Religion versus Reality

I am sorry for the way that much organized religion has tainted what is supposed to be the greatest joy. I have experienced the dark side of religion, probably more than most, with crosses burned in my yard, death threats to my family, and constant upheaval during my growing years due to the ignorance of church people. I have survived and my faith has survived the conflicts with ignorance, superficiality, prejudice, and heresy. All that aside, the Christian experience is a personal one.

I do not blame God for the ignorance of people. I do not blame religion for actions and evil perpetrated in its name. I understand that people make choices to live their lives within the goodness and grace of God or outside of it. The ability to delude ourselves into positions and actions that are totally incongruous to Christianity and perpetrate it in the name of Christianity is a product of the hubris that always ends in tragedy.

 There is no greater tragedy than when someone with God given gifts, called by God to his work, and willing to experience the joy of living in God's will is driven from the ultimate experience of joy by those who don't understand the faith they espouse. Scripture teaches that in the spiritual realm, nothing is as harshly judged as those who keep people from a relationship with God. Some say that "to do no harm" is the goal. I say to deprive one of the spiritual release and knowledge that comes from a personal relationship with God is the ultimate harm. Many save lives everyday in their vocation based in science and medicine. I try to save lives everyday in my vocation based in the spirit. Physical existence is not all there is to living. 

I want every person to know the joy that I have experienced in my faith. It has led me past the ignorance of the institutional religion, the ignorance of the folk religions practiced by those seeking the joy and peace that I have; but not recognizing its reality. I want the openness of Spirit that recognizes the value of real living in a personal relationship with the one who created us. I want to share the gifts that come from that relationship in music, writing, and social action. There can be no separation of the individual from that relationship once established. We become what we do. If what we do is not based on what we believe, then we will believe in what we do and justify it by our own delusion.

 I find no conflict between my faith and science. I embrace that which is empirically proven as that which God created and I am many times astounded at the simplicity and the complexity of it just as the simplicity and complexity of salvation astounds me. I also embrace that which God's creation represents - the relational nature of God and Humanity made in God's image.

I do not choose to only recognize the finite. It is just a clue to the infinite.