“I can breathe for the first time

I can see for the first time

It’s like you opened my eyes

I can feel my heart is coming alive

I feel alive

I can breathe for the first time

For the first time”

(For the First Time, The Afters 2010)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhRp9o7pVzY

            Sometimes we lose God. We wander off all by our lonesome and then wonder why we feel the way we do. There are many reasons people abandon a spiritual course. Often the experiences we have with anything divine are more than enough, in and of themselves, to chase anyone with even the slightest hint of dignity away. God is a tough road if you don’t know exactly where you are going. Understanding, in any capacity, is a true challenge. Everyone thinks differently, everyone’s relationship with things supernatural is different. I believe, at base, we really are all looking for answers. Answers that we know Deep down we will never find. Even people who no longer believe still seek some form of knowledge, they question, they ask. You don’t have to believe in something to study it, to attempt to comprehend what it means. The very idea of a God leaves many wallowing in their own self-pity. Depending on which version of the Truth you follow, on any particular day, it appears the primary reason for a divine entity is more take than give. We have little to offer and everything to gain. Every prayer is pleading, every worship an unnecessary lie. No matter our seeking, no matter our intent, our relationship with God, or lack thereof, is determined not through what we are taught, but rather what we think we have been taught. There is a huge difference between the two. Revelation is a subjective experience. We each define our own truth but we also define our own God. Not one person on this planet believes exactly the same as any other person. Religion is like shit in a bag of donuts. It doesn’t matter what you pull out to eat, it’s all just covered in crap.

            Ideas regarding “our” God are constantly changing. Time makes sure of that. What we believed as a child has formed only a foundation, a foundation where often little remains of our initial thinking. What does remain is but a springboard, the basis and reason for why we started out this way. As people grow and develop, so too does their definition of God (or at least it should). As we evolve, anything tangible, anything reassuring, disappears with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. For those who truly seek the truth, it’s like waiting for the Tooth Fairy. Patience and diligence do little good when there is nothing to wait for. As our ideas of God shift and change, our relationship with the divine does as well. Children see Jesus very differently than full-grown adults do. I have never had a 5-year-old threaten me with heaven. Not one child I have encountered ever sentenced me to hell. God is a friendly chap when viewed through the eyes of an innocent. The character of God is much more gentle to someone in kindergarten. It’s kind of sad that we lose touch with this magic. As we learn, our indoctrination steals away our innocence, the quality of our naiveté. Outside forces corrupt us. All the noise hampers the clarity. No one maintains their original ideas of God.  Life is a filter of sorts, straining the silly and the supposed from the reality in which we exist. We put childish ways behind us and are left with only borrowed knowledge. We place our trust in the observations of others when our own observations do not meet the criteria for enlightenment. We erase our past beliefs and trade them for the promises of mortal men. We follow a paper trail, placing our salvation at the feet of the written word. Scripture becomes truth only when we believe it to be. Most 5-year-olds cannot read.

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, NIV)

            I was raised to believe in the Risen Lord. Jesus and the dogma that comes with Him were the only source of spirituality I was exposed to as a kid. I was raised Christian, my entire religious foundation is Christian. I was a Christian. I was so indoctrinated that I carried a literal interpretation with me deep into my 20s. In my 30s, circumstance matured me. Christianity almost killed me. I believed everything they told me. I believed it was my fault, some punishment from up above. The sins of my Father seemed to haunt me. I believed I was to blame for what had happened so I deserved everything I got, even before I received it. All the reasons just left a bad taste in my mouth. The more I cried out for help, the more I realized how alone I was in my seeking. God was never going to talk to me. God would never help someone like me. Slowly but surely, my relationship with Jesus started its long, cold death. Sometimes, He still puts up a good ole fight. In those times, I find myself looking at God for some sign that I am going the right way. I just don’t seem to tune in to the spirit. I even try to blame luck and serendipity, making this or that much more significant than it really should be. I have ended up all by myself. There are no souls to share this pace nor allies to bear my struggle. This life I have chosen has left me barren, unable most times to feel anything spiritual at all. I long for esoteric ways, for long thought out days under the sky and then the stars. I listen for whispers, hoping there is an answer at the end of the sigh. I want so bad to be whole again but Jesus and the Biblebetrayed me years ago. There is no place for a man with my talents, at least not anywhere heaven may be. I won’t burn for being bad, I will burn for being born. It’s hard to find Jesus in all the sulphur and flame.

            There are very few moments in my history where logic and reality have not won out over the paranormal activity I experience. In those few times, I have been carried away on something subtle and succinct. I have never been haunted, not one apparition  has ever appeared to me. I have never been reborn. God has never once come down and tapped on my shoulder. I have never heard voices, no matter how I tried to convince myself that I had.  It’s a lonely space when you give up Grace for nothing. I only know what I experience and sometimes even that isn’t valid enough to reshape my mind. Sometimes all of it is more than I am able to handle. Sometimes I feel possessed. I am overcome with such joy, such peace that the complications of my world fall away in that moment. It is a creeping vine, in rapid growth, soon covering the whole of me. It is a deliberate force, disturbing but soothing in the very same measure. It is no monomania and it is more than I would claim to know. The floodwaters come and they carry me away. It is here that I have to question the few times I have experienced an overcoming. Throughout my lifetime, there may not have been many of these possessions but each turn overwhelmed me completely. It’s like I freeze in the flow of something. My religious upbringing tells me these experiences are with the Holy Spirit and not my sensitive side. If I am overcome, it is God who turns the tide. No matter how I wish it all away. No matter how I want to not believe it, it still happens, even if on rare occasions. I don’t have to be forewarned to sense it. I don’t have to believe in anything to feel it. In that moment, I just close my eyes and I know it. It is within me.

            I don’t believe for a second that the Holy Spirit comes down to earth, then Google maps my location and fills me with the Love of God. Why would it inhabit a sinner such as me? As a confirmed abomination, I am sure this vessel is the last place the Holy Ghost would want to visit. I am not claiming to be gauche. Ask any good Christian folk, they will confirm what I am saying. This is one of the reasons I don’t associate with most Christians. No matter how much mercy and forgiveness is allotted to me, I cannot forget what I am and the person I have turned out to be. Someone is always available to remind me, just in case. I rarely let them see me writhe in my unrighteousness. There are two of me, I suppose. Part of me wants the truth and part of me just wants to fit in. I want to fall under Grace, to know the power of God’s love for me but I just can’t seem to find any. I am not in an exclusive club either. There are millions of people who face the same struggle, day after day, week after week, year after year into forever. The more believers tell me that I rest under the blanket of Christ’s sacrifice, the more I point out that I never can be, not according to the rules set down in the Old and New Testaments. I cannot change into something I am not. Trust me, I have tried, more than once. In spite of these attempts, I remain exactly the same as when I surrendered. I have begged to be free and made worthy but I got nothing.  It is clear, in a literal sense, that the Judeo-Christian God wants nothing to do with me. I deserve to die and my own blood is upon me.

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus20:13, NIV)

            Being that I am not much for public displays of emotion, I am often misunderstood as a cold and unfeeling person. This is just not so. I hold my feelings in much higher regard than one would imagine. They run deep and are often savage and unpredictable. I guess I am like most people that way. I preserve and protect in the face of the world around me. I don’t give my emotions away, I hold them dear. Quite often it is a challenge to not freeze over completely. Life is easier as an ice cube. Regardless of my refrigeration, benignancy is my mantra. I strive to live out my days following this creed and mission statement. Be kind. Always be kind and just when you think you can’t, be kind some more. You would think this would act as a summons, that anything paranormal would take notice. I guess that God simply doesn’t work that way.  Granted, I have always been a bit of an asshole. Spending a lifetime recognizing how much God hates you tends to do that to a person. I’m not blaming God, just Jesus. Perhaps, along the way, I merely polished up. Inside I am still that curious blond boy begging for morsels. I wish someone had told me it was all for naught. 40-plus years later and I am still hungry. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about my sentence. The Holy Scriptures are quite clear. There are not many ways to escape this truth, there is really no other interpretation. I was born into sin and raised in sin, regardless of the love my parents had for each other. How does one erase your genetics? I suppose I have been given over to unnatural lust and disgraceful acts, rather than some indwelling. Again, I won’t burn for being bad, I will burn for being born.

“God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. “

(Romans 1:26-27, NIV)

            I was just standing there, staring out the window, watching the critters who feed in my side yard. It was a cloudy, cold January morning. There was really nothing to speak of besides the birds and the squirrels. The absence of chipmunks only convinced me they were hibernating. It was not spring, not yet. A flock of sparrows, fifty at least, jumped from the skeleton of our trumpet vine to the feeders which dangle right across from my view. Such  simple observations can make my day. I am often carried away, enchanted. There is a soothing quality when communing with nature. I watch them watching me. There is little peace for me in this life but these moments seem to make it all worthwhile. I stood there quietly listening to nothing at all. Somewhere in that moment, something crossed over in me. It started out small then like a crescendo it grew and it grew even more. I was overcome, in a manner of speaking. I had been in this place a few times before so I was ready enough to absorb what was happening. It filled me, not so much with emotions but an energy, a sense of power within. I could tell that it was encompassing, each digit tingled, my skin was set aflame. From deep inside it appeared, it started out quiet then it switched over to song. It was heavenly, floating in the ether, dancing with the light. Once again, it did not make sense to me. It never really had when it happened in the past. If God hates me so, if I truly am an abomination in His eyes, then why won’t he just leave me alone?

“Light up the sky

You light up the sky to show me

You are with me

I can’t deny, no I can’t deny

That you are right here with me

You’ve opened my eyes

So I can see you all around me

Light up the sky

You light up the sky to show me

That you are with me.”

(Light Up The Sky, The Afters 2010)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LQH6UDi15s

https://www.ocregister.com/2017/01/09/gourmet-shop-with-chocolate-poop-emoji-doughnut-opens-in-south-county/