Being told that there would be no more prophecies was one of the most damaging things done to people’s understanding of god and also the church’s inclusivity to the people of god. Some group of guys deciding which prophetic words or accountancy of history, would be best to put into this new book - this close-ended, don’t fuck with it EVER book - is just absurd. Yet, we just blindly believe it. Because our parents did and their parents did and their parents did and their government did. Making mens’ writings of their experiences with god holy and sacred, without taking into account their many human lenses is pretty fucking irresponsible.

I don’t sit down to pray without pen and paper anymore. Ever since I began to pray the way I do now and not the way I was taught to, the intense and frantic urges to write down everything god is telling me sends me into a frenzy for writing utensils and scraps of anything to expel it on. I know god is talking to me and I know god is telling me to write down what they are telling me and no one could ever convince me otherwise. But still, nothing I write is without the bias of my lens - my experiences - my beliefs. I am a filter. I am going to perceive it the way that I can and as fast as I can and there will be plenty of room for error because I am a slow processor.

I have almost forever had issues with the church’s reliance on Paul for doctrine. His writings dominate what it looks like to be christian - what’s right and wrong. His writings exclude whole subtypes of humans, making them think they are not good enough or welcome because of who god MADE them to be! Is it really that hard to believe that Paul, a guy knowingly and admittedly plagued by “sin” was himself gay (in heart, if not in practice) or even the victim of sexual abuse? But since he seemed like a stand-up guy, and well there were lots of surviving letters to validate the cause, we allowed his thoughts to condemn and alienate some of the most god-hearted people I have ever known, right out of the church. We discounted all the other people hearing from god too. The ones that lacked the privilege of knowing how to read or write, the money for writing supplies, or the position in society to have people want to hear anything they said.

To think God spoke just enough to conveniently encase in 66 books and then be done with it makes god pretty small. Taking the words spoken in the context of distant cultures and experiences and trying to make them relevant in this world, while it’s falling apart, seems like an exercise in pre-ordained futility, if you ask me.

So, I’ll listen to god - at least my version of them. And I’ll write this stuff down. And I’ll put it here because I feel like I’m supposed to. It’s nothing holy or sacred, or maybe it is, but no more than anyone else’s. I don’t know where the words go or what they do, but they’re here. I hope you do it too.

As I look at it from the other side, I am sadly baffled by the disconnect between christianity and paganism. This is such a huge part of my indoctrination and I'm frankly pretty angry about it now. I don’t know if everyone goes through the experience at some time, but I was born a human strongly tied to the natural world. I always wanted to be outside and smelling the earth and touching the trees and breathing the everything. Sometimes the spirit of it, though, would pull at me to fold myself into it in ways I had been trained were bad and dark and lead to eternal damnation. “Love the creator, not creation”, I heard more than a couple times. How fucked up is that?

When it started to change and creation was the ONLY place I could feel god anymore, I managed to move the line over a little and still walk it safely. Sometimes people would raise an eyebrow or give a little smirk or explain to me how I was misunderstanding things. After I left the church, I allowed myself more inclusive freedom and moved the line a little further still so I could still walk it. There were still boundaries though, so that I wouldn’t damn my soul. I could still find ways to fit my spiritual experiences into the father-son-holy spirit paradigm. And then I just couldn’t anymore.

Systematically, sometimes slowly, sometimes quicker than I could manage to process, every dead end opened wide up. I could do nothing but think for myself without all those brainwashed boundaries stopping me in my tracks. There was no guilt anymore. There were no panic attacks anymore. I finally could listen to the spirit fully, even when it contradicted everything I had been trained to believe and not to believe. It wasn’t until later that I found out where all this doctrine came from and I was finally seeing what so many people that I had spent my life arguing with, were seeing.

Having no distinction is so liberating. Using all the ancient ways to commune with god is just so much more efficient and omnipresent. The trap of Sunday morning worship is so ludicrous. And complacency-forming. Some areas of these changes have been complacency-forming for me too, but overall in just a peace-provoking way. Complacency is part of being human and finding the right amount of structure to avoid falling into it, is a new dance I am learning. I feel god in my body and surrounding me all the time now. It’s the holy spirit, in the christian sense of the word, it’s just more connective and symbiotic. I write these things for my own therapy. Maybe it will mean something to someone some day, maybe it won’t. It means something to me either way.

farewell, lost sheep.

you shouldn’t have wandered away.

don’t you know the world is full of darkness?

things we don’t understand?

bad places. bad people. bad things.

you don’t want to be out there.

you want to be in here.

in the light.

it’s fading and getting much smaller.

but as long as we all stay together,

we won’t be alone,

when we slip into irrelevance.

this christ candle

the flames so smooth, so full of the spirit

i have loved this with you and my heart hurts to see you go.

but, i wonder.

why did it take this long?

you have been with us many moons.

and how sad...

that we light you in an intentional act of communion.

at the thought of wasted candles, that could have done the same .

oh, that i could burn so many candles for you .

the spirit of the wood,

the air we breathe,

creation we eat,

the moon,

the energy between us,

the love we feel,

the gratitude,

the sorrow,

the force between magnets,

my kitten’s whiskers across my cheek,

the angry person we validate,

the mountains we climb,

the doubt,

the chemical reaction in our brain when the song we love is reaching its climax and we’re alone in the car and can sing as loud as we want to ❤️

waking up

and to think i thought i WAS awake

a bedtime story

the very words that were given to free us from our bondage

now used to choke out what is true

a story told as far back as we can remember - of our people

told to us by our mothers, our grandmothers

but written by men - men who wanted to become god.