As I mentioned in my last post, I have been exploring Christianity. It’s something I want to write about, but I am not sure how to share about something I am so confused by, something I don’t understand, something I feel so triggered about, but something that calls me back over and over again despite my resistance.
I began because I read Revelation, and saw that the Bible is a book of prophecy. As far as I can tell it predicted what is going on now. I think that alone, should be a call for our attention. Is the Bible the word of God? Has it been distorted by man? Which version is best to read? I have absolutely no clue for sure, but even if it was all trash, I would still search through, sure that inside these words there is at least some gold.
In the same way that people who choose not to have injections or who objected to masks and lockdown are labelled as selfish, and right-wing, I can sense my trepidation in sharing. My fear that I am going to be put in a box and judged. After all I’ve spent decades judging Christians myself, as being judgemental, boring, straight-laced and incredibly dull. When I first picked up the Bible it felt like a dusty old book, and I fell asleep each night barely reading a word. Then someone suggested I start with the story of Jesus, and that was a story I could get behind. As a parent educator who doesn’t believe in punishment, I can’t grasp the concept of a punishing God, or burning in hellfire for all eternity, but the story of Jesus, and everything he is, that is something to follow, to believe in.
I find the biblical language quite complex and I so I like to ask questions, and hear other people’s interpretations, and yet when I do so I feel confused and tangled. I heard people clamouring about how they are sharing the ‘truth’ and ‘sticking to the word of God’ and yet so many seem to have a different interpretation.
There was one lovely woman, who every time I asked a question, she would tell me to ask God, and that’s my takeaway from this whole experience. To step away from people’s interpretations, to pray and to ask God. This takes patience. This takes stepping back and not knowing all of the answers immediately, and being okay with that.
In two years of heavy truth-seeking, there’s that part of my brain that has desperately wanted to know, what exactly is going on, and the greatest relief in all this has come from letting go of needing to know right now, and simply being in the process of asking and listening and stepping away from the clamour of conversation, and just being with my own connection to the divine.