Not about a REligion but a RElationship:

         Now, I feel like I have a weight on my shoulders and the need to articulate many thoughts too-day so I am going to just dive right in.  I am praying right now that God just give me the words to write today, words that will fall on open hearts.  SO, we have been studying a pretty cool subject this week–SOlITudE.  Emo, yes, I know and you know and Frankie knows, but I have decided on this trip that is a very important thing if you want to separate RELIGION from RELATIONSHIP. 

I am not going to use “Christianity” or “Catholicism” or “Episcopalian” or anything but merely am going to substitute the word “relationship” in-alluding to our relationship with our Creator, God, Abbah, Jesus, Friend, Father, all equal descriptions. Ignore preconceived notions or experiences with worldly friends, relatives, Gf’s, or spouses. This is a perfect relationship-or rather, was a perfect relationship between two real people and God! I used to picture the people in the Bible as merely people made up to show us exactly how to live our lives and how to follow a perfect set of rules perfectly. I am slowly understanding and seeing Adam and Eve as like Mel Gibson with a beard and princess Leah gathering all security and all confidence and joy from their perfect relationship with someone who has infinite love for his creation. You know what happened even without reading the Bible:  They fell into temptation and sinned, eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I picture a large spotlight of God’s glory from the clouds being snapped off. Click, Mel and Leah realize their imperfections, feel insecure because this constant beam of love and glory suddenly isn’t felt; not that God stopped loving them or us, which is a beautiful thing, just their relationship was/is greatly effected. We feel this. Even now what are you doing to try and make yourself feel secure? Is it having your boyfriend say they love you or is it excelling at something?

I can honestly write to you right now and say before this trip I viewed my religion was following the lives of certain robotic people in the Bible and keeping God happy-all the while judging my life on feelings of guilt and what I could do that would make me feel good and keep me from feeling like I was destined for a land of fire and brimstone. But, little did I know, this didn’t matter to my father and friend above; he would get his relationship. Like a trumpet in my ear I heard such a loving calling that I seriously made the decision to come to Nicaragua in about two seconds (and don’t think that it was my doing, I give all the praise to God).

This week we have been talking about formulas that aren’t, FEW, binary code or electrical engineering jargon but formulas we find that work in our life and that cause God to respond in a good way. I tried to explain a formula to my sis, Lindsey, and now realize that the Bible doesn’t preach formulas so I shouldn’t. WHAT!?!? The Bible is full of rules doe. Yep, true dat, but these are merely there to help us grow in our relationship with God. Dude, can you have a relationship with someone you don’t know?—Neeoope, that is why the Bible was breathed by God into man; The Bible was written so that we can know Him and His ways. Once you do so, like Paul or John in the Bible, you realize that “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” says Jesus in John 10:10. And that we are led by something called “The Holy Spirit” that convicts us when we hurt our Friend. Once you find out who God really is and feel the love and joy he cannot wait to instill in us, we wont want to sin. BUT, this is a formula, shoot. Well, all I know is that this morning I woke up to my leader, James O’Sheeeea, playing a very loud yet tribal beat onto a cup in which he had trapped a fly with. “Daaaa Gonnet I’m tired and feel kinda crappy,” I thought as I droggled to the bathroom.

“Wait a minute, I just had an amazing experience with someone divine who loves me-He Loves Me!” I thought. 

BAM! It feels so good to be loved, why would I want to screw it up? If I were to write a book of the Bible, I too would write of all the things I have done and continue to do that mess this relationship up because I have had just a droplet of God’s love (imagine the feelings in heaven!).

So, hey, I tell you this: Ignore all the televangelists who crave money and those that HATE ANYBODY-women, gay people, alcoholics-because the bible says in John 13:34-35: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” WORK ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND FORGET FORMULAS! However the process for you to become close to God know-the Bible is there to show you who this Father is, so read up and chase after wherever you heart is led (Just make sure it’s not led to Crack Cocaaaiiine).

Jeeze, so solitude, eh? This week we had a dayish of absolutely no talking and I realize how much I use talking to feel secure. Also, yesterday we spent a day of solitude on a mountain with a cross on top. It was truly an amazing experience and I have never felt so loved or closer to God than when I was completely alone in a comfortable tree with a giant volcano ahead of me. I tried and tried to shut off my mind to all the bustle in this world and read a bit of Psalms and Songs of Solomon which is loaded with poetry and imagery. Then I just prayed that God would “speak to me in this hour” and again, without planning it, God chose for me to write a poem. I really just depended on Him to speak to me, and what I wrote relates a lot to solitude and struggles to “turn off” the outside world. Read this poem slowly and take in what God was saying to me and to us.

Sometimes the constant buzz of this world is sifted into tranquility,

Waves of air drift by and caress your faces and pull back into nothingness.

A stop and go light interrupting thoughts and actions is left in its wake.

“No, not this time,” the prince of the control box, says in a sly voice.

Like a squirt gun injecting its venom into its environment,

casting an array of cold intentions onto its victim,

so are his deceptions crashing past your eardrums;

Yet, coming from within,

starting with that red beater thumping life

that gleams in warms streams

through your open veins and forming pure vibrations over the tongue,

Something some call light and others truth

reveals a droplet, much like a collection of dew on mornings bed–

Just a droplet of Glory and shhhhhh…

The breeze licks away the remaining noise,

much like a mother cleans her pup.

and its soothing rays remind you of the embrace that eagerly awaits

as time goes by with each passing thought.

Your lips shy upwards because your ears are in tune with the whispers

that praise your attentiveness.

All the while the thumping beats an increasing

current of sweet, sweet nectar,

as precious as that to a humming bird.

And you feel the peace felt long ago,

even before the deceiving crowned itself on beauty.

And you wrap your arms around your supporter,

as you climb down and fly towards the world,

like a dragonfly,

Creating your own melody with your wings.

And you return to the tree only to realize

its arms spread wider and you cannot wait,

to climb into its glorious presence!