Hope from Progressive Soup!!

I have to wonder if someone made this meme out of fear, or pure meanness, or self righteous anger? What would motivate someone to create something like this? An even bigger question on my mind is, WHAT does this sort of sarcasm accomplish? Not to mention the fact that it isn't even really accurate. When they are talking about the "same old Christianity" which one are they speaking of? The Christianity of the Dark Ages? Gosh, I sure hope not! Or perhaps the Christianity of the Reformation, because if that's the one... then the poor Catholics are screwed... Maybe it's the more modern version of Christianity like that of The Westboro Baptist Church? Perhaps it might be one of the over thirty THOUSAND Christian denominations that has exisited or currently exists!?  Oh I HOPE I've picked the right one!!! Why does the word "Progress" seem to frighten so many Christians?

Now don't get me wrong.  I understand that "Christians" don't hold the copyright on sarcasm against those who are "different" from them.  But see, I still consider myself a Christian (Much to the chagrin of some I think.) I take offense to this sort of arrogance and ignorance and just plain meanness.

No wonder many of my most "Jesus-Like" friends refuse to call themselves "Christian" anymore! I also feel that since the "GREATEST" command of Jesus was to "love your neighbor as yourself" this sort of thing really doesn't fit the bill. Call me crazy, call me judgmental!

Allow me to share a couple stories (this is only a few among MANY)...

A young woman who has been stretching her spiritual wings decided to open her heart and share her thoughts and experiences with someone she considered a dear "christian" friend. Someone she felt she could trust. This woman decided to call the police on her because she felt this young woman was "criminally insane" for having ideas outside the norm. Before you decide ("Oh, there MUST be more to this story!") please note that the Police realized what a crock of shit the whole business was and by no means pressed any charges. But once a "police report" is filed, that can truly mess with your life in not fun ways! What a sick thing to do! Really makes you wonder who is the "insane" one!??

I once had a conversation with a person I attended church with. Let's call her Jan. Jan took a woman under her wing to teach her the bible. Basically, to try to make her into a certain "type" of "Christian". We called this "Evangelizing". This young woman she was supposedly "helping" was experiencing much trauma in her life. The woman called her during a horrible panic attack, telling Jan that she has been having extremely disturbing nightmares and didn't know what to do. Jan actually told me, while she was sharing this story with me, that she knew this lady "was never going to come to church anyway"... So she told her that she felt the panic attacks and the nightmares were because of her exposing herself to the "demonic" book on Angels she had been reading!

Having an anxiety disorder myself... I can't even IMAGINE how horrible that woman must have been left to feel after that encounter.  When "christians" use their "power" in that way... for me, it gives new light to the scripture that says. 
Luke 17:2 "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble."

I've seen this type of thing way too many times in Christian circles I have been involved in. The driving out of others who don't fit the status quo. It sickens me on so many levels. Yet, there seems to be nothing I can do about it. Just like there was nothing I could do about it when it happened to me. Except appreciate the fact that it DID happen to me, so that I could move on and find more freedom and real Love.

Yesterday I attended a "Psychic Fair" it was a gathering of a bunch of people with differing spiritual gifts offering different types of services for health, wholeness and healing. (You know, the kind of stuff Jesus liked to do!) If someone would have told me, say 7 years ago, that I would be attending one of these; I would have rebuked the devil on them! LOL
It has taken me many years to shed a lot of the guilt, fear and shame that I KNOW have no place in the life of God/dess. (HA! Just made some of you cringe didn't I!??) I had always wondered how Jesus would hang with such a differing array of folks and He never seemed to be uncomfortable. I've always prayed for that for myself!  

I had a dear friend do Reiki on me.
Information on Reiki
I didn't read up on it very much before I did it.  I wanted to experience it first hand with an open mind and I trust my friend and know she has a heart of Love. The experience I had was indescribable. There was a certain point where my entire body felt as though it were vibrating.  Like goose bumps INSIDE my body. It's hard to deny those kinds of experiences.

The Physic Fair was lovely. People there were... PEOPLE!  Who'd of guessed it!? I met a massage therapist that I can't wait to contact again! I also had a Spirit Portrait drawn by a young acquaintance who's Mother I knew from my more "conservative Christian" days. I remember that her Mother was very distressed that her daughter was a "Pagan" and I can't help but feel what a terrible waste of time and Love that sort of attitude is.

The Mother passed on, and at the funeral, I remember hearing how the "Pastor" who ran it, blocked their Father from sharing at her funeral. I believe he practiced Shamanism and the pastor didn't feel he should be allowed to speak at all. I assume he felt he was trying to honor the Mother who had passed.. but what a DISHONOR to her children and their Father, and for WHAT!??

I have a feeling this young woman has struggled in her life with christians who have refused to accept her. That saddens me so greatly. She didn't know that I knew her Mother and, interstingly enough, while the young woman was drawing she said she heard her Mother speak to her! I mentioned that I knew her Mother, but we didn't speak of it. I only hoped that she was now able to feel fully the Love of her Mother that may perhaps have been hindered by fear and religion while she was on Earth.

So who knows!? Most certianly not I!!

But please remember that neither do you!!

If you don't feel comfortable with the way that others' experience their Spirituality... then don't practice that way yourself.  But please don't demonize, back bite, control with fear or cast off others that you just don't understand or are not ready to accept yourself!

It's one thing to follow your own convictions. That is called having good spiritual boundaries and I believe that can be a very good thing. But please try to make sure that those boundaries are coming from a place of Love and not a place of Fear or a place of being manipulated by some group mindset. If you consider yourself a "Christian" and don't think that you follow "extra biblical" ideas (as this meme indicates) then you are fooling yourself!

I for one have HOPE in "Progressive Christianity". Whatever the heck THAT even means. I want to progress into Love and Light and shed the things that need to leave!! The things that are not of LOVE.

Because I personally believe that Love Wins.

Oh... and Namaste!