setback with this flu today, doesn't feel like anything happened that is even worth writing about... have been struggling lately with scripture i guess. i read "next" in whatever place i have chosen in the bible before bed. have done it for over 12 years, every night. it's been a really good spiritual discipline and i am amazed that it has, day by day, connected the dots all the way back to the day i began my abstinence.
i don't know if other people in recovery are superstitious, but if i was, which i don't think i would word it that way, but if i was i have wondered if it was that sitting on the edge of my bed every night reading "next" is what has kept me going. once i finish a book in the bible i pick another, doesn't have to follow. i am in isaiah right now. should reading the bible kill your faith?
i don't think that it should. i mean i have devoted myself to this, i have a bachelors degree in biblical studies... but for the life of me i am so done with slaughtering people groups to protect another, war, punishment and what seems to me to be spite. i know it's not, in my head, but as i read it i cannot for the life of me understand why it all came together like this... i would have at least written about it differently.
i am so still there with jesus, but this old testament stuff, even the gushy parts of isaiah seem to turn my stomach right now. could just be the phase i'm in, but i honestly look at it like it's the punishment of my day now instead of something keeping me on track.
i would just do it so differently. so many things that could have helped us put things together in a better way just seem to be left out, and we've got so much of what seems to me to be total crap left in... again, probably just where i'm at in the winter of my discontent - but really? is this the best that could have been done? i have done a deconstruction and had my second naivete and maybe that's over, i don't know... i just feel like i need to rip some pages out to keep going...
bible college wisdom taught me that if we can imagine god that is proof for his existence - so can i take that one step further? i have a really good imagination - and my imagination doesn't include genocide as part of gods plan. i don't expect him to stop it like some people do to make sense of god, i get that evil is evil - but for some reason i do expect that he wouldn't need to make it a plan to protect his favorites.
the god i imagine has so much more creativity and problem solving skills - and is a much better writer. still totally down with jesus, even orthodox on that front, but this old testament stuff is just making things worse and not better somehow.
if i was going to leave my followers sacred texts they would be filled with life and light and stories about people doing it right. i just am not getting it anymore i guess. it just keeps turning my stomach.
2 comments:
I came to see if there were any comments because I have had such similar thoughts and feelings, but I'm not sure I would want your vulnerability here to prompt any sort of online comment frenzy. I wish there was a way to sit down and have a conversation about this one. Not an online conversation that dissolves into finger-pointing and name-calling, but the real sort where the participants are open to new ideas and grace steps in to difficult questions. Thanks for faithfully, graciously recording your process.
hey bethany, thank you SO much for your comment, i honestly didn't think anyone was reading - or was so totally offended by my questions. i think we're safe here because very few people are reading, and even when i had tons no one ever was a troll. if you want to "converse" i'm open. i'm finding that getting it out is helping.
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