Sometimes I'm caring.
Sometimes I'm harsh.
Sometimes I'm thoughtful.
Sometimes I really don't care.
Sometimes I'm really sincere.
Sometimes I'm confused as hell.
Sometimes I'm brutally honest.
Sometimes I'm a phony.
Sometimes I'm patient.
Sometimes I have no patience.
Sometimes I'm giving.
Sometimes I'm a selfish bastard.
Sometimes I'm sharp as a knife.
Sometimes my mind is numb.
Sometimes I just wonder who the hell I really am. And I have no idea. Because the real "me" is buried deep down below the list I just put. I'm waiting for God's hand to pull me out of the rubble that I'm buried under. Until then I will try and be as transparent as I can be. The masks that I've worn throughout my 29 years of existence have caused nothing more than pain, confusion, and phoniness.
3 comments:
transparency is number one in my book, bro. Transparency, I think, transcends everything else.
So many of us want to intercourse with God. Be close to Him, hear Him, walk with Him.
And yet how many are willing to drop the masks of pretention and self-justification to do so?
Imagine wearing a mask (literally, putting one on) when making love.
How well would that go over?
And we expect intercourse with God to be good, great, "all that", best ever, etc., if we don't take our masks off before hopping in the sack with Him?
Second thing your post made me think of. As I read through the different things you are sometimes, the thought was "that's as it should be."
Personally, I think there's a big lie, with lots of pressure behind it by the Body, that only certain traits or behaviors are acceptable for Followers.
What complicates this is, the Body is schizophrenic as far as what it advocates.
For example, the Body when asked would for the most part say that turning the other cheek is Jesus-like. That all Followers should follow this teaching. When asked on paper, this is the standard answer.
And yet on the other hand the Body is regularly saying (yelling? screaming?) to "take a stand, either for righteousness or against ungodliness, etc.
I run into this all the time.
A small group I was in last Fall, one evening a lady expressed some concern about her adult son, who had just gotten back from Iraq and wa sowing some oats (wild variety, of course).
Every single person who offered "advice" in that circle told the lady to take a stand and put her foot down, etc.
Hearing all that was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I kept my mouth shut instead of offering a devil's advocate view--that doing so would repel her son, who simply was trying to defuse from Iraq, and just b/c it wasn't in ways according to her religious code, she should just let it go.
A guy just coming back from a hell worse than most of us can imagine just wants to do what he wants to do to unwind.
That unwinding being met by a furrowed brow mother frowning at the choice of how to unwind would go over like a lead balloon.
A couple of weeks later we met again. She had taken the "take a stand" approach with him, and it had totally blown up in her face in a horrible way.
This is but one example of the schizoid shit going on in the Body.
So which is it, Body of Christ? Are we to "turn the other cheek", or are we to "trample on snakes and scorpions"?
Which is it, Body of Christ, did Jesus come to bring "peace, not as the world gives", or did He come to bring "a sword of division"?
Which is it, Body of Christ? One time Jesus told His disciples when they went out "don't take a bag. Don't take anything with you".
Later He said, "before I told you not to take a bag. Now I tell you, if you have a bag take it with you."
So which is it?
The Body generally has no answer to these questions--or a weak, bumbled, canned-answer one at best.
I recently read a lady who said:
"Truth defined by God is absolute, exact, and specific. It applies to all people, during all times, and for all circumstances. Throughout the Bible, Scriptures consistently prove that God’s Word is infallible and reliable, providing a steady foundation for life."
So much of the Body affirms and applauds this. And believes it.
And yet I just showed several examples of where Jesus says A and then later says B. He says C, but then he says D.
That's one reason why when you said "I'm caring, and other times harsh", I thought nothing of that. Didn't see anything "wrong" with that. Didn't see it as a reason to wonder who you are.
Why?
Ecclesiastes 3, bro. There's a time to gather stones and a time to scatter them. There's a time to love and a time to hate. The list goes on.
There are times to be caring, and other times to be harsh.
And yet we have the Body preaching/teaching that only certain traits are "acceptable" Christianity.
The Body would say you should be caring, and never harsh.
What a crock of shit.
That's why what you say, being transparent and without masks, gets my vote.
And yet to embrace this is like a fish fighting against water. We have an entire culture that tells women to put on a mask every day of their lives. Ooops, that's a totally different thread.
I know I'm going long-winded, but this is one of the biggest beefs I have with the Body.
The Body is heavily skewed toward the Lamb of God side of Jesus, and does not seem to allow/acknowledge His other characteristics and traits.
I know some people who are so giving and unselfish that they don't even take care of themselves at the fundamental level of human existence.
Anyway, I'm all over the map with this stream of consciousness typing.
I'm really fired up right now, and leaning toward harsh words for how we, the Body, are screwed up.
Guess I better go repent and start being Mr. PMA Christian in all that I say and write.
What a joke.
The Body doesn't advocate transparency. The Body advocates a positive, warm, always growing, always increasing mask for all Christians to wear, so that the gospel can be marketed as a feel-good, win-the-lottery thing that will bring people in.
I have largely found churchianity to oppose my questions, doubts and reservations and dislikes about the current state of things.
Bleep that.
28 years, gord. time will drag you to wrinklehood without your help ;) everything you said, me too and more. not that you didn't know yet.
transparency is the way to go. The surer I try and become about "who i am", the more sure I am that I really don't know.
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