On another note, I tried to make a happier post over at xanga on my sacred life. Still feeling depressed.
Fr. again talked about how we can do nothing for ourselves (with regards to salvation). Alone we are lost. We are fallen. We can’t do one single thing to help ourselves gain heaven. He’s been on a roll with this for some time. I beginning to suspect it’s all PR work. You know, to downplay all the negative press Catholics get about good works from the Protestants. Good works are good but without the grace of God through Jesus Christ they won’t get you into heaven.
Frankly I always liked good works. Made me feel like I could do something myself. Like I had power. Well, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I CAN NOT DO ANYTHING TO SAVE MYSELF. Okay, I heard it.
Why do we need saved? Saved from what? Hell? So God got mad and said he’d show those sinful, proud people. He would just shut the gates of heaven. And make them wait until he got good and ready to send a savior.
Does anyone really believe that? Does anyone really believe that Adam and Eve story? Other than my fundamentalist brother-in-law and wife. Okay. I know. It’s symbolic. It symbolized man’s pride and desire to be like God. The tree in the garden is symbolic of man trying to be more than he is. Well, duh. God gave us a brain. He gave us passion. He gave us desire. But then He says only use these within these very narrow rules. What a set up. Of course we would fail. And why is God so jealous about His knowledge anyway. Why doesn’t He want to share his knowledge of good and evil? Seems like a petty minded dictator. Set us up for failure.
Of course I don’t believe that. I admit I’m clueless about original sin. Man fell. Was it one act by one man? Was it a general act by society trying to improve and gain more knowledge? We got a little greedy and wanted more knowledge. Is that so bad. Why am I fallen? Why do I need saved? I think it was just a story to explain the rotten, miserable lives the Jews had. And to give them hope that some day someone would come and make their life better.
So I need saved. But I can’t do a thing about it. Because I’m fallen. Because I was born without God’s grace. So there’s God up there, or out there, everywhere but evenly present thinking up a plan to save the helpless, unworthy humans he created. The three personalities or parts or personalities or characters come up with a plan. God the Father (Creator) will send down God the Son (redeemer) to teach the people and then die this bloody, horrible death to satisfy God the Father for the sins of humanity. Then later He will send God the Holy Spirit (paraclete) to help us on our way. So he picks this young Jewish girl to be the mother of God the Son. This plan has been in the making for sometime because God had the forethought to make sure this girl wasn’t conceived with this original sin thing. She becomes miraculously pregnant and gives birth to this baby boy. God the Son. Jesus.
Who is Jesus? God, as in God up there, out there. Divine. While we have God’s grace (his life) in us, as long as we’re not in mortal sin, that doesn’t make us divine. This Jesus is God to us humans – vertical. Yet he becomes man. Horizontal. God and man. Hypostatic union. Not man with God in him, but God who lowered himself to become man. Man and God together.
Fr. has also said several times that Jesus ‘gave up’ his divinity to become man. That isn’t Catholic teaching. But I considered it. God giving up his divinity to come down among us to save us. That was nice. That would be a sacrifice. If you were God and you gave up being God to become one of Your creation. Yes, that’s a sacrifice.
Well, here we have God/Man in Jesus. He grows up. He suffers all the temptations we suffer. But he’s still God. And then the time comes for the great sacrifice. His death on the cross. Now why in the world would GOD need a bloody sacrifice, require a bloody sacrifice, to let humanity gain heaven. If God is God, all powerful, all knowing, all perfect, He wouldn’t need this. But there it is. Without this sacrifice, heaven would still be shut up tight.
Scripture tells us Jesus prayed to his father (or was he praying to himself if he’s god – or do the holy spirit and Jesus have to pray to the father but who does the father pray to). Anyway, he prayed that night in the garden that he not have to do this thing, but if it was his father’s will, he would. I’ve always wondered since the apostles were sleeping how anyone knew what Jesus really said when he was praying. You don’t think somebody put words in Jesus’ mouth, do you. So poor Judas plays his part in the whole pre-arranged plot and gets Jesus arrested. Then feeling really rotten about it, goes off and hangs himself. But Jesus had to die so somebody needed to turn him in. Poor Judas. I always felt for Judas. So he gets nailed to a cross and dies. Three days later he rises from the dead, rises bodily from the dead and walks around down here until he goes up to heaven until his second coming – whenever that will be. Then God relents and opens the gates of heaven.
No, no, no. It just doesn’t work. I don’t think it ever has worked for me. This is not reasonable. This God is just like man. We continue with our anthropomorphic god and find a story that fits. Just this past year have I had the courage to actually write this out. To even let these doubts enter my mind would send me into near panic mode. I’ve come a long ways.
In a class I took to get my catechist certificate, we discussed the fact that more and more theologians are acknowledging that Jesus’ resurrection could have been a spiritual vision that the apostles had rather than this actual physical one. Again, that directly contradicts Catholic dogma.
Who was Jesus. I truly don’t know Jesus. Was he God. Remember, God is way up there and we’re way down here. I can’t even think of metaphor to describe the different between God and man. Creator and created.
What if Jesus is like us. What if we are like Jesus. What if Jesus is divine in the way we are divine. What if we are divine as Jesus is divine. What if Jesus was crucified just simply for the reason that the Pharisees wanted to get rid of him because he was about to pop their all powerful bubble. What if Jesus was just more evolved – his soul was more evolved. What if there have been others who have a more evolved soul.
When I started this whole journey I decided to go back to square one and start with God. Yes, I believe in a God, or a something. Not God as Christians teach about him. This energy, this something that is inside of us. And outside of us. And connects us to every other single human being, from beginning to end. Yes, something like that. Yes I do believe. But how to know him. Nature is my first answer. God is in nature. Well, then he’s in me. I’m trying. I have it suggested to look for God in me. I have to get out of the mode that I’m fallen, I can’t do anything, that I’m not worth, and consider the possibility that I’ve been worthy from the beginning.
Could all humans just be part of the big God. I didn’t put that well. But that’s where I’m at right now. I know I said this before, but I’ll say it again. Living inside of rules, doctrine, dogma with someone else telling you how to live, telling you exactly what was right, faithwise and moral wise was easy. It really didn’t take a lot of faith. Putting that all behind and looking inside your self takes an enormous amount of faith. Trusting that God will continue to love even I’ve questioned everything, even his own existence, takes more faith than I might have. It would be so easy to fall back into the rules, letting others tell me what I should have faith in, what is right, what is wrong.
Today at Mass my heart felt so heavy and sad. I felt near tears. It’s not easy shedding an old skin and donning a new one. It’s frightening and lonely. I want to be part, but I felt on the outside looking in. This Easter didn’t feel joyful. It felt very, very sad.
2 comments:
You have already awakened but are still, as the little newly emerged butterfly, getting used to your new perspective and seeing what it is like to be in a different paradigm. It is like you are looking through a foggy window now, still seeing from an old memory that does not fit anymore. It seems like you are the only one, but you aren't. You have taken your cue for so long from the Church authority. You are trying out how it feels to have your own thoughts and feelings about who you are and who you are becoming. You just need to keep looking into the Christ Mirror until you are more sure. Only those who no longer need to have church approval can go forward and create the new reality. I imagine that is another thing Jesus meant by the words, "do not cling.." Have you heard of the work of Mat Fox, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, O'Murchu and others? They name the new story Creation Spirituality. It is a great threat to the Establishment and they have condemmed the Creation Spirituality movement. If they accepted it, their theology and lives would change too drastically. They can't let go out of fear of the unknown. Maybe they don't really have faith in God after all. More will be revealed. Don't give up.
You are not alone.
I think you are very brave. Keep going.
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