Linnea and I are hiding in the internet cafe, finally some privacy! Well there are people around, but we can at least think. Check out Linnea’s blog for our living conditions.
This computer wont let us send out any emails, so we will look for one that does later.
The subject that has been close on my heart is the whole ‘man’ thing. I have said it before, and seen it again…why is the church full of women and children? Almost every church we have been to around the world, except, I think for the services at the orphanages in Africa with Iris ministries, have been totally dominated by women. This is a huge issue.
A HUGE ISSUE.
This issue makes me feel anger that is physical in my body. When I see that so many of the problems in this world stem from the absence of men or fathers, I wonder if the church has consciously alienated men so that the world would remain full of problems, thus there would always be a need for the church? The leaders of the church could thus be heroes in stupid robes?
The more I observe the traditions and orthodoxy of the churches, today I watched a catholic mass on the street in the slum, the more I see Satan in our religion. The protestant system is the same as the catholic, except the protestants just protest everything (yeah, I am Baptist, I protest all this, but how do we do it differently? don’t we as baptists simply worship ourselves as christians?) All this religion, even the cross on the wall in front of the church is becoming crap to me. (if I understand this correctly, it was not until Constantine made christianity the state religion that the cross became THEE symbol of the church. Tim LaHaye says that originally a pagan system displayed a t, or tau, for their god and this was simply taken over and morphed into the cross as religions were interbred). Pews and all of it starts to seem like a lie, the joke is on me.
I laid in bed on our first night in our shared room in the slums. Itchy from something, bugs or detergent in my shirt. Tossing and turning, my intestines once again were staging a revolt and the bathroom was down a ladder in a cockroach infested cave and I took some imodium to get through the night. I was holding in the farts because of our roomates, but finally just started to let off the pressure, with the sound of the rain and the thunderstorm to drown out the sound and the sewage everywhere drowning out the smell, I did not feel so bad. As I tossed and turned, I asked myself, what do I believe?
Is the Bible believable? Why do people tell me they believe in the bible as ‘authoritative’ yet live a life of unbelief and selfishness? I have heard it my whole life, the bible and have been taught about it, yet the church sets itself up to behave as though there were no God?
As Linnea and I are on our own this week with our contacts and I have about 2 hours worth of patience towards others I knew I was in a stretch. No privacy, our contacts have expectations for us, our contacts want to talk and I want to read. Why would people rather jabber on than read a book? I want to know if White Fang is going to defend Judge Scott or not against Jim Hall!
I want to read about Male Spirituality, Wild Men becoming Wise men. I want to have a beer with the guys in the slums, but christians don’t do that, we have a witness to uphold. People are going to hell as we maintain our witness. The church in the slum is almost all women, the men are at the bar, but in the bar is the devil’s brew, and a christian would never be seen in there! Satan laughs christianity to the bank by making beer such a divisive issue.
I lay in my bed, mind spinning, scratching and scratching and farting and I think about the man Jesus called the greatest born of women. A man that would never be found in the church, yet we call him a saint. This saint, we don’t understand…but that is OK, neither did the religious people of 2000 years ago. This crazy cousin of Jesus. Eating honey and locusts and wearing camel skin and not really acting like a nice little Jewish boy and he baptizes Jesus. John the Baptist, the friggin name gets under my skin because we make him a nice little saint by giving him the religious name, J the fn B tore it up! And he doubted in his prison cell, what was it all about? Was Jesus the one to come? Then JB was behead and served at dinner on a silver platter to the power holders. Later Jesus would get the crap kicked out of him by the religious leaders and those in power in that day.
But, in that little dousing in the stream over there in Palestine, the two greatest men who ever lived were together. The greatest of the old system, JB; and the greatest of the new, JC. Jesus said that the least in the new system were greater than the greatest of the old. What does this mean? I roll over and scratch and fart. Do I believe this? And if I believe this how does it effect my life?
Why am I in the friggin slums? I read Philippians chapters 3 and 4 over and over again. Good stuff, if the bible is believable, and I am in the slums because I believe the bible is true. So if this is true, than why in 2000 years of this new system, why is there this poverty and pain and loneliness and depression? Oh, Jesus said we would always have the poor, so we are off the hook? (I wont go down the sheep and goats bit again from Matthew 25).
Anyway, I wound up spending some real time with God that night and last night at the big fancy worship service I heard God’s voice. This voice of assurance that the road I am on is the right one, it will just be a battle every step of the way, but I was made for this, wired for this battle.
It is a battle for life and death.
