I just received (from Simona C. (*)) an insightful story telling like this: one day, during religious program, two armed black-clothed men entered a church, one of them saying out loud: “who’s ready to take one bullet for The Christ, stand still!” 20 out of the 2000 “believers” being present remained in the church. The armed men then took their hoods out and tell the priest “you can begin to preach now. Good day!” and they left.
I’m looking at what world “religion” brings up… people brought to churches in fear, lack of beliefs… “church is telling you about the devil, about Satan, about daemons and evil spirits and hell and damnation and every freighting thing they can think of to get you to see how what you intuitively knowing and feeling is wrong and how the only place you’ll find any comfort is in their ideas, their theology, their church, their definition of right and wrong. Celebrations rarely surround choices to follow personal truth. “What?! Are you thinking for yourself? You’re deciding on you own?”“ (**)
I should be careful of these... They may require me to think. Thinking is hard!
Have you been to a church lately [at last 25 years]?... Yes, that’s why I don’t feel like I belong to a (any) church, I don’t feel like going to the ceremony on Christmas or Easter… second and last (I think) time when I was confessing in church was on the day of my marriage; the priest wouldn’t marry me if I hadn’t been confessing…
(*)Thank you, Simona, for constantly reminding us of WHO WE REALLY ARE!
(**)Quotation from Conversations with God book by Neal Donald Walsh.