Take Me To Church

I've been trying to figure out what path to take in life lately and feeling really unsettled. I've been majorly let down by people I considered friends, people who I thought were a lot like me. And I find myself pushing people out of my life because they are simply not like me, so I think I shouldn't like them, yet they've done nothing bad directly towards me. I don't consider myself a religious person but thought maybe if I went to church I would receive a message. I was imagining a magical moment where angels would descend and God was going to speak to me directly, in the voice of Morgan Freeman of course. Remarkably I ended up I think getting the message and the clarity I was seeking.

My first message came directly from scripture. Mark 2:3-17, "Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” I had to ask myself, who am I to judge people by actions they do in their lives that do not affect my life directly? Maybe the people I'm pushing away because I think their beliefs or actions can harm me are the people who need me the most, and maybe it's ok to have differences and still love one another? If Jesus can eat with sinners, I can keep keep my "sinners" in my life. None of us are flawless, certainly not me. Maybe I'm the sinner they or someone else will keep in their lives as well someday?

Later in the service I learned my second connected message. The preacher began his sermon with talking about Christopher Knight, a man who is known as the Last True Hermit. Knight went off the grid and lived for 26 years in the forest, the only single word he uttered all that time was "hi" once to a passing hiker. He was only found after he was caught stealing supplies from a campsite. One reporter asked Knight, after all that solitude you really must have been able to find yourself? Knight replied, "I didn't find myself I actually lost myself and my identity." I find myself doing this, I get hurt so I say I'm going to protect myself I won't allow others in, this way nobody can hurt me. I'm not protecting myself I'm harming myself. I'm reminded of CS Lewis and his book The Four Loves where he says, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

So although Morgan Freeman didn't appear as God and maybe no angels ascended from the ceiling, I think I did have a magical moment today at church and I got exactly what I went there for, clarity. I'm not sure if my interpretation on what was being said today was correct, but I did what everyone does when we hear things, I heard it with my ears and interpreted it with my heart. I'm going to try to be less judgmental and to help those who might need me the most instead of walking. I'm not going to abandon people because it's what others say I should do or because they do things I might not agree with, or even society says is wrong. Life is short turn the drama down and just simply love one another and enjoy life. In the words of Mother Teresa, "People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway."