Universal Truth Mindshift

I do believe in a universal truth and that the universal truth comes from a higher power.  More specifically, I believe in the Christian God of the Bible and that the truth comes from Him.

Growing up in the Assembly of God Church, I developed this idea that our job as Christians is to seek and pray for the revelation of this universal truth and then God would set us on that "straight and narrow" path and we'd know we were in His perfect will.  The problem was, no matter how much I prayed, no matter how much I sought, no matter how much I read, listened, and studied, I never felt that I found that perfect will path.  In fact, I became paralyzed, afraid to even move because I wasn't sure if anything I was doing was part of that perfect path.

I have since changed my mindset.  Instead of believing that if I did enough faithful Christian stuff He would reveal His perfect Universal Truth path for me to merrily walk upon the rest of my life, I now believe that it is a journey upon this earth and He slowly reveals the Universal Truth through our choices in life.  We don't get it all at once and then live life.  We live life and learn it along the way.

This helps me not to fear making choices, anymore.  I am not literally afraid in my laundry room wondering if turning on the warm water instead of washing in cold water is being a bad steward and not saving that half a penny, and stepping off of Christ's path.

I don't have to be afraid of changing churches, befriending someone who doesn't share my beliefs, making decisions.  I can more easily live within the reality of my life here on earth instead of trying to find answers and open doors to a VERY narrow and elusive perfect path that I thought I had to be on.

Discomfiture of Modern Evangelism

You can imagine that being Evangelical meant a very strong emphasis on evangelism.  It was about "winning souls" and "the sinner's prayer" and "going out the collect the harvest."

I always struggled with this.  I'm shy, introverted, and always seemed to either anger people, or encounter those who could out-argue me.  It began to dawn on me that that which I saw and believed so plainly, others could not.  I even began to see the absurdity in believing what I believed.  In the logic of human tangible facts, faith is an anomaly.

Furthermore, I saw evangelical ministries flounder and fail time and time again.  If it was charitable, it was merely used by a community that had no desire to take the bait and join the church.  More often than not, someone who did get swept up into the church would leave after their spiritual high and honeymoon were over.

Around here where I live, evangelical churches have a very very minimal actual growth rate of true converts.  Mostly, they just recycle the same Christians.  They get disillusioned or bored or angry with one church, one denomination, and so they move to another.  A new "church" with a great advertising campaign opens up and perhaps some straggling unchurched join the "revival" for a time, but eventually it peters out.

To press on with my original point, I always struggled with the evangelical model.  It seemed ineffective and even hated (I mean, really, who likes being bothered on a street or have someone knocking on your door asking you personal questions on the spot).  I remember being told to speak about Jesus to my classmates.  Be bold!  I tried.  It was a mess.  Most of them just thought I belonged to some cult.

However, it was doctrinally pounded into us that we must evangelize or else we were saddening and angering God (not in those words) and perhaps even risked entry to heaven (odd for those who believe in once saved always saved).  Up until yesterday evening I still felt the burden of guilt concerning my lack of bold evangelization.

Then, I read Elizabeth LeSeur's diary.  In it, around 1906, she realized something important, profound.  Silence.  She was advised and convicted that she talked too much about her spiritual life.  She evangelized too much.  It was, simply by being a talking point, a matter of egotism.  She saw that it put the focus much on her, was a distraction from true conversion, and was largely ineffective.

Her remedy was silence on the matter.  Should would return to prayers, suffering, and service - only speaking of her spirituality when charity demanded it.  In that Christ could work, the Holy Spirit could move and true heart changes could become rather than people being swept away in contempt, or carried off by emotions only to crash when the emotions and aesthetics lost their charms and wore off.

We are light and salt.  Light doesn't make noise.  Neither does salt.  Our neighbors don't need us knocking on their doors and asking personal questions.  They need us being shining examples of piety and flavoring and preserving good.  That might mean leaving the Bible at home and instead picking up a rake.  That might mean knocking on the door with a tray of cookies or needful groceries, instead of leaving Chick Tracts.  (Oh, how I hate Chick Tracts!)

It doesn't mean hiding behind a veneer of perfection.  It means not drawing attention to our imperfection.  The Bible says that when we fast we ought to suffer in silence, and not make a show of our suffering.  That doesn't mean to lie and be unrealistic.  It means giving of ourselves in joy for God's glory and not succumbing to egotism of self.  We can take care of ourselves without making it a thing.

In conclusion, I write that reading Elizabeth LeSeur's journal helped lift off the guilt I had concerning evangelism.  I never ever "won a soul" by evangelizing.  However, I did have one person come to me years later and thank me for my example and my living and that seeing that one could be a Christian with joy and life helped him become a Christian (and not only that, become a Catholic!).  I was shocked, to say the least, as the time of my example that he was referring to was a time I struggled, and yet it was a witness.  Praise be to God!

Another Vision

Deep in prayer and reading the Bible this evening, I closed my eyes and asked to bask in the presence of Christ.  Immediately, my mind's eye saw the interior of a beautiful cathedral, as if I stood in the center aisle.  I was whisked forward towards the tabernacle and there, for a brief moment, I saw the face of Christ.  It was not like one sees a person before them, or even a picture, painting, or statue.  It was more outlined, like the Shroud of Turin image, though alive, substantial, and not mere image.

It struck me how Catholic it was.  The interior of the cathedral was very ornate and full of sacred art and carvings.  The rows of wooden pews were a medium toned wood to match the decorative and structural woodwork throughout the cathedral.  Beautiful!  The rush forward and full attention towards the tabernacle was very clear.  I knew where I was and where I was going and why.  And there, right at the tabernacle, was that living, substantial image of Christ.  Majestic.

The awe of it shook me.  It was an unexpected vision.

I hope to really be inside that cathedral some day.  I don't know where it is.  I don't know which one it is.

Fish on Friday

The routines of the Catholic Church are still foreign and out of practice for me.  For example, I forget that it is Friday and find myself grabbing something with meat in it to eat.  I've mostly got it down to where I meal plan a fish dinner of some sort for Friday evenings, but the rest of the day I am prone to forgetting the call to abstain.

Yesterday was a prime example, but I am grateful for it because it caused me to examine myself.  It started out with needing to use up bacon in the fridge before it started turning.  I cooked it up for my children (who are not Catholic at all, pray for them) and then remembered it was Friday.  I was tempted to just give up and eat it anyway, but I decided to stick with the Church and did not have bacon for myself.  It was hard!  I had to remind myself that I can have bacon tomorrow.  I can wait one day and give this up for the Lord in obedience to His Church. 

For lunch, my son made a meatball sandwich with leftover meatballs from Thursday's dinner.  He left the pan on the stove with half a meatball sitting in it.  Without thinking, I picked up the meatball and popped it into my mouth.   It was an hour or so later before I even realized what I did!

"I'm not good at this!" I exclaimed to God.  "I'll have to give up something else to make up for it."

I was going to prepare my afternoon indulgent cup of coffee and decided that would be my sacrifice for eating the meatball.  But, then I resisted.  No, maybe there's something else.  My conscience was pricked.  No, I wanted coffee the most.  It was the first to come to mind, the one I don't want to give up, so it must be the one I must give up.

My Protestant friends and family would read this and say that I am being superstitious and legalistic.  That isn't it at all!  If I am going to be Catholic, I am going to be Catholic and accept such things and utilize them to appropriate practice and purpose.  Yes, I do believe that some Catholic practices can fall into superstition and legalism, but if we are educated and mindful and keep our eyes on Jesus, they won't.  They will be done appropriately.

Does Jesus ultimately care whether or not I popped that half a meatball in my mouth?  I don't believe so.  In fact, I laughed when I realized and felt that perhaps He laughed, too.  But, it caused me to examine myself.  It gives me a Christ-focus.  It joins me with other Catholics who also abstain in honor of God.  It reminds me of my humanity, my morality.

Veiling at Mass

It is a little bit of a hard thing for me to veil at Mass because not only am I not a confirmed Catholic, but I'm one of very very few women who do veil.  I don't want to come across as uppity among so many faithful Catholic women who do not veil.  Sometimes, I wonder if I ought to just blend in and not stand out so, but I cannot bring myself to not veil.

As it stands, however, I have not received any negative feedback or looks or sideways glances.  It seems people appreciate the sight of the veil in Mass, even if they themselves don't feel like they could do it.  What really strikes me are the young children.  They peep over the backs of pews at me.  Little boys stare for a moment, almost emotionless in their wondering.  Little girls stare longer, with bright eyes and shy smiles.  I wonder if these kiddos think I'm a nun!  I love that they look because then I can smile at them, even wave a little if it isn't a crucial time during Mass for strict reverence.

Another reaction I have gotten to my face and behind my back are how beautiful I look.  This pricks my conscience because I do not want to be vain over veiling.  It's humbling to veil, but if I've learned anything about Catholicism, it is that beauty is valued.  Not vanity, mind you, but beauty, and veiling is beautiful.  I'm not a particularly beautiful woman.  I'll never grace a magazine cover, but veiling is beautiful.  It also reveals just how starved modern people are for beauty.  Especially for beauty that is in the context of holiness, reverence, modesty, and all that is proper and well-ordered.

I veil because I feel compelled to.  It humbles me.  It is a little scary.  I hope it is a positive witness.  I hope I can one day receive the Eucharist veiled, cleansed, forgiven, redeemed, on my knees, on my tongue, with full thanksgiving.  I hope those little girls who shyly stare and smile choose to veil.  I hope my mere presence veiled perhaps helps another woman who wants to veil, but is afraid to go against the tide, start veiling.

The Fulfillment of Catholic Prayers

I'm not sure I could classify myself as someone who struggled with praying.  I could pray and would pray often.  Simple prayers, regular prayers, heartfelt prayers, urgent prayers, contemplative prayers, thankful prayers, but mostly requesting prayers.  In the AG church, prayer was not only taught, but frequented, expected, lengthy, and very emotional and inclusive.  One would lead the prayer, usually in a highly-charged way, while the congregation "agreed in prayer" through repetitive "yes, Lord Jesus," and other such proclamations.  Praying in tongues was very common.  Silent prayer was ordered, as well, but never really silent, as you could hear the whispers, murmurs, and tongues of those around you.  Sometimes, (though preferably often) someone would come out in loud tongues, followed by an interpretation.  This would indicate that the Holy Spirit has come and has a word for us from God.  That meant we were holy enough, faithful enough, prayerful enough, worthy enough, and "doing it right" to merit His words (which were typically a general admonishment of some sort that we weren't "doing it right."  Also note that the AG church would NEVER admit this enoughness theology because we are saved by grace, not by works and nothing we do merits God's grace.  Only Jesus....and yet, they believe very strongly about merits.)

Despite all this prayerfulness, I always felt like a hit a prayer road block.  My prayers were simple, which were fine, but not ordered or....I can't explain it.  They just weren't as deep...something was missing.

I was urged (read: pressured greatly) to "be baptized in the Holy Spirit" and receive the gift of tongues.  It finally came around 3 in the morning after praying and pacing for the reception of it.  I rejoiced, thinking I found a great way to pray when I ran out of English words or ideas.  I bragged a little, but I found myself questioning it:

I just repeated the same sounds over and over again.  When I asked about it I was told that, like babies learning to speak, they speak simply.  Over time it would change to the language of tongues.  That didn't make sense to me.  I'm an adult and the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of granting me full tongues capacity because, after all, it is the Holy Spirit through me, not myself, speaking.

I didn't know what I was saying.  That troubled me the most.  The Bible says that when tongues were spoken for the public, there had to be interpretation.  But, here in private I had no understanding or interpretation.  What was I saying? What did it mean?  How was this edifying for me?  I honestly expected that I would at least have an idea of what I was saying if not a word-for-word translation.

And how were these sounds a language?  There wasn't a spoken rhythm, cadence, or phonetic variance to it.  It was just a fast-rattled litany of the same sounds over and over again with no sentence breaks or pauses.  What was I doing?!  And how was this chaos of the Holy Spirit?!

Oh, there's always the convenient excuse from the same people who praised, "you're doing it!" of "you probably didn't really receive the Holy Spirit, then."

It wasn't until I heard from a leading Catholic priest exorcist and a couple other Catholic sources that one of the most prominent demographics of people needing exorcism are tongues-speaking Pentecostals.  It's a practice, so full of pressure, determination, and emotion that enforces "opening up to receive" that some receive demonic spirits!

I stopped.

It was evidence enough for me, that because I didn't know what I was saying, I thus didn't know who was saying it or what I was opening myself up to.  I certainly never ever felt better, at peace, or holier, or closer to God for speaking in tongues.  I just belonged to the "tongues speaking club."

At this time I was in the Baptist church where prayer isn't very prominent at all.  It is more of a formality, rushed, simple, with little reverence.  My prayer life dwindled unless troubles arose.  I didn't like that.  But, what and how to pray!  I was stuck in a rut, a dead end.

Then....Catholicism with prayer books, novenas, rosaries, Saints, etc.  It was like I was stuck with a lame chick tract and suddenly an entire library was opened up to me!  I proceeded with trepidation because, after all, Catholic prayers are pagan and displease God.  But, how!?  They were full of humbleness, intelligence, deep psychology, and most of all, Jesus Christ!  I found prayers that Saints prayed that so perfectly described those deep feelings within me that I couldn't find ways to express!  I found prayers for certain circumstances that didn't just lead me to complaining and wanting God to fix it, but that humbled me and led me to righteousness and service.  Plus, I didn't feel alone.  I suddenly found myself joined by millions of Catholics around the world, and all the Saints in Heaven!!

The Abuse of the Mind

Growing up I was taught to obey.  The limits of thinking for myself were within the context of obeying my immediate authorities.  Therefore, I learned to "think for myself" and anticipate what obedience might be required of me before asked and thus earning peace and possibly praise from achieving it.  My obedience was blind, too.  I trusted my authorities, so when they said, "because it's in the Bible," or "Because you shouldn't do that," I didn't question it.  It was comfortable for me to know what was expected of me and to do it.  My parameters were narrow and I had just enough choice within it be content.  Not happy, not fulfilled, not successful, but content.

Public school only reinforced this model.  I was the perfect student and teachers were thrilled to have me in their classrooms.  I was easy to teach, well-behaved, earned good grades, and made them look good.  My good grades and praise from the teachers led me to believe that I was of high intelligence.  The fact that I was so different from my peers by being the goody two-shoes led me to believe that I thought for myself.  Little did I know that all I was good at doing was being obedient.  I could parrot and regurgitate information.

I graduated high school 8th in my class, but with only a couple of low-fund scholarships in my pocket.  I blamed Affirmative Action when really it was the limitations of my upbringing and thought.  I brought nothing to the tables of academia but obedience.  My plan was to attend a university in Canada, staying in the strict Catholic all-girls dorm, and studying my brains out to learn and teach a foreign language.  Instead, I obeyed.  And by obey, I mean I caused my authorities no trouble at all by virtually disappearing into obedient oblivion.

This is abuse #1:  Obedience is better than thinking for yourself.  What good is thinking if you might think wrongly and end up angering God?

There were two major occurrences in my late teen years that were very profound for me, but that I did not take well.  The first was meeting my Scottish penpal and his family in Scotland.  It was very apparent very quickly that his education in Scotland was far superior to mine here in America.  He and his family were very intelligent, though in their Scottish social class, they were among peers.  I felt like a terribly unsocialized fool.  I'm sure they wondered about this lout of a lass from America.  The best I could do for myself at the time was tell myself that being intelligent and well-bred like them was useless if they didn't know Jesus like I did.  They were intelligent and well-bred, yes, but they were agnostics.

This brings about abuse #2:  Intelligence and excellent social skills do not go hand-in-hand with serving God.  Studying a variety of subjects and being among a variety of people in the world will only likely lead you astray.

The second major occurrence was in my first and only year in college.  I was excited to take English.  It was my best and favorite subject in school and I was sure to be top of the class and impress my English professor.  Instead, I barely passed.  He issued us passages of reading excellence that I simply couldn't wrap my head around.  He asked us to THINK and convey our thoughts.  I struggled.  I could not see the allegorical, the abstract, and I had virtually no experiences with which to understand what I was reading.  All I did was stick to my strict, evangelical, narrow upbringing and refused to even listen to anything outside of that parameter.  It was sin!  I couldn't!

While the professor appreciated my convictions and was sympathetic to my prison of mind, he didn't mince words.  "You write bull-sh**," he told me.  "There is nothing of your own thought or substance in your essays."  "This is how I was taught to write," I stammered my explanation.  "This is what got me A's in high school."  "This is not how you get A's in college," he said.

He tried, God bless him, he did.  Like other widely intelligent people I have met, he saw that I do have brains behind my prison bars and attempted to set me free.  He had me sign up for Psychology 102.  He was sure I could read up on 101 on my own while sitting in 102.  I left after the first day for two reasons:  1.  College psychology is tremendously secular and I couldn't stomach it.  I could not separate my belief system from other intelligences, hypotheses, and thoughts.  2.  By this time I was very sick and so deeply depressed that I slept up to 18 hours a day.  There was no time to catch up.  I barely made it though the academic year and never went back to school.

Abuse #3:  Studying, examining, exploring, or even thinking about other philosophies and such is wrong and will lead you astray.  The AG is right and nothing else matters.

Abuse #3 was reinforced when I met my husband and he explained how he (who grew up in the AG church as well) bucked the system and decided to think and study for himself.  While he ultimately decided at the time that the Christian God is the one true God, he didn't really identify himself as a Christian and certainly didn't attend church or read the Bible.

So, I in my dumbness, thought myself to be the superior.  I had the mind.  I had the answers.  I had many verses memorized.  I had my spirituality and moral character.

Abuse #4:  To show that you are truly superior you must stress about everybody else's moral inferiority.  Living in "righteous anxiety" will show God that you are serious about fixing everyone else and not letting sin win.

The problem was I didn't have the answers and I had a TON of anxiety.  Now that I was married and outside of the bubble in which I grew up I had to face big, real-world problems that I could not answer or fix.  My foundation started crumbling.  The worst was I couldn't fix anyone and in the meantime I was breaking, myself!

I'm ahead of myself just by a bit.  Before I met my husband I went through a religious spiraling where I thought my only answer was going backwards.  My AG peers had entered worldly life where their Christian upbringing was barely distinguishable anymore.  There, they succeeded.  Why?  Why were they moving forward and I nowhere?

Abuse #5:  Success (read: functioning well) in the world is failure in Christ.

Little did I know then that my backwards studying was going to eventually lead me back to Catholicism.  At the time I thought perhaps my answer was a more old-fashioned, community-oriented, isolated and insulated religious culture of Anabaptist origin.  Even so, I struggled.  It created more problems that answers for me.  And most of all, there was no peace.  Now, I was in the depths of despair.  I was so very lost.  I pretty much did nothing out of fear of doing something that might end up as outside of God's will.  This was Abuse #6.

Meeting my husband was the serotonin boost I needed to zap myself enough out of my zombie-like depression to seem like I was functioning.  Here is where my morals, beliefs, and obedience were challenged.  I displayed myself as the moral superior while acting the moral inferior.  I was lost.  So very lost, but I played a good part.

Abuse #7:  Mindless obedience is better than coming to the conclusion of morality yourself, because once you question it and search it out, once you want to know the reason you open the door to abandoning it all together.

I had questions during this period, but my authorities did not answer with anything of intelligence and thought, but rather regurgitated the, "well, it's wrong and you just don't do that," and "the Bible says _____" statements that slammed any discussion shut before it even begins.

So, now I was married, struggling in my faith, struggling in my depression, struggling in my belief systems, struggling so very much.  While I abandoned Anabaptism, I discovered fundamentalism.  Now, if only I could arrange my life into a perfect picture of religious fundamentalism I would be in God's will and everything will be perfect.  All I wanted to be was perfectly obedient and then all would be well again, but I couldn't see past my own nose.

Abuse #8:  As AGers, our way is the only way.  I'm right, everyone else is wrong, and if they only just conform to whatever narrow model I created all would be well.  I had a pretty picture of what God's will was in my head and it was agonizing to try to make it happen.  It never happened.

Hubby and I had many friends from all walks of life.  I kept to myself, mostly.  They were too worldly and everything they did smacked of sinfulness, whether it was drinking or enjoying a cigar around a campfire or worse, philosophizing!  I couldn't relate.  I couldn't sympathize.  I couldn't contribute.  All I could do was play the protestant princess when everyone could plainly see Cinderella's rags and hypocrisy.  I honestly couldn't handle the world with any sort of strength of self.  All I could do was be anxious about it and drive everyone, including myself, nuts.  I was unhappy and lost.  My only sense of peace was a false one and that was pretending I was that perfect protestant princess in the pews.

Abuse #9:  Haughtiness is next to Godliness

Abuse #10:  Isolation is our insulation and through our isolation we are inspiration

Continuing on into my adulthood and married life NOTHING was going as I thought it ought to.  All the promises of perfection from obedience weren't coming to pass.  I gave up the world.  I gave up education.  I gave up friends.  Why was I suffering so!?

Abuse #11:  Never enough.  Never enough obedience, faith, prayer, tithing, discovering of secret sins, ministry, submission.....I wasn't receiving blessings and answers and my established ideal of God's will and perfection because I wasn't doing enough of something.

Abuse #12:  My authorities would continue to repeat the same "answers," the same "truth" over and over again.  It's a total mind-trick to try to discuss something with a Stepford robot and just get repetition.  But I questioned whether they repeated because truth is truth and there is nothing else to say or because that's all they would allow themselves to know.

Abuse #13:  Control.  Disallowing those under your authority to think for themselves and not letting them become free-thinking adults is a great neglect.

Abuse #14:  Self-perpetuating lies, despite evidence to the contrary that would hold up in the courts of law and academia, often repeated and referenced back on themselves is truth.  Any deviation is outside thinking and outside thinking is sin because it doesn't fit the worldview of the AG church, which is, after all, the truest church since Acts.

The final nail in the coffin happened recently in 3 different circumstances.  One was abuses 12 and 14 when I was trying to have a discussion about my recent studies with one of my authorities.  Another was passive-aggressive "suggestions" towards the "only" way of thinking to counter my studies outside of the AG faith.  The third was a dream I had that I needed interpretation for.  I had the dream interpreted by the AG and by a Catholic theologian and psychologist with a doctorate.  The latter walked me through the dream using psychology that is well known across the board to help people unravel their dreams in healthy, realistic ways.  It was remarkable how much my dream made sense.  The AG interpretation made no sense to me, was based on assumptions, made no attempt to ask me questions or allow me my own thoughts on the matter, and forced me into a box that was not mine to be in.  It was WAY off base.  I've had dreams interpreted by the AG before and their interpretation lead to great spiritual and marital damage.  Why?  Because the assumption falls under Abuse #11.  It is my lack of faith and my husband's apparent secret sin that this dream was apparently explaining.  As a matter of fact it had NOTHING to do with anything that was interpreted by the AG.

Through these occurrences I realized that this was grounds for divorcing myself from this faith completely.  It has damaged and if I stay in it will continue to damage my mental, emotional, and spiritual self.  My authorities don't understand why I don't just come back.  They can't see or understand the mind-mess that they have done to me!  All in good intention, I grant them that, but wrong nonetheless!  And the more I study Catholic theology, history, and philosophy, the more I see the damage done and the peace and freedom to be had!

I cannot go back.  I'm not even sure I can go back to Protestantism in any form.

I feel like I need to apologize to so many people.  I feel like I should have a do-over in life.  I am disallowing myself from feeling utterly angry about this because it would do no good, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't angry in some way.  I'm keeping it to an appropriate dull roar and won't allow it to become resentment.  I can't let that eat away at whatever is left of me to build upon. It happened.  I learned, and I grew in ways I could have only grown by going through this.  It isn't as tragic is greater abuses people have endured, but it did totally mess up my life, my spirituality, and my psyche.

Even now, I think, "I am finally me," but in the back of my head is the abuse of the mind saying, "you're allowing Satan to lie to you in your self-centeredness and disregarding of the truth the AG church teaches.  Go back.  Go back and be safe."  But, when I think of actually going back I become agitated, anxious, angry, and disgusted.  I react not only mentally but physically and spiritually.  It sickens me!