Promise of a New Day III

I have been slow to continue this series for lack of time to write, but please bear with me...there are at least three more after this one. I am getting somewhere, but it's a long thought process.

Some people think the spiritual wanderlust I mentioned in the previous post can lead to dangerous places; there is that slippery slope everyone fears. However, it's how I choose to live...because I believe my faith must not become "THE way", not for me or for anyone else. Ever. I have been wandering for over four years, and I can promise you I have not fallen off the edge of Christianity. Of course, depending on your perspective, you may think I have. It could be that I'm simply deluded, but I would say Jesus is such a reality in my life that I doubt that; I have tried to shake him in the past, but he clings to me like spandex.

This wanderlust is the comfortable reality for me, but it comes with a problem. If I believe it is acceptable for myself to wander through the forests of changing beliefs, knowing I'll never have it ALL right, I have to believe that is true for everyone else, as well. I have to learn not to treat people as if my way is THE way. I need to never portray that I have all the mysteries of the Christian faith, or even some of them, solved. I have to choose to be open to my own future movement, with the unpleasant likelihood that I am wrong about some things. Many things even, at least as much as I believe others are wrong.

Jeff said recently that the Word is not a weapon to use against our brethren. I completely agree, but would take it one step further to add that our particular Christian methodology is not a weapon, either; any method by which we identify who is doing it "right" and who is not frustrates me. We're all in this together. The True "Way" is a Person, not any system we might create. Please know I realize I'm enormously guilty of this attitude.

Yes, there have been many issues I have had with how Christianity is traditionally "done". I'm not saying that all ways are equally acceptable; I'm saying that any ONE way is not THE way; neither my way nor any other way. Or focus is too often on beliefs or practices as a means of separating groups of Christians, and not often enough on the one thing that unifies them: Christ. As a generalization, all the various persuasions of Christians believe they are "doing it right"; that all other Christians ought to believe or practice as they do. This is the primary reason I reject labels; they are useless for anything other than to separate one from another. Separation leads to arguments, arguments to ugliness. All this bickering has led Christians to often have a bad name...for if we cannot even treat other Christians with grace, what use are we to the world?

I have even considered dropping the label of "Christian"; though I don't know what to adopt in it's place. and it feels uncomfortable to be label-free. And yet, the rejection of the traditional label could easily be considered a label unto itself; the label of 'rebel'?

Promise of a New Day I
Promise of a New Day II
Promise of a New Day III
Promise of a New Day IV
Promise of a New Day V
Promise of a New Day: Epilogue