I'm Finally Online!

Jess,

Well, like the rest of the world, I'm finally hooked up to the internet in my tiny apartment. So now I will actually have time to contribute to this blog! I'm so excited! Okay, moving on.

I guess I don't really have anything profound to say about truth, necessarily, at least I don't remember what I was going to say at the time. What I do have to say is how my passionate quest for it has brought me just as much pain as joy. Just as much mystery (maybe more) as new data. Just as many new struggles as resolutions. Sometimes I've looked back on my journey and, God forgive me, have questioned why I've come this far. When it seems like the painful consequences have outweighed the beautiful ones. Like when my entire family dismisses me as having fallen prey to a cult and when they tell me that I'm going to hell. Like when I find a larger-than-life discontentment with almost every church I visit, and with the Church as a whole. But then I reflect on the good things that have come during my journey. I love people so much more than I used to. And I love life way more than before. I've discovered grace for the first time in my life, and God has shown me how to extend it to others in ways I never thought I could.

Right now I am reading Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren. As you probably already know, I am a huge fan of his thoughts. This book so far is about the Kingdom of God. In modern Christianity, we were taught that the Kingdom of God is something we get when we die, and only if we ask Jesus to come into our hearts, right now, because we could die tonight and go to, well, you know. And if your church upbringing was anything like mine, you were also taught that if Jesus returns (the rapture) and he catches you in the act of sin (including sinful thoughts) then you were going straight to that other place, too. Damn it all, we've been missing the point all these years! Jesus came to show us how to bring the Kingdom of God HERE! Not somewhere else when we die. Not somewhere else after the rapture-according-to-Jenkins-and-LaHaye. Right here, right now.

I'm sure that you will be seeing more of my thoughts on this book I'm reading, as that will be in the forefront of my mind these next few weeks. I'm sorry that my thoughts seem so scattered. I will be more intentional next time I post. Promise!