Monday, September 04, 2006

I didn't go to church yesterday

I haven't been to many Sunday meetings over the last few months for a variety of reasons. Prison, Xplore, visitors, away. Lots of good reasons. Or maybe they're all the same reason.

Disillusionment? With myself? With Linden? With God? All three? Or just me?

I know the place I'm in and I don't like it. But I don't have the enthusiasm to get out of it. If I go to church I might have to take action. Be forced into facing God and me.

The last six months have been mixed up. I've drifted and haven't cared. Linden has become the place I go to work rather than anything else. Not that it needs to be anything else. But maybe I need it to be something else, a place of focus maybe.

It's so easy to call on God when I need him and to put him at the back of my mind when things are hunky dory, or when I know he wouldn't approve of something. And there has been plenty to disapprove of.

A disapproving god: is that what I reduce the Father of creation to? Do I feel so little awe? Do I concentrate too much on the loving and forgiving God, take advantage of his love, forget his righteous anger? What has happened to me?

I know what happened; I could pinpoint the moment. The decision I took. But that's the past.

A new minute, a new day, new decisions. Now I just need the enthusiasm.

I have thought hard about posting this. I'm okay; I'm fine. Just missing something.

3 comments:

Shirley said...

Tried eight times to write summat uplifting and failed!
I made a decision that was 'wrong' in God's eyes but that I cannot change. And to be honest I don't want to change and maybe I haven't repented of it, but God said to me It's ok I can work with that! i made my choice and it changed me perhaps your choice changed you But God sits in the place he has always sat unchanged, neither have His feelings.

Anonymous said...

And me makes three of us Liz. I have no doubt at all that God loves us as we are and he knows our every thought. Just for 'worrying' about the content of this post and for having lived through until this point of writing about it, you are acknowledging God in your life.

The ones who cannot claim that are the ones we need to be concerned about. We must not confuse our walk with God with our church allegiance. As you know, I long ago stopped believing they are one and the same thing.

MaryB said...

Well, Liz, you know I've been going through the whole church-guilt thing lately. I find I go just to take Eucharist because it helps me on some level.

Did get a nice "top-up" of God and community in Atlanta last weekend - just drank it in, since I knew it would need to last a while. Sigh.

But. God is patient. (Unlike me) I think the spirit in the sky is cutting me some slack right now.

And Shirl is right - God and organized religion aren't the same thing. (Though I do love a good hymn-sing!) You'll get through it, girl.