were." "Old person going away, new person here, now." "Reborn, rebirthed, remade, reconciled, renewed." "Jesus put it this way. "You are in me and I am in you." Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis

    What is so shocking to me is that I now agree with the Bible and its teachings.  I no longer feel so repelled by it.  I was repulsed and nauseated by the way the FALC used its words…and/or the teachings of Jesus and kept wiping the pedophiles clean.

    It wasn't teaching the worthiness of innocence.

    It wasn't teaching we are holy.

    It was completely the opposite….to the point that evil is treated better than good folks.

    I know as shocking as Rob Bell is to many, it is only because you have believed and bought into your own unworthiness and wretched sinning value….AND, that the church is there to save you….so when you die, you find Heaven.

    I found Heaven on earth, by leaving the church, and walking away from people who didn't value me.

     

     

     

  • What would churches sell?

    Today I listened to Rob Bell's book, "Love Wins"…as I drove along the mail route.  I was surprised and affirmed by his words.  He poses a lot of great questions and challenges the typical beliefs and mind sets of many religions, as well as looking at the bible and its stories from a new viewpoint….and offers a very new approach to God and Jesus, one that reflects what I now believe.

    Depending upon how you were taught and raised to believe, you will have a different kind of God, than perhaps the true God.

    I highly recommend reading or listening to his book, if you are at all against the normal religious dogma that seems to separate.

    There is something that I was able to understand, but barely able to grasp…for it was how someone without religious boundaries, is often the one persecuted…compared to the one who does AND he often separates himself from others.  And, yet he points fingers at the one without any.

    All, I know…is that the religious person is often seeing the non-religious one as wrong…just because they don't have a church.  And, not being able to see that those with a church exclude so many just because they don't match.  And, yet blame the ones who are outside for not matching.  Not themselves for having such strict rules for acceptance.

    It dovetails with my experience of my family.  How I am seen as wrong…for not being able to match the rest. That God forbid it be the mass of them that are wrong. And, it is my fault for not being the same.  Not theirs for demanding sameness.

    A very refreshing book about God and Jesus and gives me hope for humanity and that he sees the God of Love…and that the God of punishment is from an old era or age.  There is hope that times are a changing and Rob Bell is one who stuck his neck out to challenge the Christians in how they see Heaven, Hell, God and Jesus and even more importantly view themselves and the rest of us.

    Imagine if Hell didn't exist or sins?

    He suggests that many live for the evacuation to Heaven…and the fear of Hell…without pausing to wonder how they can improve this earth.  Like this is just a place that will decide where you go when you die.

    If there were no hell what would churches sell?


  • Unfounded goodness.

    In a conversation I had, someone was saying, that there is a fine line between rebuke and self-righteousness….and that self-righteousness was perhaps the most tricky of all sins.

    I had to look up first, the meaning of Rebuke.

    "express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions."  

    I am not aware that rebuking is wrong….is it?

    I then, looked up the word Self-Righteous.

    "Having or characterized by a certainty, esp. an unfounded one, that one is totally correct or morally superior."

    I can see that if you are certain about an unfounded certainty, that you would be off the mark…but if you are certain about a certainty, than you can't be classified as self-righteous.

    The way I am feeling or the message I am getting is that rebuking and self-righteousness are bad, sinful even.

    Which then means, that in the eyes of some, I am being a sinner….for having or more, for expressing sharp disapproval of the abusive behavior of my parents…but not self-righteous, for I am not certain about something unfounded.

    I find these two words being used as warnings….that I best be careful where I tread or how.  Instead, I see them as blinders or stop gaps or safety nets for the folks who don't want to be Found OUT….or called out.

    These 'sins' work remarkably well if you don't want to face sharp disproval.  

    I believe that self-righteousness is a "Tricky Sin" only if you are feeling certain about something unfounded.  

    Again, I am in awe of what fears fall into place….that they are more afraid of 'sinning' than paying attention to who their fellow church members are, what they are doing, and what is the cost of "not sinning" to the children who are waiting for someone to show sharp disproval to the behaviors that is being done to them!

    I guess, in the eyes of many, I have sinned.

    I have sinned.  Not my father….

    I have sinned by rebuking him and for being certain.

    In my opinion, if these two words are similiar and one is a tricky sin, then the opposite of me, is being good.  A non-sinner.  

    Which then explains the silence of the church members.

    But they need to know, self-righteous is a wrong; especially if it is unfounded.

    Certainty is fine….unless you are certain about something that is a lie.

    If this is true, than I see more self-righteous within the familys of abuse…upholding characters of goodness…to folks who are abusing.  That to me, is being self-righteous…holding on to unfounded goodness.