"We represent...." Day 739: 5 Minute Freewrite: Prompt: represent
"We represent...."
The Lollipop Guild.
The Lullaby League.
Before I set the 5-minute timer, I must purge those songs and images from my head.
We represent Jesus,
our Sunday School teacher said. Whatever we say, whatever do, and even whatever we think. God knows our innermost thoughts. No thought is safe inside your head because GOD can see into your mind!
Well, that put the fear of God in my soul.
For a while.
How could God see inside my head? This invisible God, this silent God. Others seemed to know God, but I only knew sun and wind, snow and rain, joy and pain. "I come that my joy may be yours," Jesus said.
It's not that I paid no attention in Sunday School. I listened, and I internalized those words. I was indoctrinated with them. And I was to REPRESENT Jesus in all that I would say or do.
But, but, but, those same people who heard that same message would say and do mean things.
FREE WILL! God allows people to choose to do evil,
because God wants us to be free to serve Him or not. It's a test, really. If we flunk the test we might fry in hell for all eternity, but that's our own fault. We were given the chance to accept God's graces. If we reject them, we fry. FOREVER.
And it won't be pretty.
I was young.
Even as young as pre-Kindergarten, I wandered around in a haze of confusion. These things I was told made no sense to me. The older I got, the more of the Bible I read, the more my "cognitive dissonance" increased. Judging from what I read in the DSM-5 manual, I've misused that term. For me, it's when what I am taught clashes with what I observe and think.
My grandpa died when I was five and I was "too young" to see his body at the visitation, too young to attend the funeral. My little sister and I were left in the care of a great-aunt who had only one leg and scooted around the kitchen in her wheechair, calling me a heathen or some such thing. I no longer remember what I said or what her exact words were, but I do remember being informed in no uncertain terms that I had been naughty.
To this day I am "naughty." I do not have the faith of a child. I dare to QUESTION everything, even though Dad told us ad infinitum to "Just do as I say, and don't ask why."
If I represented anyone, I figured, I represent Eve. She was framed. What was her crime? She was told not to seek information, not to eat of the forbidden fruit, lest she LEARN things. First thing she learned: I am naked. Adam! We are naked! So they cover up, and God knows why. Busted. And they're evicted from the Garden. Sentenced to a life of toil and trouble, and the monthlies and the pain of labor for women, because women represent Eve, and Eve represents curiosity and the audacity to question.
I represent the heretic. There must be some kind of Creator, Math-Genius God, Watchful Father/Mother figure, but as far as I can tell, the Bible gives us a fairly incomplete vision of this supernatural presence in our lives. Don't even get me started on how incomplete the Bible is and how "It was never meant to be a history book or a science textbook."
With all due respect and reverence (believe it or not, I'm all about reverence!), it's all second-hand information to me. Words written by men who claimed to be inspired by God. Teams of academics and scholars (all men) decided which written documents would be decreed The Bible, and which were dismissed as apocryphal.
Other religions and mystics seem to agree on this much: God is love.
Those who threaten a human mortal (who has at most roughly a hundred years to sow evil) with ETERNAL hellfire are misinformed and mean-pirited, not "righteous" and "just," and not at all loving.
"Burn, baby, burn" does not represent my way of thinking. Hellfire and damnation do not represent the loving God I would believe in. I do not imagine that I manifest all that is good and kind, merciful and compassionate, forgiving and patient, but I try to represent all that is good and hopeful, not cynical and bitter.
Live and Let Live.
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-739-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-represent
Another great write from the master! I feel sorry for people who don't believe in God or at least some higher power. But, to each his own.
Resident cat here, representing the Freewrite House as I deliver today's new prompt:
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-740-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-cold-person
Thank you!
It pains me to hear "Atheism is the coward's way out," because fear is not what motivates unbelief; lack of convincing reasons or "evidence" is--and it is NOT the easy way out to see no reason to believe in a loving God and an afterlife and reuniting with loved ones in heaven. It's crushing. I continue to hold out hope, and have never declared "There is no god," just that whatever God there is, others seem to know and sense the presence of a God I do not sense or "know" or feel "certain" of. There's the Deist god of Thomas Jefferson and the framers of our Constitution, but the watchmaker who designed and built it then let it tick without further maintenance or intervention... that's not much better than atheism.
I continue to pray as if there's a listening God. But I don't buy the logic that morals and ethics cannot exist outside of belief in God. I've met so many atheists who are kind, compassionate, generous, and humane. What motivates them to do good? It's the right thing to do. Harming others, cheating, stealing, killing, shunning, is the wrong thing to do. It's that simple.
Sorry!
I have great affection for the community of saints - St. Catherine of Sienna, John of the Cross, even the witch-burning St. Augustine, and Blessed Angelina of de Foligni (God said to her: Make yourself a capacity, and I will make myself a torrent.) I have learned that I must not harbor any expectation or hope of experiencing God the way they did. Or the way millions of others say they have. I await, consoled that even Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa of Calcutta) experienced doubt that God exists at all.
Sorry. Someone cut me off now...
Even your comments are priceless! Hugs!
{{ hugs }} to you too, and thanks!!!!
Some interesting perspectives and insights, many of those experiences I shared
@carolkean. Upvoted of course.
My contibution would have been the verse about
"Pray without ceasing" 1 Thessalonians 5:17 I always wondered how one
Would do that. Then years later, I had this idea. Most people start off
A prayer with something like "Dear Father" or "Oh my Lord God"
(To me that is like picking up the phone and dialing HIS number)
Then when finished, we always say "AMEN"(Hanging up the phone)
So what if we never said AMEN? what if we "left the phone off the hook"
So to speak, then everything we did, said or thought during our days
Would be a part of our prayer.
Methinks it would change how we approached life a bit.
Not proselytizing, just some(simplistic) thoughts.😉
Love it - "never hang up the phone" - leave the line open at all times.
GREAT analogy!
Thank you for reading and commenting!
p.s. I actually do pray a lot. That's not to say I have any expectation that a listening God exists, but I pray anyway, because it costs nothing, and because people ask me to pray for them, so I do. If they believe my prayers help, the placebo effect, if nothing else, might make a difference. :)
I pray every night before I got to sleep. Being so structured, one might
think it would not be sincere or heartfelt, but it is, believe me.
I have this problem you see; I was riding with my niece once on a trip to
Her Mom's family home in Tennessee, she was praying
"Oh Lord, please Let it snow so my kids can finally experience it" 😠
So if God granted that prayer, for such a trivial reason, what about all
The people who would die on the roads because of the snow? All the
Folks who don't have adequate shelter? Does your kids experiencing
Snow for the first time trump those peoples lives?
People pray for the silliest things. Beware what you pray for;
You just might get it.
I love the way you think. (Ok, it reminds me of the way I think. But, yeah!)
You remind of the Hail Mary at football games when both teams are from Catholic schools. Which one will pray for AND get the win?
I love your disclaimer at the end!!!
Really, Gid has nothing else to do but to monitor your thoughts. :)
The Bible was the media outlet of the 7th century BC. Its purpose was ideological indoctrination of Jewish people under the banner of the contemporary Jewish Ruller. It was an attempt to make everybody believe in the same imaginary story. :)
Alas!
You confirm heretical thoughts I had tried to suppress for decades.
You just articulate them better than I ever did. :)
It's the thought that counts. )
YOU GO, GIRL!!!
LOL
Just so "go to hell" isn't where I'm going. :)
"Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief"
Mark 9:22-24
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
@carolkean I would rather believe in God and find out he is not true than to not believe and find him to be true.
That's good thinking - and I do live my life as if there is a God of love with a purpose for us all. I hope I didn't sound contemptuous or condescending. I didn't do a good job offering proof that I really do believe in *reverence * for the Author of the Universe, though I have trouble believing the Biblical acccount is very accurate in revealing to us who or what God really is.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
@carolekean I do not believe everything that is in the Bible, it has been changed so many times by people who interpret it differently from what was written. I thought you made good points and you were not contemptuous or condescending
Good to know - thank you!
I always manage to offend someone, however inadvertently.
De ja vous - you and I have had this conversation before!
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Outstanding, woman! there's so much that resonates for me in this. I did not have the hellfire and brimstone upbringing you did, no heathen-calling went on in my home, just the "goddamn kids" variety of making us feel small and unworthy. We went to church once every few months when the Greek Orthodox priest came to town and were taught scripture and Greek every Sunday by our Greek mothers. Now that I am thinking of this, and having been through the motherhood phase, I marvel at the dedication these women had to our religious and cultural education. That's an aside.
This notion that an outside entity can hear your THOUGHTS scared the beegeebers out of me, because my thoughts, as the oldest of five, were far from pure and holy.
Wowser leave it to Carol Kean to send me into the stratosphere of thought. Thanks, woman. You DAF.
Oh no, not you! - Adults, parents, teacher, making us feel small and unworthy - humility is good, but not that kind. I know what you mean about the dedication of mothers (and fathers) who model their culture's religious traditions and enforce the teachings. And yes, YES, that was me, not just scared but outraged, indignant, annoyed, and "Lacking in all humility" that the idea of my thoughts being under constant surveillance --- hey --- with Google watching my every move, and new sci-fi-sounding but real tech promising to read our thought, this stuff may become REAL. (Not in my lifetime. Not!)
What stings the most is when believers tell me the only reason I lack the "gift of faith" is that I am arrogant. I presume to doubt, to question. Well, priest have said Catholics don't have to check their brains in at the front door of the church. Good priests I have known anyway, saying to question and to experience doubt is all part of the package. *Even they have their dark night of the soul.
Thank you so much for reading and for your, as usual, insightful and delightful comments. :)
And now I'm here singing "I represent, the Lollipop kids...." I think that earns you a special place somewhere, the same one I am in not being able to get that song out of my head and coming out of my mouth.
Oh no, I inflicted upon you an earworm!!!
My antidote to all earworms is the one I never, ever tire of: The Underdog Theme song!
You're welcome.
Oooh, you should check out the Spanish version. The singers are so off-key. Hilarious.
"Un-dair Doag!"
Hahaha! Thank you! That English version didn't work for me BTW
Now I'm singing "It's Un Der Dog!"
How odd that you couldn't hear the original, but you did get the Spanish torture. Odder still - you bothered to listen! Who does that (besides me)
You are a trooper!
I am that person who clicks on the links and watches the videos. Unless they are 30 minutes long. Those piss me off. Unless it's @papa-pepper. His delight me.
LOL!
Yes, I know what you mean! I've seen a few of @papa-pepper's. He's awesome.
Keep it short. Cut to the chase.
That's why I can't listen to podcast. I've been spoiled by trained journalists and broadcasters. Spit it out! Stop hemming and hawing and making small talk.
I so can relate!!!
And the idea to be punished for the wish to learn!! Men are so scared of women that they have invented ways to suppress them for a long time. I truly hope we can find a way to exist in equality some day... Not there yet :(
Right you are, Marianne.
Punished for wanting to learn, to know.
Those cultures where girls are denied an education... too sad to contemplate right now.
Hell it's no created by God. And it's a real God. It makes me sad when people get away from him. Some of us get to know him in this life some others untill their are dead. I hope all you get the chance to hear his voice. Cause it's so true that He can talk to you like you talk with your friend.
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I believe you - but I also know from a lifetime of experience that I don't "hear" God or sense that he exists in a personal way. And it's not for lack of listening in quiet and stillness, not for lacking of praying and singing hymns like "Speak, Lord, I love to listen to your voice." Bless you!!
Hi my dear, I would like to know what is going on, and listen to you, talk about it if you wish of course.
Thank you. I've talked to spiritual directors, many priests, seminarians, people who experience God and "know" God, and last night, I tried yet another book, The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters
By: J. P. Moreland.
Best he could tell us is that modern science cannot disprove the existence of the soul. His "logic" however was based on untenable premises. And faulty syllogisms. This is not convincing: the idea that because the body is constantly changing due to cellular death and replenishment but the self remains the same, the soul must be different from the body. He cites a few Out of Body experience (Near-Death, or briefly dead but revived by doctors), but these are anecdotal and cannot be factually verified. So I'm left with hope that we do live on somehow and reunite with lost loved ones in a next life, but hope is all I've got, not confidence, faith, or certainty. Thanks for asking and offering to listen. :)