It's always so much easier to list what you're not or the negative then it is the positive. A good faith journey person asked me recently what do I want to do...ummm...silence. I had to sit and stew because all I could do was start the running list of what I don't want to do. Then that's followed by the list of things that I can do and be decent at but it's not what I'm passionate about. And then the brain stops at the thought about what I'd like to do...the good, happy, life giving stuff. So that makes me wonder and ask myself the questions of why don't I know what would make me happy and why don't I do what makes me happy? The first answer I can come up with is that being responsible doesn't always equal being happy. The fact is that I have bills and loans to pay. As much as I wish I didn't have to pay them, I do. I made choices in life to acquire these bills so now I have to pay them. So I do a job that helps me pay my bills but doesn't bring me joy or happiness but in fleeting moments.But that's roughly only 40 to 50 hours a week. About the rest of the 118 hours available to me in the week? Figure 6 to 8 hours of sleep a night (maybe) so that leaves around 70 hours to do what makes me happy and what I enjoy. I have moments when I do. I have glimspes of being able to be happy and at home within myself but it's not daily. It's not often enough to allow me to truly figure out what I enjoy and what brings me happiness. So my work continues to figure out who I am and to stop the focus on who I'm not.
In a conversation with a more conservative Christian then me (take in mind I call myself a bed-wetting liberal and I’m also a big time Process Theologian) the person started rambling off scripture quotes (proof texting really) to make a point. I have never claimed to be a great memorizer of anything. And even though I have read the Bible many times and own many copies of the Bible, I am still not a person who can just pull out scripture references in mid conversation. I do have several verses that I turn to and love dearly but I can’t tell you word for word what John 2:5 or Ruth 1:4 says. This got me thinking, why do Christians really feel the need to qualify their faith based on the amount of scripture that they can recite from memory? While it may be very handy to be able to quote scripture in a variety of situations, I believe that this can be dangerous. Proof texting (pulling scripture, from any religion, to support an argument without careful and learned consideration for its cont
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