Category Archives: Imperfection is the same as unfinished.
From Religion through Agnosticism to Jesus
I became an agnostic but came back to a very alive and relevant relationship with Jesus not connected to any religion. I went back to the Catholic church as a missionary. But Vatican II had changed the church enough that I could celebrate the spiritual journey of Jesus and the Holy Spirit there as our own. Years later I left again, because I wanted to share my experiences of freeing love and women couldn’t preach there. The liberal Presbyterian USA gave me that freedom. Though they stress mostly feeding and housing the poor or broken, more than the transforming grace of a relationship with Jesus that helps us in following Jesus’s life pattern of expanding our understanding of whom God loves. I think every original creator of any religion “got it.” But by the third generation, religion becomes about power…. thanks in a large part to being controlled by men. Fear is the root of all evil. When religion becomes about safety or power it loses the point of being about love. To me we enter a journey from the need of a baby to the freedom to love our unfinished selves and like Jesus eventually to even love those that disagree with us, the friends that abandon us, the enemy, and ultimately even God in those times when we feel abandoned by God also. To me the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. God is ALL. We are part of God and the Spirit of God is part of us and can along the spiritual journey become a larger influence in us. We are ALL in this together, believe it or like it or not. It’s about love, not salvation or power.
The Timing of Miracles in Lives Differs
It’s a lovely sunny day in Memphis. I’m as usual playing on face book before getting serious about unpacking my mess of decades of writing in hopes of gathering some together to describe my spiritual journey. The point being, that I am convinced that the timing of it differs from person to person. But if open to mystery, to miracles past our understanding, even if finally only in old age, we can recognize that amazing connection of God to our daily lives. It can be in the timing of really small things or recognizing God’s hand in the large and even scary aspects of our lives. I know that I was a weak person and needed immense doses of grace early on to keep on keeping on. But, there are times in all our lives when our natural strengths are not enough. And if we are naturally strong people we may not recognize our limits as gifts. Because they open us to grace in ways beyond our understanding. To the strong it may seem like failure to need that grace, but it’s the gift of Jesus’ life as a human being. His journey is our journey complete with miracles beyond human understanding, because we too have the Spirit of God within us and surrounding us. God is as alive and well in our times and our lives as God was in Jesus’ life, suffering, death and resurrection. The timing of our need for and openness to God’s interventions is different from one person to another. But ultimately we are all called to experience our limits and need for God’s active participation in our daily lives. Admitting our natural limits is harder for the strong than the weak. But it is part of the spiritual journey. The Spirit is within us and outside us. We are a tiny, but needed part of God’s plan for humanity. But recognizing our personal limits and need for an awareness of our connection to God is part of God’s plan for humanity.
Accepting Jesus as Savior Takes a Minute. Accepting Jesus as Lord Takes a Lifetime.
I want to explain something about having a relationship with Jesus and about saying the prayer accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord.
For me, as an agnostic, it was a new beginning. Jesus became both a partner with His life as a guide, and a presence as a source of God’s Love that is the grace to grow more loving all along life’s spiritual journey.
I began to recognize the pattern Jesus had of opening up to more and more people as those Loved by God…..until it included not just good Jews, but the Jews that used the power of the enemy government to get rich, the slut at the well, the guy at the pool who wouldn’t help himself, Soldiers of the hated enemy government, his closest friends who abandoned Him, and even the Jews that thought they had a monopoly on God and were instrumental in his torture and death. And as He died, Jesus chose to trust God even when He felt abandoned by Him.
Jesus fleshed out both the Love of God for ALL of us and the WAY for us to become Loving. That Love is the grace for us to grow more loving every inch of the way until we die.
I don’t know what God is… I don’t know what heaven is. Sometimes I’ve felt like this life was hell. But I do know we are all different and have different limits. I’m not sure we all die loving like Jesus, because we are not dealt the same hand. We only have to play the hand we were dealt the best we can with the grace of that Love. I cannot judge ANYONE, even myself. At 88, I’ve realized that I wasn’t dealt as great a hand as I thought I was. But I’m still here, so I’ve got more growing to do. Sometimes when I see really GOOD people suffer horribly, it mirrors Jesus to me. Maybe they love enough to bear what the weaker people they love couldn’t. I don’t know. NO one knows! If we think we know the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, we are claiming to be equal to God. Being human is living and, even by the measure of perfection, dying unfinished.
We want so badly to feel safe, and we think either worldly power/riches or religion will guarantee it. This life is not about safety or perfection. It’s a journey from our own NEEDING to LOVING. Some of us are born better at it than others. It’s a personal journey, so some of us need more grace than others. Some of us, like me, even need miracles among the heartbreaks. It’s a JOURNEY of learning to LOVE like Jesus did to the best of the grace we are given. Though the journey varies from person to person, groups of us start out more like each other than others. The challenge isn’t getting to heaven, it’s becoming the loving person God created us uniquely to be. And often our failures are in what we DON’T do, because of limiting our love to only people like ourselves. And that includes both conservatives and liberals in any society.
I KNOW I am LOVED, but that doesn’t mean I’m perfect or will ever be perfect. And the same goes for every single child of God. I know that by the pattern of the life and death and Love fleshed out in Jesus.
My Journey from Agnostic to Christian
As a Catholic from childhood, I had four children in the first five years of marriage. Unfortunately, I had to have them by Caesarean Section. Then the doctor told me I would die if I had another C section in the next few years. When I asked the priest what to do since birth control was considered a mortal sin, he said,
“Many children have good stepmothers.”
I decided that men who had never married or had children shouldn’t be making that kind of decision for women. Since I unknowingly had made the Catholic Church my God, when I left the Catholic Church, I threw Jesus and God out with it.
I was not a typical woman who loved to cook and bake, sew and make flower arrangements. In fact, I felt totally inadequate as a wife and mother. We were affluent then and I had help and we both enjoyed giving parties. So, for several years we led a party life, and I began drinking even before the parties and on weekday afternoons when we didn’t have parties.
I got scared that I was losing control of my drinking and found a therapy group for alcoholics. After several months of reading and going to therapy, I broke down weeping one night, admitting that I felt totally inadequate as a wife and mother and didn’t think I was capable of loving anyone, even my husband and children. The group did not judge me, but rather seemed to hurt with me. Somehow it was a beginning of healing.
The next day as I was vacuuming, I had a sense of someone standing behind me with their hand gently on my shoulder. My first thought was that it was Jesus, but then decided since I didn’t believe in Jesus it couldn’t be. So, I just put the feeling into my “need more information file.”
Unexpectedly my father died.at fifty-two years of age. I closed down my feelings, so I could deal with it intellectually and cope with life. I took a course at Vanderbilt Divinity school on the Christian View of Death and another on other World Religions. Neither made much impression on me, so I began to visit various Christian denominations and reading the bible. The book of Acts was an eye opener and made me a bit wistful that Christians might still have life changing experiences. About that time some affluent friends of ours gave up their lifestyle and his Vice Presidency in his family’s company to be missionaries in a non-denominational ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ. I hoped they had kept some investments for the future for their three children, but I was intrigued by their willingness to change their life so drastically.
Sometime later they came back to town asking our group of friends to give a Christian coffee where several women would talk about how Jesus had changed their lives. I laughingly invited women to come, saying I didn’t know our current gatherings weren’t Christian, but come and enjoy the great food we were going to have.
Several women gave talks about the changes in their lives and relationships when they said a prayer asking Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. Then they invited us to say the prayer with them. I was impressed with the changes they described, but since I didn’t believe in God or Jesus, I didn’t say the prayer. As the other women who prayed the prayer were being embraced, I started washing dishes.
One of the women came in and asked if I had said the prayer. I said I didn’t believe in God or Jesus, so I had not. She didn’t hesitate, suggesting I say the prayer this way, “Jesus, IF you are who you claimed to be, I want you to be my Savior and Lord.” That seemed like a win/win, so I said the prayer and went back to washing dishes wondering if this would make any difference.
Suddenly, I was simply over come with the feeling of being totally loved with no small print. The joy was so great, I was afraid I’d burst from it. And that began my fifty-seven-year spiritual journey that has had awesome times of joy and very difficult times when I sometimes felt that loving presence even when in great pain.
It has not been easy. And there were times when temptation was so strong that God literally intervened in amazing ways to keep me from screwing up my own and others’ lives.
I have learned that saying the prayer isn’t a magic incantation. For some of us it makes an immediate difference, but it doesn’t make us perfect. And for some it doesn’t make a difference for years. Asking Jesus to be our savior is one thing. Letting Him be Lord is a whole other ball game and for me it’s taking a lifetime. Different personalities experience the Spiritual Journey in very different ways. Some of us are relationship people. Others are worker bees and doers. Some are thinkers and questioners. God did not make His children with a cookie-cutter.
Following Jesus means literally following in His footprints in His journey through the Gospels. And that takes grace in our emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual lives that changes us in many different ways over the years.
We are loved unconditionally, but we are on a journey of change from being needy to being loving. And that is not easy and takes commitment, courage, and grace.
We Come Like the Shepherds to Jesus
What does the prayer “Jesus, come and be born in my heart?” imply?
Who first witnessed His coming? Shepherds…….not Kings. If we try to imagine being one of them, what would we be like? Poor obviously, politically powerless, without social status, accepting of physical hardship, called to put the wellbeing of defenseless sheep ahead of our own comfort, but being part of a band of brothers who share this vulnerability and commitment, and who one night are suddenly awestruck by a “charged” atmosphere full of significance around a vulnerable baby and its tired, worried, helpless parents. Those are the hearts that are open to Jesus. When we pray, “Come Lord Jesus, be born in our hearts,” we admit our vulnerability, our neediness, our call to protect and support God’s helpless ones, and our dependency on mutual support. To me this prayer describes both our own situation and our call together through openness to Jesus, as both our Savior and Lord. This is the heart of religion. This is Spirituality. And this is the call of the church. Are we listening?
Old Age Has Its Wisdom, but Younger Generations Start Off with a Lot of What We’ve Learned: We Can All Learn from Each Other
Idealists are in danger of never being satisfied, which in one way is a good thing since we fight to make the world a better place for all, but it plays havoc with marriages. If you are an idealist without an awareness of the down side, listen up! ONLY with a relationship with a power wiser than you (GOD/ALLAH/BUDDHA/ YOUR GREAT-GRANDMOTHER) will you recognize when you are thinking about ‘trading up” that it may mean you will just have to start over (and possibly over and over, etc.) to recognize that you are unrealistic about life and relationships. Believe me, watch for signals of this, in case that higher power is trying to give you a much shorter way to “growing both wiser and more able to love.” The search for the perfect person is futile. There is no such thing, including yourself. Life is a journey with both challenges and grace (if we are open to it) to become the more loving person we were created to be. (This doesn’t mean you put up with abuse.) God is alive and well and still doing the Jesus thing if we are aware of it. That can make a huge difference in the journey to becoming the best (imperfect) person we were created to be.
NEW INSIGHT
Recently my eyes were opened to the reality that someone who is tuned into the journey of grace going on in both their own life and in their generation can know in their forties what it’s taken us in our eighties a lot longer to learn! I may know some things from those years of learning that they don’t, but they are way ahead of where I was at their age. Yes, we may have gained some wisdom on our life’s journey that even a spiritual and wise forty-year-old may not have yet. But they started from a different place than us old guys did. If they were open to wisdom that our generation and some after us has learned, they are wiser at forty than we were and may not be far behind us where we are even now. Listen to them and put what you’ve learned together with what they know. Both ages have a lot to give to each other.
We and Our World are Unfinished
I’m an idealist. We imagine better possibilities. This life and everyone and everything are unfinished, so imperfect. Accepting this reality is hard for idealists. We have to settle for inching toward the perfect knowing we will never get there. At eighty-seven I still have to catch myself and remember to look for the goodie in every baddie in life. Sometimes they are tiny, but enough to help me move on. This is life: there is a downside and an upside to everything. That’s reality. We have to settle for inching toward the perfect and never getting there. Since evolution is the name of the game though incredibly slow, inches are important. And no matter what our IQ is we are not going to be right 100% of the time because we are unfinished and imperfect human beings. Neither Einstein nor the Saints were perfect intellectually or humanly. So, a good dose of humility is not only important, but freeing.
Laughter: Carbonated Grace 