Choices

written: 12/25/2007


When is it time to say goodbye to the things one thinks she knows?

This is one of the questions that has nagged at me for a long time – for years. I have told others that I feel like I am stuck between two opinions. Now I realize that I was only scared for way too long to make a decision. One choice leads to a scary place unknown. The other, a scary place lived in.

I have been told for eons that if I make a choice for the unknown, I am making a decision for death, destruction, and eternal damnation.

If I make the decision to stay put, then I in turn make the choice for disappointment, disillusionment, and worldly damnation.

So how does one decide when a choice is really no choice?

As I wrote that last line, a verse from a Rush song came speeding into my head: “if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice…” that seems like the lazy mans approach to selection, does it not?

I’ve stayed in one option because it’s what I have come to know – It reminds me of the reason many abused women stay in their destructive relationships – although abusive, it’s security…it’s known.

We all like to be where we know. We like the comfort, the familiarity, the smells that remind us of something…even when we can’t put our fingers on that something – even when that something doesn’t have a name…even when that something is dangerous.

So what’s my choice? To scrap what I have been taught to “know” and walk away. Walk away from the God I have been taught and try to find the God of truth.

I have not believed in the Western idea of Christianity for a long time – but I did what I knew. I hoped to catch the fever somehow – like if I was around those infected I would get it – I would get the hand raising, tear streaked, Hallelujah chanting, smiley faced Jesus virus. But the more time I spent around these types, the less I believed in their brand of Jesus. The frenzy around God just felt all the more fake.

I DO NOT believe in the Jesus of the United States. The Ayrian, self-serving, suit wearing, puritanical, judgmental, diversity hating, Bible thumping, unforgiving prick of a Jesus! Yet most days, I do think of god as being a prick…but is that really who/what he is, or is it the essence of him given off by those who claim to represent him?

I do not believe in the White Church, African American Church, Korean Church, Youth Church, Gay Church, Spanish Church nor the Pentecostal, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Denominational, we are right you are wrong, Church Splitting Jesus.

Although none of us have the full story, I do believe in God – I do believe in Jesus – and I do believe that the devil is real – I also believe that the Devil looks a lot like the love child of George W. Bush and Jerry Falwell – but I digress.

I do have the give props where props are due…so I thank George W and his minions for pushing me to decide. I have been smothered with their Jesus for years. I see purple when I hear them speak “for” Jesus and when they swear that they are speaking for me as a believer.

What I’m looking for is authentic Jesus. I am on a mission for truth and I do not believe that true Truth can be found within the walls of a building or the church’s program of the month. I often wonder about the books and words voted out by committees and denominations from the censored bible I have been allowed to read. Only part of the part of the part of the story available is truly AVAILABLE.

I guess that means that I am on a pilgrimage. Maybe my agnosticism is really just me choking on the foul crap that I have been fed over the years – a rebuke of the American style of belief – an atheistic disbelief in Ameri-conservi-anglo-patrobertsonism.

It’s also that my real life experience with the god of the Western church looks nothing like the god of the White House, Christian radio, books, or religious programming. My sandals have worn out more times than I can count and my reed has been paralyzed, boil laden, and bed-ridden.

I have friends who are literalist, everything is black or white, if it’s not in their version of the bible, then it doesn’t exist or it going to be burnt up in the fire of the last days. Yeah, whatever, ish! They act so certain of their fear…but I ask, in light of what we do know, how can we truly know? As a friend once asked, “is faith really faith or merely an addiction to one thought?

Is faith an addiction? Is it merely fire insurance? Is the illogic of it logical?

As scary as it is, right now, my wavering choice is the God of truth – whatever that means…not the god of the Western Church. I truly do not know what that means as the first question for me is: What is truth? – not WHO is truth for the identification of Truth in the western bible is ones testimony about himself. I have seen the inconsistencies contained between the covers holding the allowed 66 books and choose not to try to explain them away as some seekers are very adapt at doing.

I choose to not turn a blind eye to the fact that there are questions and if this choice is sending me to hell, my hand basket will be decorated well with flowers, peace signs, and accented question marks.

zss