ok. so.
Those of you who don't know me - well, you don't know me, so let me start here.
I'm not really Christian in any definable sense. I used to define myself as Pagan, but a couple of years ago I had a complete failing of faith. Since then, I have had a very hard time of it in the faith/religion department.
I have to tell you that my mom was raised in a Catholic manner, and a lot of it still shows. Some of it we refer to in a half-joking manner as "Nun trauma"- if you saw some of her art you would totally understand. (she's incredibly good, and I don't say that because she's my mom at all.) Anyway. I learned the Lord's prayer as a child, but didn't learn the Hail Mary until teen years. My family likes those tall seven day candles, believes in the love of our ancestors, but never really went to church at all. We believe in things like empathy - as in recieving and reacting to other people's emotions. We believe in energy flows, and that they can be manipulated by such things as Reiki and Feng Shui. We like Tarot cards and rosaries, for entirely different reasons, and maybe a couple that are very similar. We believe in the messages in dreams and old wive's tales. We believe in ghosts and auras and guardian angels and omens. We believe in good and evil as active forces in the world, and we also believe that people have destinies and free will all at once.
A few people over the years have convinced me to attend once or twice; I've barely escaped baptism probably at least three times; I've been interested in building altars and rituals since a young age and honestly I don't see how modern spell casting is all that different from intense prayer, really. Aside from all the trappings, I mean. Candles and incense and whatnot.
Anyway.
So I find Leif's blog through someone else's links somehow, and I like the way he writes. Very much so. And through reading his old posts, I discover that he swears with the best of us, talks about sex drugs and rock and roll (and not in the derogatory manner, really) and - get this - he's a preacher.
Holy shit.
(No pun intended, really.)
I have studiously avoided church of any kind for a very long time now, had unpleasant experiences with religious types and generally sworn off the stuff.
But now there is Leif.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this.
I feel...
... totally off balance.
I try to feel the flow of my life and go with it, to fall into that current that sweeps us along so easily sometimes -- and I know that you all have experienced it, that you know what I am talking about.
I so don't want to sound like a freak. I'm not really sure how much of what I'm feeling is credible; I've been known to be horribly, horribly wrong. I've made some fantastic mistakes.
So how do I say that I feel like God is calling me without sounding like a nut?
Yeah, I didn't think I could either.
We will talk more about this later.
