gnosis 2/11/08

Random rambling from the last few months, this one about my practice as a then-Christian:

more about my Christian practice:

It's true that I am a Christian. But it is also true that I have found no home among any body of believers. There are several reasons for my status as an outcast. They include:

1) An interpretation of scripture's exhortations to defend the defenseless and give a voice to the voiceless as reinforcing liberal proposals for public policy;

2) A recognition of the gnostic texts not included in the Bible, particularly Jesus's reported teachings on self-knowledge as a path to salvation and on the inviolate sanctity of all creation, as being divinely inspired and quotable resources equal to the New Testament texts;

3) An understanding that each person is created to give love and to receive it, regardless of ephemeral distractions like sexual orientation or gender identification;

4) A reverent attitude toward the body, which I see as a sacred expression of divine intelligence and a font of creative potency. I believe that touch and the body have the power to bring us to salvation and they should be respected and refined as redemptive tools;

5) A tendency to push my fellow believers to the breaking point, demanding a depth of analysis in their philosophical discourse that they interpret as doubt on my part. I don't doubt their faith; I simply wish to strengthen it by asking them to realize the consequences of each tenet as they currently understand it, and inviting them to look deeper;

6) A disinterest in the petty minutiae that divide believers - Pope or no Pope; NIV, NASB, KJV; miracle of divine tranfiguration or symbolic gesture . . . Who cares? Jesus taught us how to find truth in love. Living the truths requires a strength of will akin to alchemy, transforming the character from a corrupted lump into its brilliant undiluted natural state. One must first become like fire and burn off all the dross that vitiates that initial (or primordial) energy, then one must be water and receive the new understanding, after which we are like earth and nurture those who call on us, and then finally one simply exists as breath. A lot like the yanas, I guess. It demands an enormous exertion of focus and these disputes impoverish that focus.

So you see, not only have I been a bad Christian because I have been unyielding, judgmental, and cruel, but I don't even start my walk from the same point as so many others. Am I fatally flawed as a Christian seeker? I don't think so - the teachings resonate with me. They simply strike a different chord in my understanding. Maybe that's my purpose, to challenge the dogma. I don't know. All I know is that the Christianity I find in the churches is a rigid sclerotic mutant of what I read in the texts, and I can't reconcile the two without rejecting the church.