Sunday, June 04, 2006

the notes i sent myself today

christian platitudes only make it so far. christ was a highly personable person: he related to broken people, people who were sick of the world and its fake solutions, people who just wanted to give up. but jesus is gone and nobody is here right now that i want to spend any time with whatsoever. i dont want to talk to anybody but him, and he doesnt want to talk to me, so that's where we stand i guess. how convenient most truths spouted by the church become...convenient, like a horoscope's vague language is applicable to so many situations at once...convenient in that same way...but my life is not the same as what you imagine it to be. no horoscope makes sense of my future. everybody thinks i'm ok, it's laughable that felipe thought i read consistently...i've never read consistently. ENOUGH with the platitudes...god isn't in my bible, god isn't in my prayer, god just isn't for me right now, so give it up. if he weren't in yours, would you notice? would you be too busy checking him off you list of things to do before breakfast?...self-satisfaction. discipline, is that the supreme christian virtue? so it appears. discipline. an athlete, a soldier. Jesus? no, those aren't the first things that come to mind. Not supremely. Though you can't supremely define him in any word of metaphor anyways. why do folk try? but why is popular christian culture so enamoured with the virtue of discipline? The answer to that would mostly reveal stuff about me, my perceptions, but also the church...the church is different from popular christian culture. ...yes, i want to be more spiritual...only as an extension of living more truthfully in accordance with my inner struggle. if i had release through art, there'd be canvas after canvas covering my walls. but i have release through writing...watch the pages fly. and what would i tell Him, if He were listening?

4 comments:

Pamela Joy said...

that is very honest Bethany. I hope it is a place to move forward from and not a place to be stuck in. I hope with a Romans 5:5 kind of hope. I'll be praying for you, and also I'll see you in 18 days.

Janice said...

i agree. discipline is not everything. it's something, to some. i'm just struggling every day to make a point of being honestly, truly, undeniably stuck in a valley. i've picked a rock and i've sat down. i should probably walk, but i think somehow i'm waiting for jesus to come and give me a hand up. he hasn't shown up so far, on purpose i think. it's an interesting tantrum we're having.

that probably didn't make any sense...what i wanted to say was...thanks for saying those things. they helped me.

jacquie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

hi bethany.
you don't know me. we've never met. we've never spoken before. i just wanted to say thankyou for your honesty. i think fake discipline so that others will respect me when really, i feel like even when i do talk to him, he doesn't seem to care much. and you're the only person i've told that.