Promise of a New Day: Epilogue

This series excited me at the beginning, but as time wore on it began to tire me; as it surely has you, those who may still be reading. I have wanted to be done with it, to move on to something else, but felt compelled to finish it nonetheless. In doing so, I have asked myself, what is missing? What have I been trying to say that has taken so many words to express? Haven't I said so much of this before?

In summary, I have found that I do still consider myself a Christian. I must accept that my definition of Christian must be primarily internal and personal, but my practice of Christian must be external and outward.

All that said, my heart is towards others who are coming out of the religious system and need a safe place to land and be granted the freedom to heal. My process would have been easier had I sooner found those who have walked with me through it, and I can't help but wish that for everyone. I have a sense of direction for that, and am beginning to sift through the rubble of my journey looking for that which is worth sharing.

I have felt that in order to move forward I have to decide my spiritual orientation. That orientation has landed in decidedly Christian, but with a broad expanse of beliefs and many beautiful places that I now allow myself to be in. It is an orientation rather than a label...for a label serves to separate and classify, an orientation simply points in a direction. And I have known for some time that I could not move forward until I was willing to commit to an orientation.

Awhile ago I spoke of searching...in my mind, four years ago the word Christian meant some very specific things. When I found I could no longer claim many of those things, logic initially dictated that I was therefore no longer a Christian. The question then arose: If I'm not Christian, then what am I? And I embarked on a quest, trying on many different robes looking for the one that fit. Still, everywhere I went I saw Jesus...he was there in the messages, in the belief systems, in the ideas I waded throug and the holy books I studied. There was simply no escaping his hand, his touch, his evidence.

I can't tell you how badly I wanted to be something, anything, other than Christian. There was nothing uglier than that from which I came. Surely I'm a Druid or a Buddhist...and yet I found so much of what I was running from also existed in these places I looked to find my escape. I found that no matter where you go, your spirituality will be dictated, at least in part, by others. There are always rules, always rituals, always something that demands clinging to in order to wear that label. A label is never free, it always comes with a definition one must claim. None of the other definitions fit me any more than my perceived definition of 'Christian'.

In the end, I found the single orientation I can bear to cling to is that of Jesus himself. If he is the one thing I am willing and able to take with me through all my spiritual travels, I know I am safe. He is free, and can go anywhere. He is in the mountains and the wind, he is in the chanting and the meditations. He is there for the taking, waiting to be found, to be seen through the trees that cloud our vision if only we are willing to let go of the idols and sacred cows we so deeply desire to fence us in.

It seems to me humanity doesn't know what to do with itself when there isn't something with which to establish boundaries. We fear that slippery slope, that never-never land that awaits if we step outside our box and actually feel the breeze and the rain. We always desire to classify so that we know what we are dealing with. We speak theoretically of freedom, especially within Christianity, but we are unable to embrace it in its unadulterated form. In our minds, it must always come with a limit, a price, for that would simply be too good to be true, and you know what your mother told you about that. We might long for the wildflowers, but are content with the flowerbeds in the yard, because who knows what lurks out in the wild, but surely it is fearsome.

And yet, the wide open spaces of Jesus are just that, wide open. He is here and there; he is everywhere, if we just shed our human fear of true freedom and reach out for it, for him.

Yes, I still have boundaries; he gives them to me as needed. I know the places I must not go, the forbidden forests of my life. But it is he who designs these for me, no other, and out of love, rather than from of a need to lord his power over me. Sometimes he allows me to test the edges, or to seek out some new territory all together. Some days I bolt for new places, and other days I gingerly stick my toe in. Sometimes he says "Run"! Smetimes he waits until I ask, usually after falling on my face, and he lifts me up and says, "Best not go there again." I believe the boundaries of his wide open spaces are personal, and no two people will have all the same ones. So therefore I must not attempt to assert my personal boundaries on another, but believe he is as capable of directing they as he is myself.

I have found life and life abundant. I love with abandon, I serve with compassion, I listen with my heart and soul. I never think twice about an imaginary rule, a doctrine or theological mandate. Who cares? It's my nature to over-think things, to want to write my beliefs in nice straight lines, to be able to answer what I believe and to be accepted for it. But honestly, those days are over, for I have found Him while I wandered, and in him I am never lost.


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