How I do religion

Religion saves me

I was asked the other day whether I had taken religion. Because I do not wear it on my sleeve, people might wonder why some of my views carry religious undertones. I have always been religious or spiritual, even when things have lapsed.

Religion is foundational to my existence and wellbeing. I owe everything to the grace, mercy, and love of God, even as I usually stumble in the walk of faith, because the concepts of Christianity and the workings of it that I believe in are much deeper than I give expression to.

Whilst my devotion in terms of church-going is Anglican, my beliefs lie at the evangelical and Pentecostal end of things, where I find a personal trail of conservative liberalism: an entertaining of the human perspective of biblical experiences that inform the wonder we see in lives.

How I think

Like Abraham, who left Ur of the Chaldees with at least seven generations of ancestors still alive, he heard from God, and I am sure he had to convince many people of that fact before he could leave.

Also, why have all angels, with their observation of human beings, not learnt to knock on doors instead of just appearing and comforting those they encounter with "Fear not!"?

However, this is no place for an exegesis. I have experienced different perspectives of religion (good, bad, strange, and just baffling) all from around the age of three. I am always excited by Bible study; there is never just a single story in what is read. Thank you.

Thought Picnic: Believing better

Thoughts afloat

There are so many things that percolate in my mind about what I want to do ranging from fleeting thoughts, through surprising inspiration, earnest desire, daydreaming, and determination.

I have to content myself with the fact that the factory of the mind which actively conceptualises is not a production line of equivalent tangibles. Much is processed and necessarily delivered. You do wonder if the best use of mental energy is deployed at most times.

Hearing well

Listening is an activity I have devoted myself to more trenchantly, I listen more than I read, it is also easier to listen to something repeatedly because the use of language and the interpretation of context and intent is better reinforced when a turn of phrase pricks up your ears.

Then, maybe it is more than listening and it is hearing, just as observing is a lot more than seeing, as there is a perception within the senses that confers knowing and knowledge, and there is a deeper communication beyond the physical and mental to the spiritual that transcends the limitations of the senses.

Learning anew

It seems harder than it appears to be just as you are recognising that it is easier than you ever thought it was. It is the unlearning and programming that has become like muscle memory that is being challenged. To detach from the old and appreciate the magnanimous grace of the new, the insight that suggests what you always thought things were by way of traditions and practice are in truth what should have been jettisoned, if you knew better.

We all did not know better, we just continued with the tried and tested ways, thus missing out on the kind of revelation that upsets the orthodoxy to which every form and function is tied. I find myself questioning and assessing, wondering and wandering, seeking and searching, understanding and comprehending, that what I once believed is under review to believe better than to believe amiss.