Thanks for all the comments guys. I really appreciate your love and support. Someday, when I begin to catch up with my writing, I will write a very real, but cool headed blog about what I am feeling about Jesus, Christians, and Christianity. If and when I write this I would love to have open dialogue.
I will say this for now, I don't feel bad for having doubts, I am not beating myself up. That was the first thing I gave up when I started slipping away. In fact I gave that up long before I ever gave up on God. And it has been wonderful. "There is therefore now no condemnation." That is probably my favorite scripture verse after, "He who rises early in the morning and greets his neighbor in a loud voice, it shall be counted a curse to him."
The biggest disparity I see between Christians and the Bible is their constant beating themselves up and making others out to be horrible sinners. What give them the God damn right to damn someone from God? Oh I hate self-righteousness. It smells like... you know that smell after you killed someone, I mean after that wonderful victorious feeling has gone away and after you have tasted that oh so sweet human heart, when you have been trying to get rid of the body, but you have been unable to do so, and they have been sitting in you trunk for a few days, and you accidentally left your car in the sun and then that stink that will never actually go away makes you realize now you have to dump the body AND the car... Its like that.
So no, I feel great, I was in a bad place for a few days because I rented a comedy club to have a show and everything was going wrong and I was losing money, and very few people showed up. But now I know how to produce a show and the next one will be better, and I will protect myself from going to that dark unproductive place again.
I also not sorry I said what I said to God, I'm not sorry for yelling at him or being angry with him, at least I'm not sorry to you for that. If he is who we say he is then he is big enough to handle little old me yelling at him. No, the reason I felt the need to apologize is that I wrote what I wrote because I was being malicious and I wanted to make my readers feel bad. I purposefully used derogatory scatological language to be as offensive as possible. And I am pretty sure that while I am not convinced that sinning is at all what I grew up to believe it is, I am certain that I wrote from a place of malice, and if God is love, or if love is only the highest ideal we have as human beings, I fell short of the mark, therefore I sinned. For that, and that alone, I apologize.
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I wil unfortunately be on tour starting tomorrow with New Kids on the Block (before you laugh, remember 1 of them was Sgt. Carwood "Lip" Lipton in Band of Brothers) until July 18...HOWEVER! I will be home July 4th - 6th, while most of that needs to be spent with my wife I would gladly have coffee/lunch with you, or even invite you over for some of my fantastic genuine Italian cooking. I live in the 470/Quebec area. You have my number?
Much love, Pat. I will tell you the same thing I told my friend from high school after she told me she no longer considers herself a christian. "Good job, too". I don't think that God is who He has been made out to look like. So many Christian leaders are teaching what they've been taught and not reading the Bible for themselves, and indeed, not observing the most obvious parts of life for themselves. I am of the firm opinion that if you are abandoning your "faith", not out of irritation or anger, but out of a simple desire to actually learn the Truth, whatever that Truth turns out to be, you will meet Jesus. Not the Caucasian, long haired, white cotton bathrobe wearing guy on the nursery wall, the Jesus that, if you really meet Him, you will pee your pants in fear and awe right before your brain explodes from finding out the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
So. All that to say "Good job, too". And keep searching, because God loves hide-and-seek. At least, that's what He told me.
-j