Please Don’t Let Christianity Keep You From Christ

Excerpted from THE PREFACE

As a wise man said, “It’s just a story… We’re all storytellers… ” Story tellers telling our stories – our perceptions of what we think we see from our ever changing points of viewing.

In this book I tell some stories of seemingly personal experiences – as accurately as my perception allows – as I allow for vision of truth to correct my errors through the cloudy programming of parents and culture, including Christianity…

…Eventually I began to heed the inner stirrings I felt and started to question the information that could find no lodging in my heart. The God being described to me was not the God I knew. How could fire and brimstone – or any form of fear – find a place near the perfectly pure love of God?

I began to realize how little I truly know and how what I think I know gets in my way. And I began to hold the Jesus stories suspect as well, especially when witnessing so many Christians touting his name living lives burdened in fear with worry, resentments, condemnation, and cruelty. No thanks. If that’s what the life of Jesus has to offer, I will be looking elsewhere for my truth…

I reached “the end of my rope” more times than I care to admit before getting substantially tired of rope’s end to recognize that, “I… just… want… peace.” I wanted the peace that lasts. I asked for heavenly help.

I began to acquaint with the infallible inner Guide Whose broadcast – like any radio frequency – can be heard by anyone choosing to tune in. As a cross country skier can “break trail” in the virgin snow for other skiers to follow, I began to see that so did Jesus break trail out of the dark and twisted concepts that man had made around God. I saw that the living Christ presence that Jesus embodied is truth – salvation from my hells. As the still Voice once told me, “I am not an ogre.”

The stories are not intended to be about me and they are not about Jesus – they are about my search for the Heaven that Jesus said was at hand. They are a few of my experiences “blessed in kind” (mmm) or “blessed in disguise” (ouch), yet all appreciated in pointing the way to the truth of what I am as God created me…

PART I
INTRODUCTION

“What are your short-term goals?” asked my supervisor during my six-month review.
With no hesitation came the reply, “Unshakeable peace of mind.”
The gentle look of surprise on her face passed as she asked her next question, “What goals have you in sight for the future?”
“The same,” I replied. “Peace of mind.”
A bigger look of surprise on her face prompted me to go on, “I’ve heard it called the perfect peace or perfect happiness. Easy to think I’m at peace when things are going my way but what about when I don’t get my way? I want to be peace full then. My short-term, long-term, and any-term goal is to get out of the ups and downs and live in stabled peace.”
Some moments passed till my manager leaned closer to me with raised brow, “And what will you do to reach that goal?”
My chuckled reply was, “Look for another way.”

Seems I took fifty some years to see the other way to go. The way was birthed with a turn to truth; there to discover the inner quiet voice leading to peace and the inner loud ego voice leading everywhere but.

No matter how accurately my stories told, they remain but my perception. There is, however, no mistaking the Coach on the way; the Guide is the same and truth doesn’t change. Do I want to be right or happy?

Any and all correction of my direction away from truth is intended for me to plow, not preach to another. Removing the beam from my eye before reaching to remove the speck from my brother’s seems a formidable task of basic training. (Funny how the speck disappears with the beam.)

The titles are short stories that are complete unto each. Chronological order has been attempted but the experiences do not fit on a linear time line. Forgiven is the first chapter and yet nearly a decade of “dancing in shadows” passed before choosing to partner with truth again, and then only erratically. Truth is timeless.

The experiences appear separate. Though the form changes with different characters, events, and scenery, the foundational content remains the same; my internal guidance system highlights the way to peace – I follow or I don’t. The lures out of peace seem never-ending and the lure of discouragement ever near. The call to be vigilant strengthens me as I lay down my arms at war… with perceived others, self, and God.

Once upon a time I was tending daughter’s doggy for a long-term stay. The aged pet had a very gentle and loving persona but his body being continually underfoot could get frustrating.
One day as I noticed the familiar wave of frustration approaching, I raised my response to doubt. In a whine of defense I strongly lamented, “But he’s always in my way!”
The gentle yet powerful reply did not tarry, “And what way would that be?”