Hello, readers. I took a hiatus.

I still had my morning cuppa but withdrawn and to myself. Partially this was due to the holiday season, but partially it was because I found that where I was going with this little blog (one of so many I have started and stopped through the last two decades) didn’t feel right.

I still like the idea of starting with a cuppa because it is folksy and downhome, but the tone after that initial introductory paragraph… well it felt more like how I wrote a decade ago when I was making a point or having “wisdom” or what have you.

I am no longer that person. Or I am, but I have descended from that particular peak and now I am climbing another.

But back in October when I was thinking about this, looking at the blinking cursor and having no idea what to put down, I wasn’t sure what that peak looked like, or even what mountain range I was currently traversing…

…I am still wandering around a bit lost, but I do find that I am drawn again and again to speak of what I don’t speak of to… well, anyone really.

Faith.

Yep. I have like two readers, but it was almost like I felt those two readers roll their eyes. Though, that is probably my imagination and there are probably no readers and if they are reading and have a “roll the eye moment,” they likely clicked away.

Ok. So if you are still reading…

Faith.

I have some opinions:

We choose faith. Even if we were raised in a household of strict religion, at some point we choose whether or not to continue having faith in whatever religion we were raised in.

We get to choose what kind of faith we have and we get to pursue it, though sometimes this might be dangerous or life-threatening. I am blessed in that I live in the United States so I get to practice whatever faith I want with little repercussion (unless I am part of a death cult or something and start murdering people, but that’s a different subject).

And finally. God meets us where we are (or the Divine Being, or the Universe, or Krishna, or Buddha, or whatever name it is you give the entity you have faith in). I think it is called Universalism (shit, I should probably look that up), but my faith is in a belief that God (for me) shows up in all religions and belief systems and the goodness of humanity.

There. I have said it. Whew. Right there on the screen are words that I have shared with very few people in my life because for me faith in God is something that I wrestle with and something that I have walked away from and something that I have tried to convince myself is not true… yet that dude keeps showing up. In my Buddhism studies. In my yoga studies. In my shamanic studies. Just never seemed to matter, the more I tried to walk away from a faith I wasn’t even raised in (mum is agnostic, various step-dads are atheist), the more I found myself spiraling back around.

Despite!

Despite the way I grew up with the agnosticism and the atheism being the way of things. Raised in: the disdain for Christianity. The patriarchy. The homophobia. The hypocrisy. And look at the crimes the Church has committed!

How could you ever even consider yourself a Christian?

And. Fair point. There is all of that in the Bible and in the Church. There are priest rapists. There are murdering conquerors. There was stoning and burning of “witches.” There is intolerance and war and terrible terrible terrible acts.

And there is compassion. Acceptance. Love and mercy. There is a God that calls us “beloved.” There is a man who lived that healed the sick and carried the poor and who had no tolerance for the way of things (otherwise known as the Law).

All of it is humanity. And in there, humans attempted to present the Divine. And guess what…. it’s a fucking mess.

And I spent decades… literal decades… wrestling with the questions, running away from the answers, trying to outthink things or think around things. I was full on “God can suck it” on occasion, especially when the Big Dark would descend on my mood.

Broke up with God a couple of times for that reason alone.

And yet. Oops. I did it again. Believed. Had faith.

Until I realized the messiness, and the tragedies, and the hypocrisy, and the nature of belief and faith is human and humans are all of that, so of course it is a shit show.

And how amazing that we have a divine Presence that lets us create shit shows (in my book, that’s called free will).

So. Years go by. Restlessness. Need sets in and as I do when I get a bee in my bonnet (where DOES that saying come from), I deep dived. I thought about going back to school to dive even deeper (independent study is VERY hard even with YouTube lectures and online resources) but alas the gate keepers have made the price tag for an MDiv prohibitive.

So I started on a solo journey to read more and study and question and look up things online.

Of course, I then got sidetracked and derailed and meandered and and and… Yeah, until I realized I was treading water rather than swimming in this vast sea.

Now you are caught up to the current mood:

I realized that practice is how I could further move into the space of understanding. After all the best way to learn a subject is to teach a subject.

(FYI, my brain is screaming at me right now because I lack the proper credentials to teach anything. Damn autistic brain and the way I was raised has made it that I only put importance and expertise in having some random letters after my name).

So. Lectio Divina. Reading. Analyzing. And now I want to try my hand at something else… homily. Of course I could be full of shit, and honestly I am nervous as hell to attempt this, even in my little lonely corner of the internet.

But, I am going to. Because I am compelled. Maybe. I don’t know. Discernment is HARD. Whatever it is though, I know I am pushing comfort zones and that, usually, is not a bad thing.

So stay tuned… or you know, feel free to turn the channel… and let’s see what I come up with moving forward. It is Matthew and the baptism of Jesus this weekend. Maybe something in there… actually, there is a huge amount in there. Ha!

I digress.

Until next time, readers, raise a cuppa, enjoy the warmth and look for the little bits of faith in your every day.