So I really love to fish.... My dad, sisters and i used to go a lot when I was younger. I remember that being one of my most favorite times with my dad. I just really loved hanging out with him and wanting to be able to fish just like him. Well yesterday amid my busy things that I needed to do this weekend decided to go fishing.
I didn't really catch much except a couple of perch, but there was an exciting moment to my evening. I cast my line out in the middle of these reeds in the water thinking that the fish would be feeding around there at that time of night. Well as I was reeling my line back in something caught it and I jerked it back in order to hook the fish (or what I thought was one). Well when I jerked it back a second time to bring it in, my line jumped up out of the water and on the end of it was SNAKE! Now this is not my 1st encounter with a snake (well the first time it was a chord moving in the dark which I thought was a wall climbing snake) this week so I thought I was going to piss my pants. So I quickly cut my line and ran back to my car with all of my things ready to try again in the morning.
So Jessica and I have found a new church! I'm really excited about this place! It's called Hyde Park UMC. It's in Austin which is a bit of a drive, but I love taking Sunday drives. hydparkmethodist.org. They were so welcoming the first time that we visited. I really enjoyed the diverse ages that were represented, it was like they weren't going to allow that aspect break them apart from being open to worship. The pastor is named Cheryl, last week was the first time for us to hear her speak adn I really enjoyed it. The church used to be a dying church, and in my opinion still has the wounds of one. But they are healing. They committed their church to become more open and more inclusive, this has done wonders to their congregation and to the life of that church. They are all so excited to be there worshiping and fellowshiping together and to welcome others who will come. Plus they have free breakfast and lunch every sunday. They also are very concentrated on social justice, which has become a rising passion in me. The pastor is going thru the book of Acts as a sermon series this summer and many of her sermons have had this as the theme. This week I'm flying solo and I'm going to go visit the 9:30 contemporary service. There will be some college kids and seminary students there so I'm excited to meet the young crowd.
It just feels so wonderful to be comfortable in church again. I'm beginning to see Jesus and I walking next to each other again. I've had this vision of myself & what my relationship with Christ has looked like for the past 3 years. It's like when I used to get angry with my parents and I would storm off and walk ahead of them as fast and as furious as I could and I would glance back every now and then and they would be walking right behind me at their own pace, keeping an eye on me as I tried to do my own thing. I feel like He's been just right back there watching me and waiting for when I would turn around and ask him to walk next to me. I feel like I'm getting there.
My view of Christ has been so tainted. It's been this view of a man who came down to earth to tell us how it is and how it should be. I bought into this Jesus and tried to conform my life to fit into this constricting and suffocating model. I pushed away so many people that really needed to just know that they were loved and accepted for who they were. I most definitely pushed myself the absolute farthest away and began convincing myself that I really was this other person that everyone was telling me that I was. Christ was a man who brought a model of new rules and new conformities. At first I didn't mind becoming this person that lived by the rules laid before me, it was pretty easy for the majority of my young life, but the longer I did that the harder it was for my real spirit to continue to be silent.
I've come to the realization that Christ did not come to bring a new mold. He came to break the mold. If you look in the Gospels he was constantly speaking about a new way of life. I believe ( and I don't know if this is too radical or not radical enough) but I believe that the way that Christ came to show was to simply live life in love. When we do that everything else falls into place. So putting constraints and conformity to your life is not allowing yourself to do this fully, because so many times these lines that we draw for ourselves to live in push so many others out.
No wonder I wanted to run away from this Christ that I had been presented with since I was a child. It wasn't a true representation of who he really was. I couldn't live a life with this Christ. The white, conservative, homophobic, elitist who was constantly commanding me what to do and who to seperate myself from. For so long a personal relationship with Jesus meant making my life look PERFECTLY like his. But I believe now when Jesus says, "follow me," or "I am the way," or "take my example", this means to not become Jesus by only concentrating on ourselves and the scriptures that make us look good, but to mainly look at those around us and to see how our lives can be molded and shaped by loving them and by learning more about God through them.
I know this sounds like a very flighty type of Christianity, call it what you will. It's still in the works for me. But I believe that this life is all about living it and yeah we have a place to look forward to after this life which we should be excited about, I do validate that there is a heaven. But if we are constantly keeping our eyes on that part of eternal life we are keeping ourselves from learning in this part of it, and there is so much to learn if we only allow ourselves to live it.
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