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AnonymousI have cognitive issues due to having CFS which affects my ability to process thoughts and retain information – so I am very grateful to all you DEEP THINKERS on these forums!!
Wow Ronna – thanks for sharing what Dobson said ….. UGH!!!!! Truly a stupid, horrendous, hateful comment. I hate that naive christians follow people as if they are God and vote accordingly too….
AnonymousIt’s so hard, this tension, isn’t it, Ruth-Anne? Wanting to be gracious and kind while simultaneously reeling from the cruelty and ignorance. I ask myself constantly what the high-road looks like and how to speak powerfully, compellingly, constantly into the gap…
No easy answers. Just an ongoing question for/of myself.
AnonymousRuth Anne, my jaw nearly dropped on the floor when I read this (in a good way, don’t worry),
“All my life, in the church, I was told that what my heart felt didn’t matter! Our hearts are the compass to our lives. I fully believe that God directs THROUGH our hearts, but we learned to tune them out and listen to other people pontificate about what was right and wrong and in the church we learned to become robots! Rules robots.”
I’ve spent SO much money on therapy the passed few years trying to unlearn the lie that it’s dangerous to listen to my heart. I have a tattoo in mind that I want to get that is a big compass representing the leading and guiding that I feel now and follow. Funny thing is, I truly believe that I am following the Holy Spirit in a deeper and more beautiful way now that I listen to my heart. AND, I always talk about rejecting the robot. You just seemed to sum me up in that comment! Awesome.
AnonymousGet that tattoo! Perfect!
I love the tattoo idea as well. I too was raised to believe we could not trust our hearts, in essence our spirits. Yet Jesus promised to send the Spirit of Truth who would guide us. This contradiction never made any sense to me. How could the Spirit guide us if we were never to trust our hearts/spirits?
Virginia – LOVE the tattoo idea – ME too – 1 1/2 years of therapy to convince myself that it’s ok to listen to my heart…. crazy…. The church should reimburse us for psychological damages…
AnonymousYep – years of therapy that I couldn’t afford, but would never have survived without!
This is a fascinating topic. I seem to be at a different place than most here: having gone through the kind of rejection of rules you describe over the last thirty or so years, I am coming back into a community with rules.
The Buddha was big on rules, and lists of rules. (Since everything was passed down orally for at least a couple of hundred years, numbered lists are memory aids!) The difference is, these are rules that make sense to me.
For instance, I am working right now on the five precepts, which are:
1. abstaining from taking life.
2. abstaining from taking anything not freely given.
3. abstaining from sexual misconduct.
4. abstaining from false speech.
5. abstaining from intoxicants.
I recognize that these are all sensible rules, but I am not yet sure what it means for me to follow them. Can I abstain from killing without becoming a vegetarian? Can I have a glass of wine for the sake of social conformity, if I do not drink enough to become intoxicated?
The thing is, I will have to decide those things for myself (though the tradition and the community will offer guidance.) I also expect my standards will change over time.
Eventually, when I feel I understand and can undertake these obligations, I want to “take the precepts” in a ceremony.
So this is another viewpoint on “rules”. They are a way of refining my practice and improving my character. There is no element of coercion involved, in this case.
Shira C I love your contribution to this thread. I like that you are seeking structure in your life, but you reserve the right to determine for yourself what level of structure is appropriate for you. This seems to me to be a very healthy way to approach life’s most difficult decisions.
AnonymousGosh, you guys! What a fabulous thread!!! I can’t even begin to tell you all how much it spoke to me. Thanks for all of your words. What an honor to be among thinkers. Is it weird that I feel like this is a group of victims of foreign wars or something?
” Is it weird that I feel like this is a group of victims of foreign wars or something?”
Love it…this line made me laugh out loud. I think it sums up what most of us have been through exceptionally well. And isn’t that the reality when any group focuses on rules over morals? Victims are left strewn along the road with reckless abandon, deemed far less important than the cause…whatever it may be.
Shira C – I like “2) Abstaining from taking something not freely given”. That seems to really respect boundaries… beautifully stated…. Thanks for sharing…
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