How Are You? Fine, Thank You!

In response to Barb and her question, “How are you” (I’m more interested in how you are than in what you think about a subject), I’m going to try and share some personal details of our journey. The word “journey” is a most apt word in that it speaks of life and discovering what that encompasses apart from the religious matrix we have all been born into.
To clarify this point, I mean any and everything apart from Christ and His total unconditional love is religion, in any nuance or description.

As Barb pointed out in her blog, A Former Leader’s Journey:
“I pause to read personal stuff. I skim over anything else...basically uninterested. Something has shifted in me this summer. Suddenly the subjects we are talking about no longer interest me. Suddenly they are not important. YOU are. They are not as much.
I want personal details. How are YOU? Your Family? Your finances? What are you doing now? And, how are you feeling about that?
Maybe it is my bent lately to have community. Maybe it is my lack of caring about the topic of Church, Christianity, abuse or anything else.”

How am I? Well, on any given day I am fine, meaning that ‘fine’ can simply be the short and long of a day that encompasses a myriad of thoughts, emotions, from the sublime to the ridiculous in interacting with fellow humans at work and simply living in the real world. If you were to delve deeper, you would know that we struggle with a myriad of issues, some life-altering, and some heart-breaking, others merely frustrating.

Regarding Barb’s question: “How are you?” maybe it’s much more to the point to ask, “Who are you”? The first two questions mentioned in the bible were addressed to all of mankind, as in, “Where are you?” and “Where is your brother?” I see this as a picture of the cross, the vertical beam signifying our being in right relationship to God, and the horizontal beam signifying our right relationship with our brothers and sisters. What I see happening in my life as well as my wife’s life is an on-going discovery of whose we are and out of that, much clarity defining who in fact we truly are!

For further thoughts regarding Barb’s question, please refer to Cynthia’s blog, “A Life Profound”, in her comments.

Prior to being apprehended by Christ, I really didn’t see anything that ever stood out to me as having any facsimile of an identity except that of being a “Christian” (although at the time I had no understanding of any of that; all I knew was that I was a totally changed young man. Everything had suddenly become new to me).
Sadly, within a short time an identity was being fashioned within me that only served to alienate me further from the only true source of knowing and discovering who I really was. From the moment of being re-birthed I arrogantly figured I was destined for greatness because of being told over and over again of my ‘giftedness’, and that fit in with what I perceived as being ‘called to the ministry.’ No, sir, I was not going to be a blind lemming dumbly following some leader - and yet unfortunately that is in fact what did happen.
From my perspective it wasn’t until 1991 after having been, euphemistically speaking, ‘let go’ from the Holy Grail, a.k.a. ‘the ministry’ that my life came to a screeching halt! Slowly, from been buried alive as it were, the real me has been and continues to emerge.
There is so much more that I would like to share, possibly in another blog entry.

Rich