Do you ever allow your big questions to hit the air? Give them space to breathe and be?
Have you ever deconstructed where people got the information they regurgitate from the pulpit? Lately I’ve realized that I didn’t choose Christianity, it was chosen for me. A tool of control and submission given to my ancestors to colonize and subordinate them.
Even after the yoke of oppression was removed, many of my ancestors remained steeped in Christianity. One of my parrot phrases from a past life is that love requires a choice. And I believe that. But if that is true, then I must also have the freedom to choose Christianity. And I can honestly admit that I didn’t come into Christianity by choice. I came into it through fear of divine punishment and stayed with it because of the bait of divine reward.
With ideas of divine retribution or heavenly inheritance laid to the side, it brings me back to that choice. How do I choose to relate to Love apart from reward or punishment? Does it require a label? An allegiance? I don’t know. I’m still unearthing what I was handed, musing on what is Truth and what has been acceptable interpretations of someone else’s interactions with Spirit or Sacred Texts.
But what if Jesus was more a model for living in relationship with Divine Love than a mediator to right a wronged beginning? And what if God is more submissive participant than sovereign orchestrator?
I’m musing, I admit. But I love how Jesus asked more questions than he answered. I love how he invited us in to mystery. I love how he didn’t feel compelled to name a thing. He just lived in Love, in union with His Abba.
I may not be sure about what I’ve been given, but I am certain about the love of Abba and Jesus, the one He sent. That love sustains me, keeps me from fleeing to agnosticism or atheism. Abba’s love anchors me to faith, to trust Him even as I pursue an artistic restoration of my religious artscape. I’m certain that underneath the palette of thousands of sermons and dabs of books there is a masterpiece waiting to breathe again.
I’m also pretty sure that between the Alpha and Omega is a whole bunch of liminal space. And how we show up and live with ourselves, with creation and in concert with the Divine and one another is the dance of life within that sacred space.
What big questions are stirring in your soul? Where is the breath of God inviting restoration and renewal?
