The Deep Thoughts Of Children
I'm not a Christian. I'm more of a multi- path person. One of these folks that serves as a witness to good and then strives to adapt myself to that model.
I was raised Catholic. But, I haven't been back to church in years. My soul could never reconcile the history and reality of the church with what I knew to be true about Jesus. Since the election, there have been renegade priests who attempted to deny communion to people who voted for Obama. It happened in South Carolina. And a woman in California was told to leave church and remove her car which was covered with Obama stickers before he called the police! Not wanting a big public hoo-ha, the Church has since corrected these men. But, it looks like to many shades of the past to me.
I often find myself pushing my feet back from entering the circle of judgement. It is so easy to point a finger at a priest, preacher, rabbi, imam or other holy person skewing reality to their twisted agenda. And then to point the finger and say, "Bad! Awful! Wrong!"
In these times, I have to invite myself to recognize their fragile humanity. To understand that they are in a place where they can not see the true teaching of so many prophets and wise men/women. Because - they are human.
We are so much smaller than divinity. Try as we may to understand the Power/s That Be is not what we were made for. We were made to exercise our free will in conjunction with the gift of knowledge about right action. We were given the ability to discern.
The other day my son said, "Do you ever think that God has us all on puppet strings and moves us around like toys?"
And I answered, "That's an idea. It sure feels like that sometimes. But, God made some rules. And he told us what they are. Then, he asked us to choose. That's called free will."
And he said, "But not everybody follows the rules."
"Yeah."
"Because sometimes, the rules don't agree with the other rules."
"Yeah."
"But there ARE rules."
"Yeah."
"Like be nice, share, cooperate, solve problems nicely."
"Yeah."
"And sometimes that's hard to do."
"Yeah."
"So, we can always walk away when people aren't really doing the real rules."
"Right."
"That's what God wants. We gotta follow the real rules."
"At least the way we understand them best."
"Does that mean people who don't follow the rules don't go to heaven?"
"Some people say heaven is being close to God. If you don't follow most of the rules most of the time you go farther from God. And to be near God feels sooooo good."
"Oh."
End of conversation. Children are very wise. I hope my interpretation of the rules gets me closer to God.
I was raised Catholic. But, I haven't been back to church in years. My soul could never reconcile the history and reality of the church with what I knew to be true about Jesus. Since the election, there have been renegade priests who attempted to deny communion to people who voted for Obama. It happened in South Carolina. And a woman in California was told to leave church and remove her car which was covered with Obama stickers before he called the police! Not wanting a big public hoo-ha, the Church has since corrected these men. But, it looks like to many shades of the past to me.
I often find myself pushing my feet back from entering the circle of judgement. It is so easy to point a finger at a priest, preacher, rabbi, imam or other holy person skewing reality to their twisted agenda. And then to point the finger and say, "Bad! Awful! Wrong!"
In these times, I have to invite myself to recognize their fragile humanity. To understand that they are in a place where they can not see the true teaching of so many prophets and wise men/women. Because - they are human.
We are so much smaller than divinity. Try as we may to understand the Power/s That Be is not what we were made for. We were made to exercise our free will in conjunction with the gift of knowledge about right action. We were given the ability to discern.
The other day my son said, "Do you ever think that God has us all on puppet strings and moves us around like toys?"
And I answered, "That's an idea. It sure feels like that sometimes. But, God made some rules. And he told us what they are. Then, he asked us to choose. That's called free will."
And he said, "But not everybody follows the rules."
"Yeah."
"Because sometimes, the rules don't agree with the other rules."
"Yeah."
"But there ARE rules."
"Yeah."
"Like be nice, share, cooperate, solve problems nicely."
"Yeah."
"And sometimes that's hard to do."
"Yeah."
"So, we can always walk away when people aren't really doing the real rules."
"Right."
"That's what God wants. We gotta follow the real rules."
"At least the way we understand them best."
"Does that mean people who don't follow the rules don't go to heaven?"
"Some people say heaven is being close to God. If you don't follow most of the rules most of the time you go farther from God. And to be near God feels sooooo good."
"Oh."
End of conversation. Children are very wise. I hope my interpretation of the rules gets me closer to God.
Comments
Its all about rules. The ideas that god gives us rules is a nonsence.
Open your eyes woman, nature does not have morals right and wrongs.
Humans make rules and they also make god in their own image.
My ancesters in Nigeria learned right and wrong from nature when children were born with defects they killed them.
How does that fit into your Christian ideas of write and wrong.
You are just a typical American Coconut dressing up in Afro clothes so you can feel superior to your pale students.
Your ego is monstrous and you are infecting your child with the same nonsense about free will.
You think you have free will but what you have is privilage. That privaige of you fat bloated Americans denies the free will of millions of enslaved people in the poor nations.
Once upon a time Black Americans stood up to fight for their own vision of a future sadly they were killed or like you just joined the American dream Machine