Spiritually, I'm what you'd call a drifter; a wanderer of sorts. If you were being polite that is. You know, the kind that has set aside three Sundays in a month as sleep-in days (stepping out in daylight is optional), has probably broken-or attempted to break-half of the commandments, says bedtime prayers 'coz they feel strangely comforting and with a plan to cultivate a better relationship with God but just haven't gotten round to working on it.
Key word here being God. Not religion.
Now religion, leaves me a touch uneasy. It's been behind wars waged in the name of God, our history books are full of them. Hell, we're still at it. Religion had been used to bully, oppress and justify the lynching of those perceived by society as 'piss-poor morally' (I thought we left the judging to God no?). Put all the religions of the world together and you've got a spectacular tower of babel where everyone's shoving & seriously arse whooping the other because their way is right...
Yet despite the confusion and ugliness, i still want to know God & experience his wowness. But can i find him without religion?
Yesterday, a friend posed to me an interesting belief; you can only know God if you know Christ, anything else is just white noise. Fair enough, he believes in something and it's great. It made me wonder though. I have friends of different religious faiths and though we never pretend to understand each others beliefs, we do respect & appreciate the fact that we're all trying to find God in our own way. And the one thing we have in common is that we know there is God. We can feel his presence around us. We marvel at the everyday miracles and gifts he presents us. And some of us, even go as far as striving to immerse ourselves in the experience of his awesomeness.So, does their relationship with him amount to nothing if they don't know him through Christ? Surely, his love and grace unifies and transcends creed, tribe, gender and race...because he is the ultimate...because he is that great...
...He's got to be...i really, truly, deeply believe that....
I've got to...after all, I'm the girl who is: catholic but can't remember how to say her Hail Marys, is prone to fornicate, visit a cathedral only coz i enjoy the inner peace it gives me, swear and down a couple of tots with the intent to disturb public peace...you know, a spiritual drifter. If you were being polite that is.
And if he turns out not to be THAT great ....well, I'm basically fucked and so going to hell.
Mob wendos,
Nyambura
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Well, even without the stringent administrative and political intrigues of religion, we still have a sense of a greater being to whom we owe our existence... a religion just comes up the way a constitution is created, the majority of people agree with the views presented by an unkowkn number or its rigged into existence... am also for God without religion, but everyone is making a hellova noise about hell...so what do we do??
ReplyDeletei totally agree with you...and the only problem is, there are so many constitutions out there they just divide pple coz they fail to see the one unifying goal; to know God. As for going to hell,i guess at the end of the day, it's a personal choice to find God & not coz we're terrified of hell but coz we feel we need that relationship with him and the experience of it.
ReplyDeletePS: ever noticed that our local gospel tunes are always talking about you turning to God when your life is full of troubles? sometimes i want to ask them, can't i still want God in my life even after all my dreams have come true?