The day started this morning with a beautiful thunderstorm. Everytime there is a storm, I remember Mike Barnes. He used to say that thunderstorms made him think of “God walking around atop the clouds.” It reminded him of the tremendous power of God. To me, it’s not just because of the loud thunder, but also the restraint. Most storms produce a rainbow as a promise that the Lord of Heaven will not destroy the earth again by water. I imagine some day, that is not an easy promise to keep.
My thoughts are darker this morning: it’s a Romans 7 kind of day. I want to do what is right, but find myself doing everything else. I mention this first, because I’m sure that it impacts the rest of my thought process.
You ever have a day where you wake up and hope that the past season was all a dream and everything is going to be okay for this episode? For those that pay attention to the Magical PayneCo Phrase-O-Matic device (lovingly called Jabberwocky), this is called the Bobby Ewing Effect(tm).
It’s not the meeting I was a part of last night. That meeting actually encouraged me more than anything. It reassured me that I’m not crazy and that I’m not some raging libertine that is destroying orthodox christianity. Really, my minister and I are reading the same things about Thomas and have some of the same questions. I look forward to talking to him soon.
Seriously, though, today I wish that I would have woken up and I was never a part of the ICC and lived on the beach in my childhood home. I want to wake up on the beach and watch the waves for an hour. I want to have the relationships with my family that I may never have. I want to think about God and not think about church. For that matter, I don’t want to think about churches.
I’m tired. I get worn out with all these emotional gymnastics, but I decide everyday that I will feel something. I figure that if I stop feeling, I stop being human and I stop being a believer. Still, why won’t certain people just GO AWAY? But even if they do, there’s so much rebuilding that needs to be done that it could take 100 people 100 lifetimes to finish. On days like today, it feels like there aren’t 100 that what to try – maybe 10? maybe 5? maybe none? I won’t vent about specific things today mainly because more things than usual are getting to me. (For example, I still think Tony Stewart needs to be fined or something.)
Anywho, I began my time with God today crying that I don’t want to fight anymore. I feel so hopeless. I read from Thomas, or DisciplesToday or even Doug Jacoby and I just sigh. It’s like “why do I bother? I will never be happy to be associated with any of these people. There is just too much pain.”
Now Doug has been nothing but kind to me and helpful to my minister, so I know it’s not him. Roger and I have also exchanged kind words as well. I guess it’s a certain frame of reference that the three of us share that I react to. We share this bittersweet history and even in my own thoughts I just want to hear something different.
I used to love going to conferences, but now I dread the basic questions. The basic questions used to be:
“What church are you from?”
“How long have you been a disciple(htdm)?”
“Are you in campus or singles?”
“Wasn’t the last message awesome?”
Now the questions are:
“What church are you from?”
“How is your church doing?”
“How many left?”
“How many staff resigned or were fired?”
“How did you guys react to HKL?”
“What do you think about _ _ _ in Portland and what he’s doing?”
Of course, I want to ask the same questions, so I can’t complain.
I guess that I am sad today and just want to escape. I’ll be glad to see my friends tonight, especially my best friend, Laryssa. I’ll be glad to be home tonight and still. I won’t pray or read or think, these things just upset me. No, I will pretend the internet doesn’t exist and just be still. That will be nice.