Freedom

Paul says "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free." It's not for some new and different kind of slavery, he says later. Christ didn't set us free so that we could turn around and walk right back into our cells and slam the door. And you can't be a little bit legalistic. If you're going to try and be justified by anything except relying on Jesus, you have to swallow the whole thing.

It's religion (meaning the empty, rule-centered rituals devoid of Christ) that keeps people in bondage. It's when we try to add stuff onto what Jesus said and did that people start gagging when they drive by churches. It's hard enough just to do what Jesus asks - then we want to add onto that? A good friend of mine tells me about once a week that if you just try to love God and love others, you'll have enough to do. There is a lot of freedom inherent in love. It's a bit of a shift from what we're used to with religion.

We're not a bunch of islands

It used to bother me when people would act different in different situations, or with different people. It doesn't bother me as much now - I figure it's pretty inevitable. We're all part of a context. We act different around different people because the relationships are different. I'm not going to treat my grandpa the same way I treat a 12-year-old. It won't work.

I've been thinking a lot about community lately, too - how we're all defined by those around us and how if you're not in one (a community, that is), you start feeling very lonely and a little lost. As much as we don't want to admit it, we need others. We are people made for relationship and the more we try to fight that, probably the less we feel like people.

Be Here Now

The hardest thing is to be present in the moment. We're always projecting ourselves into the future, reliving some moment in the past, or we have some out-of-body experience where we look in at outselves and wonder if other people are seeing the same thing we're seeing. The problem with that is that it's hard to be truly with people if you're always somewhere else. I have to admit I'm always there - in another place, in another time.

One of my friends told me the other day that you only get enough grace, spiritual energy, or whatever you want to call it for the situation you're in. That means that if you're worrying about tomorrow, you're using up your spiritual energy for today. I'm starting to think that way - each day has enough trouble of its own.

Linear thinking

I have this really bad habit of trying to figure stuff out. You can drive yourself nuts.

See, we humans are so used to solving problems, we want to be able to isolate one event or condition in the past that has caused the problem. The trouble is there isn't just one cause. The truth is it could have been one of many causes, or it could have been all of them at once. There's no way to tell.

Scientific experiments are all about isolating one variable to see its effect on something, but even in science, there are variables that creep in and confound the process. We'll never know and so maybe it's better to stop trying to pinpoint a time when things went bad and start focusing on how we can change the picture now.

The fact is, buried in all our context, in this tangled web we weave, we all need someone beside us. Besides, how far are the answers to the "why?" questions going to get us? The fact is we do not need answers as much as we need someone who can help us change the future.

What are you looking at?

Boy, there's lots of stuff on which to focus, other than what you should. There are lots of pretty things to look at. You can watch TV. You can surf the internet. You can listen to music.

Even in the middle of trying to live the Christian life, you can find lots stuff to look at, other than Jesus. You can look at yourself and always be trying to adjust your own behavior. Or, you can look at others and police their behavior. You can look at the facts and gain a bunch of knowledge so that you're more right than everyone else.

But, none of that can save you. The only one who can save you is Jesus. He is the one we need to watch.