I went to see my mentor yesterday and the sitting on the train I managed to get a lot of reading done. I finished 'Take this Bread' by Sara Miles and I've also been reading 'Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism' for the third time, hungry for those stories of struggle that speak to my condition.
(As an aside, my only criticism of the Sara Miles book is that the cover describes her as a 'lesbian' when in the book she openly says she has had relationships with men as well as women. Again we see the relunctance for anyone to use the word 'bisexual.' To be fair I don't think she labels herself any way in the book)
Anyway there were a few passages that really spoke to me yesterday.
Erik Walker Wikstrom captures why I still have this weird relationship with God, when the existence of God doesn't really make sense to me intellectually:
'I became aware of experiences - direct, personal experiences - that I could not fit into my hand-built theology. An impersonal force does not love, yet I felt loved. It does not call you into relationship, yet I felt such an invitation... None of this made sense to my well worked-out life philosophy, yet none of it could be denied either.'
Carol Stamatakis describes for me the feeling I have that there's much to be gained spiritually by wrestling with a particular spiritual tradition:
'I respected other spiritual paths, but I was most likely to achieve spiritual growth by choosing and following one path with deligence and an open heart and mind.'
And finally Sara Miles describes the place I have come to, where I feel the need to move beyond mere intellectual investigation and to submit to the power of God:
'Christianity wasn't an argument I could win, or even resolve. It wasn't a thesis. It was a mystery that I was finally willing to swallow.
I was loved by a big love. In the midst of suffering, of hunger, even of death. Alleluia. What was, finally, so hard about accepting that?'
(As an aside, my only criticism of the Sara Miles book is that the cover describes her as a 'lesbian' when in the book she openly says she has had relationships with men as well as women. Again we see the relunctance for anyone to use the word 'bisexual.' To be fair I don't think she labels herself any way in the book)
Anyway there were a few passages that really spoke to me yesterday.
Erik Walker Wikstrom captures why I still have this weird relationship with God, when the existence of God doesn't really make sense to me intellectually:
'I became aware of experiences - direct, personal experiences - that I could not fit into my hand-built theology. An impersonal force does not love, yet I felt loved. It does not call you into relationship, yet I felt such an invitation... None of this made sense to my well worked-out life philosophy, yet none of it could be denied either.'
Carol Stamatakis describes for me the feeling I have that there's much to be gained spiritually by wrestling with a particular spiritual tradition:
'I respected other spiritual paths, but I was most likely to achieve spiritual growth by choosing and following one path with deligence and an open heart and mind.'
And finally Sara Miles describes the place I have come to, where I feel the need to move beyond mere intellectual investigation and to submit to the power of God:
'Christianity wasn't an argument I could win, or even resolve. It wasn't a thesis. It was a mystery that I was finally willing to swallow.
I was loved by a big love. In the midst of suffering, of hunger, even of death. Alleluia. What was, finally, so hard about accepting that?'
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