5. An Interruption

5. An Interruption

My last post was a week late.  It would be easy to become critical of myself for not meeting my expectation of posting once per week.  As with much else in my life I find that when I find myself resisting it is because somewhere there is something that is amiss.  The first number of posts were trite, the concepts of being called to love and to joy are classic Christianity, and they are safe.  Only a complete fool would disagree with them. 

What I really wanted to say, to stand up and declare, is that I think modern day Christianity, the formalized religion is wrong.  I believe that we have created the same law burdened approach to appeasing God that Jesus spoke out against two thousand years ago.  Our approach to God is as legalistic as ever.  Thus begins my personal theology.

My personal theology is not complete, nor is it perfect.  For as Saint Paul stated, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  I do not have sufficient theological training to claim anything like authority in scripture.  But I do have my faith, and I believe the leading of the Holy Spirit.  If you take exception to what I write, please take the time to publish your own theology.

Having one’s own theology, apart from whatever denomination, or congregation one is a part of is important.  For it is in those moments when we are confronting our faith that we need to have an understanding of scripture that resonates within us.  I encourage you to develop yours, a deeper understanding than – someone has told me and I will obey.

Original Sin – A Self Imposed Exile

I find that I have tended to place responsibility for my situation outside of myself.  Either God has not seen fit to relieve the plight or it is Satan's dark design that I suffer.  My quest for sobriety was full of this paradox, either God was not giving me enough strength or was not lifting the desire to get drunk and stoned or the Devil was not letting me go.  All of that has an element of truth to it.  But! Let me repeat that - BUT it was not until I accepted that drugs and alcohol held no more relief for me was I able to move on.   My exile from God at times utterly comical and full of drama was really self-imposed.

I see our fall - THE FALL FROM GRACE - as being a self imposed exile.  I am limited by my desire to be brief and thus may rush through points without a full explanation.  When I have done that it is because I have not seen that point as being central to this post.  Suffice it to say that Genesis is not an accurate rendering of events - the world was not created in 72 hours split up over six days, and the truth of the story lays within a deeper understanding.  Truths such as I was created to be in relationship with God, that all of what we see is a divine expression.

But the story is that God created everything and it was perfect.  And then he said. "Do what ever you want - snowboard in the morning - sail in the afternoon and dance the night away - just do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

When I first wanted to challenge this scripture I wondered what kind of god would not want us to know good from evil? What kind of god would want us ignorant? It smacked of "Leave it to Beaver." A family blissfully ignorant living out a divine plan that they did not know and without question.  I stopped talking to God.  He waited.  With the help of a friend I came to realize that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was nothing other than judgement.

The story of Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve, there were others if you wondered, were naked and knew no shame.  There they were dangly bits for all the world to see and not an iota that anything was wrong.  And then, they ate the fruit - yeah that one.  Suddenly - Adam hid cause he was naked - and he knew it was wrong.  God did not say. "Dude, gross, what are you doing letting the little guy flap in the breeze?"

In one action, judging, and I believe it was each other, we were condemned.  Once we were started judging we could not stop.  Once we started comparing ourselves to each other we had to keep going.  In one moment, we closed the door on paradise.  

I believe that the original sin is not willfulness.  And I have doubted for a long while that simply because I was ushered into this world through my mother's womb I was condemned.  For me, and that is all I can speak for, I believe that the original sin is judgement.  I was condemned at birth not because I was born, but because as soon as I was able to hear I was immersed into a world of judgment.  That was bad, this is icky, so and so is a bad person, it is shameful how that neighbour acts, it is wrong to do that.  A constant babble of condemnation, criticism and judgement; a baptism of putridness.  Until I became damned with the judgement.

Romans 2:1 NIV

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.