Underneath It All
Underneath it all, the question persists as to what I believe about God and spirituality, and how that affects my life. "I think I've decided that, for me to be a Christian, and identify myself and my life with Christ, it has very little to do with the things I believed previously, and the things I was taught to believe over the years by the overarching organized fundamentalist christian religion. My present understanding has very little to do with the self-analytical overhaul that my faith revolved around in high school. Because at that point, for my peers and I, it was all about the little petty details of saying "shit," or masturbating and regular church attendance; memorizing scripture and maintaining proper boundaries within our lives when it came to R-rated movies or sex. I consider these things petty because they focused solely on me as an individual, and taught me very little about relating to the people of the world, let alone loving them. If anything it ostracized me and branded me, constructing walls and barriers of ignorance and pride. In addition, my theological understanding of Christ at that time allowed only for a negative self-understanding. I could not "accept Christ as my Lord and Savior" until I had a major dose of understanding why I actually needed that saving grace. {Translation: My sinful, inherently evil, self needed his blood -as white as snow- to get into heaven.} At this point, my theological understanding of Christ has changed somewhat, mostly in terms of language and how I interpret salvation. My understanding of his teachings have changed tremendously in the fact that they do not point to my inherent sin, but my inherent worth. Salvation, to me, is becoming exactly who I inherently am, and loving that person -- that self. Because without that springboard, it is impossible to love others entirely or unconditionally, and I believe love is the most important thing. From love comes understanding and freedom to be authentic. I believe we need to live simply and wholly, devoted to love and service....Service to others less fortunate and the land we inhabit and abuse so easily. I believe we are inherently capable of these things, but that we can tap into a little bit of God to manifest our inner-abilities, which is just a matter of trusting and believing, loving and finding hope, in ourselves. I believe the only "sin" is that which inhibits us from doing that. And usually, those inhibitors are hate and ignorance, which breed all sorts of dysfunction. So it is my quest, as a spiritual person and believer in a God, and follower of the teachings of the Jesus of Nazareth, to live my life void of hate and ignorance and full of love and understanding."
Easy as pie, folks. Easy as pie.
