2011: Free At Last!

"You will know the truth and the truth will set you free."  (John 8:32)

If you are a die-hard Christian this opening line will immediately make you jump onto my train of thought.  If you consider yourself moderately Christian you might tag along just to see where I'm going with this.  If you are a spiritual person but not a Christian the opening line might just put you off but the hunger in you keeps you curious.  If you are none of the above but searching for some deeper meaning to life you might just roll your eyes and sigh then move on.  Either way if you are reading this far I'll try to make it worth your while.  The new year is coming.  This year is almost done.  For most of us we want 2011 to be better than 2010.  I sure do.  I am beginning to realize that I feel chained... yes bound... by certain feelings, particular circumstances and predicaments.  So I'm hoping, trusting, and believing that the new year will bring me what I feel I need: a feeling of freedom and release... an excitement and anticipation of the new and uncharted future (it's better than saying uncertain).  What I am really worried about is that I don't end up living what has been happening as I am writing this blog. I have been forced to stop writing because my two little girls (a 3-year old and a 20-month old) keep getting out of bed when they need to be in bed... so I keep getting up and putting them back in and when I come back to write these lofty thoughts back out of bed they come.  But wait!  It's been a while now... they've been quiet... nope, here they come again. Yes, I'm worried that 2011 will be just like 2010 because here come the same situations... same struggles... same feelings.  So I keep getting up and dealing with them like I always do.  Please give me freedom from this karmic cycle!  In comes the opening line- "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" . Aaah... there is a way out.  I need to know the truth.  In the bible the word "know" is best translated by the word "intimate".  It is a knowing based on an intimate experience... a deep level of vulnerabilty... a place where I don't really want to go because it hurts too much.  Maybe that's why I am trapped.  If I really want to be free I need to admit what I am intimate with- my failures, my shortcomings... my sins.  But that freedom feels impossible to reach.  This admission of my intimate knowledge is what I have been unconsciously trying to avoid... so I keep getting up and putting my issues... my sins to bed... but they keep getting up and coming back.

In comes the line right before the opening line. "If you keep on obeying what I have said...you are truly my disciples" (John 8:31)... "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free".  Aaaah... now that is something radical... freedom through obedience... standing on top by coming under.  I think simply put: this freedom only comes when something or someone outside of myself comes into the picture.  Let me just call this simply- the supernatural.  If I live under submission to the supernatural then I can be intmate with the ugly enslaving truths in my life... and under the supernatural I can be free of the tyranny of these ugly truths!  This is catalytic.  This is life-changing!  This is what will make 2011 an awesome year!  Under the supernatural I can be vulnerable and yet secure.  I can be broken and struggling yet real and authentic.  And that is what makes my Christian faith powerful and strong.  What we need is not more preachy sermonizing or moralizing.  What we need is authenticity and vulnerability.  I am ending this meditation with a 7-minute video of a pastor who reminded me what happens when I know the truth and how it will set me free.  I strongly encourage you to see it. 

By the way, the kids are still awake... I just put them back to bed... again.  But hey! This blog is done.  I think I'm going to go lie down with them.  Thank you Jesus for your supernatural presence.   Happy New Year!

Comments About "Going Back To My First Blog(s)"

I first discovered blogging in 2006.  I created a private blog.  This was before all the blogging, twittering, and facebooking became all the rave.  My blog site was called "theraforum"... a combination of "therapy" and "forum".  I wanted to create a place for persons to engage each other in serious religious conversation with no holds barred. After entering only 4 entries I lost interest.  It was after all a private blog.  Today I revisited those early blogs and republished them here.  If this bores you comment me as to why.  If it engages you great.  I edited the endings to reflect living beyond normal.  Face it.  The only true way to live is to live beyond normal.  Be blessed!

Going Back To My First Blog Pt.4

Saturday, April 07, 2007

So if religion is not to be an institution for the sake of this day and age then how can a movement that is dynamic, challenging, and iconoclastic be a true religion? In this entry I would like to explore the idea that since religion seems like a passe word for this current age then any religion that is manifest in the form of an institution cannot be of benefit to the human race at this point in time. A Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or Buddhist, and yes even a Christian cannot look onto their respective religions for hope, restoration, and healing. The simple reason is that these religions are all entrenched institutions that are unable to become a true and genuine religion unless they become a movement. Many religion devotees would probably object because each of their religions demonstrate certain movements- mostly fanatical if not at the fringes... many radical if not wildly popular and chic! Could this not demonstrate that even religion in its insitutional state can be a movement? My answer would be NO! Movements are radical in the sense that it is not bound by any institutional framework. Movements are not fanatical or dogmatic. Most purported movements in religion settings are a combination of an extreme and intensive fanaticism and a cold and unbending dogmatism. Genuine and real movements may look fanatic and even dogmatic on appearance. But in its core it is like a wildfire... unbounded, unpredictable, and completely creative and destructive at the same time! How can these qualities be definitive of a movement? The answer believe it or not lies in the very nature of religion itself if it is truly genuine and real. The core of religion is a set of what I call "root" experiences. I use root because when it comes down to it religion is really a vivid description of a basic and primal experience! When these experiences are rationalized in a set, they become the root experiences that religion springs from. These root experiences are dynamic, life-shaking, and earth-moving. They are in the truest sense of the word- supernatural! They tell us deep down in our human psyche that there is a metaphysical reality that holds this physical universe in its sway. These root experiences are at the same time very human. They break into our soul and our identity... our constructed world. The tragedy is that as these root experiences are rationalized and systematized into a coherent system and structure they become insititutionalized. This cooling and codifying process is what we have traditionally habitualized as religion. At some point the process saturates itself where it becomes completely cold and unfeeling to the human need for healing and restoration. At some point the system seeks to unsaturate itself by attempting a recreation and-or a recapture of the fire to battle the spiritual ice age the system has become. The attempt is to recapture and recreate the root experiences. This is to relieve the critical sense of psychic disconnection from the root experiences. These attempts will only succeed if recreation and recapture fails! When they succeed a quasi-movement is created... fanaticism and its other wing dogmatism. A true movement is NOT a recreating or a recapturing of the root experiences. It is precisely the experience of new root experiences... and therefore uninstitutionalized and completely fluid and burning.... religion as it was meant to be... cathartic, restorative, and transforming in the moment! This is living beyond normal... welcome to the flow.

Going Back To My First Blog Pt.3

Friday, April 06, 2007

How do you bottom line religion? If one was to capture its essence what would it be? This question again goes to the heart of how religion goes through the cycle of becoming a burning raging movement to becoming a cold and rigid institution. So what is the definition of a genuine and true religion? Or is it passe to even attempt a definition and much less a discussion on a subject that for this day and age is considered outmoded? I believe the answer is NO! Religion is still a relevant issue. So again if it has to be relevant how should it be defined? From my own perspective, religion that is true and genuine must first be seen as less of an institution and more of a movement. As mentioned in previous entries religion must be fluid, burning, advancing, and evolving. I believe this must be the case because the human race is in constant need of healing, restoration, and therapy. The reason this present age does not want to consider religion seriously because religion has been packaged more as an institution. Even the more vibrant Christian sects- such as charismatics and pentecostals when stripped to the core is really a veneer of fire on the outside but a cold and hardened rock on the inside. As a result, thousands maybe even millions get caught in the illusion of healing, grace, and restoration that eventually displays the true hardness of heart and coldness of purpose in the end. The case for religion as a movement is of such a crucial significance that this day and age needs religion to be a true fluid and burning reality... healing, restoring, transforming! This view of religion if it really took hold of our imagination and our cognitive framework would make religion look radically different than it does today. It would not be seen as religion per se. It will not look like religion but it will be spiritual. It will not sound like religion but it will be supernatural. It will not even be religion but it will be the context of healing, wholeness, and ultimate direction for the billions of lives that are crying to be genuinely and truly human. This is what theraforum is seeking and pursuing. Welcome to the flow!

Going Back To My First Blog Pt.2

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Okay so I'm a pastor. I have beena church minister for 14 years now. It might seem hypocritical that I would say that I'm sick and tired of religion and still function as a part of it. Would I not still embody that tragic cooling and hardening of spiritual fire that has become a trademark of religion? That might be a legitimate charge. Perhaps my being a pastor handicaps my credibility to make anti-religion statements. But there are a few facts that are going for me:
1.) My 14 years of pastoral experience and my 40 years of growing up in the church has given me a unique insight on what religion has become. I have seen and to some extent experienced this incredible fire of supernatural experience. But I have also seen how Christians as a religious sect have made relgion a cold and heartless world of mere formalities, rituals, and cultural norms.
2.) My 14 years of pastoral experience and my 40 years of growing up in the church has also given me compelling evidence of one thing: this very same incredible fire of supernatural experience is also a healing experience! A Divine therapy for the human soul! For such a healing flame to become cold and heavy is a terrible tragedy! I come in contact with broken and hurting persons who have come running to religion expecting that burning energy to make them whole only to discover the cold and frigid breeze of legtalism and intolerance.

Living Beyond Normal for me is a way of recapturing this fire of supernatural experience while trying to avoid the tendencies of religion to grow cold... I think as a pastor this becomes a badge of credibility!

Going Back To My First Blog

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

I'm tired of religion! I know I'm not supposed to say that... but I feel it! I have been around long enough to know that part of our human nature is that inner drive for meaning... a desire to answer some type of cosmic call. Since the dawn of human life this inner drive has always been observed to be satisfied by religion. But somehow something happens in this human process. Given a period of time, religion that is fiery like a molten lava begins to cool off and harden into rock... cold and unfeeling. The tragedy about this is that this fiery lava of rich spiritual and even supernatural experience is the very center of our inner healing. It is that burning presence that allows us to deal with every human trauma: physical, spiritual, and even psychic. So name your trauma... this cosmic fire we call Divine presence can heal you! Name your dark addiction... this burning flow of supernatural experience will make you whole! But sadly enough the claim that religion is what we are talking about brings that tragic story of molten lava hardening into rock. Perhaps our churches, mosques, temples, and synangogues have just become that... a hard, solid, and cold rock that still behaves and acts like it is fiery, molten, and burning lava where all it is is anything but. So here's an idea... not original but an idea anyway, what if we keep the lava burning. What if we refuse to allow this cosmic fire to harden into rock? What if we vow that we will not allow this fire to cool off into hard rock for the sake of the divine healing our human heart so desperately needs? This is what TheraForum is all about. It stands for therapy and forum.... the arena where healing of every kind can find its home through the process of community.... voices that join together in a forum of discussion and sharing... where we stoke that divine fire... where we keep that supernatural lava flowing! Then perhaps Lord willing we will not become a religion... that cold, hard, and oppressive thing that weighs us down. Perhaps we will become what religion is supposed to be: the experience of a reality that is beyond ourselves and yet holds the key to our healing... our sanity. Take the first step towards your healing!