Over at Chamblee54, the author makes an interesting application of something I wrote about arguing. It made me realize something that I had never really quite understood about myself. This is the comment I left:
I may be atypical, but I have never felt the need or desire to argue religion. I have also never felt the need or desire to market or proclaim the "Good News". I always felt that I was different from many religious people in that way. I always thought that someone would be converted only if he or she felt that there was something irresistible about me that could be traced to some inner spirituality that they would then pursue for themselves. That may be rooted in the fact that nothing - and I mean nothing - that the Catholic Church ever taught me brought me to Jesus. I got there on my own by exposure to what I read of him in the gospels. His words and teachings and parables had all the integrity and truth I needed. The church got it all screwed up. It's like when you are having a really good conversation with someone at a bar or a party and a loud drunk horns in on you and spills stuff on you. That is what the church is between me and Jesus. And that is exactly what the church was not supposed to be. Yup. Catholicism is a loud obnoxious drunk who breaks up the conversation between Jesus and the human race. That is why the Catholic Church needs to be cut down to the root. So it can re-grow itself correctly. It's almost too late, but not quite.
"Perge modo et qua te ducit via dirige gressum," said Venus to Aeneas.
3 comments:
I love the image of the Church as an obnoxious drunk getting in the way of one's access to Jesus. I'm protestant, and the difference between the Catholics and protestants is negligible in this regard. I'm so pissed at the church and church people that I don't attend services anymore. I'd like to, but there are too many church people there.
Like you, I had to sidestep men to reach God. For many years I allowed men's hypocrisy to keep me away. But it was a man's quiet faith that drew me in. He was living a powerful, peace-filled life, and I wanted what he had. Without saying a word to me, he set the example that drew me to begin my own search. That magnetism is what any person of faith should radiate. To use one's faith/religion as a weapon of any kind—shame, guilt, burden, exclusivity, power, control, ad infinitum—is an anathema to the true nature of God. One should never need to sell what truly fills your soul. You give it away.
I have not been to a church in quite some time because it is like reading the music but never hearing or singing it. This is not the case for everyone. Good for them. And good for you too. Every so often, there is a drunk that gets sober.
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