Post Christian

I was raised in a Methodist church - a lovely small town church with loving, caring gentle people.  When I toddled off to college I became attracted to a more evangelical type experience.  I loved the emotion and passion.  I loved the black-and-white of the issues.  I thrived.

After college I moved to a very large city and became involved in various churches, smaller and finally superlarge.  I reveled in the activities and the thrill of the busyness.  I married and converted to Catholic as my husband was a cradle Catholic who was not open to conversion.  We raised children who grew up and left home.  During that stage of life, I was focused on the home and family and lost touch with the comings-and-goings of the church.

Suddenly I was no longer anyone's example. I could be whatever I wanted to be.  I quit going to the Catholic church for various and sundry reasons.  What I found was that God was much bigger and personal for me outside of the church.

I met the Holy Spirit.  Not speaking in tongues, not in the words of any preacher or author, not within the building or fellowship of a church.  I met the Holy Spirit inside myself.  Still and quiet. Love and acceptance.  Freedom and security.  Knowledge and peace.  I don't use the name Holy Spirit.  For me that name is tied to a traditional construct.  The one called God by some, Allah by some, Jehovah by some, I call Source. This is my journey

Times they are a changin'

Time marches on with a certain relentlessness.  I don't feel older but I am.  I look around me at work and I'm old enough to be most people's mom. Yet inside me, I still feel young and vital.  When I look in a mirror, I remember that I am not young but that I am still vital.

Age allows you a certain perspective.  Truths that you really believed were true and turning out to be not so certain.  Things "set in stone" are found to really be set in shifting sand.