Finding my need for atonement again

“A broken and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise.”  Psalm 51:17

It is difficult sometimes to have a mental deficit that keeps me on guard during schizophrenic episodes, and remember who I am underneath it all.  I get lost in the stories that fill my mind and they often are very anti-spiritual, definitely anti-Christ in persuasion, and my faith is buried in an effort to protect the Heart that is so precious to me, one that developed in a Love that taught me to accept myself as I am, and give all of myself in service to Love for another. 

It is with great humility and thankfulness that I find myself on my knees in prayer and looking to the One that taught me to Love and the first time in ages that I remember I am not capable of being the man I pursue to be apart from a grace that imparts such measures of needed attributes to allow me to not only grow towards that end, but step into the faith I protected with ease once the episodes are past and continue where I left off as if that was just a fever or flu that needed to be tended before we carried on together.  My Lord is gracious, and I do call Love, Lord, and I do worship Christ, and forgot that for a while; I just needed to get to this place again and now I am here.

My need for atonement rested in the pride and arrogance that always instills with the resistance and insistance that I’m right about the awful and frightening experiences I endure through my mental disease.  That pride is a always a block too genuine relationship found in honest and open prayer.  I remain isolated from myself if not irradicated, and it only requires a genuine moment of humility to bring my heart to the surface and allow the Love I cherish to renew my soul, remove the hardness of battle, and begin the healing of restoring the man I always desire to be.

Don’t worry, my faithful readers, I’m still very much open to all religious traditions, in that I believe people need to choose what is best for them spiritually, and I don’t believe that God is limited in any way to how he may decide to build that unity and relationship that Love desires with each one of us.  I will continue to research my interests into other religions and I will continue to incorporate what I find useful into my own spirituality.  Yet, I feel drawn to explore my roots in the Catholic Church to form some sort of community with fellow Christians even though I am very aware that my liberal outlook is not at times in line with the positions of the Church itself.  Yet, I am encouraged with such works as “The Naked Now”, by Richard Rohr, a priest and member of a fraternal order known as the Franciscans.  He takes great care to build bonds between faiths rather than the common “your all doomed to hell unless you believe the same as me” motif that often riddles the propaganda of Christianity.  I find it refreshing to find such an author that is outspoken and often even does seminars with Buddhist Monks, liberal professors such as Marcus Borg (a professor of mine a decade ago), and psychologists and even accepts opportunities to speak with Conservative Fundamentalists.  That is a priest that I can listen too.

It is ironic that I find my spirituality is more accepted in a religious tradition that has a reputation for hardline dogmatic teachings and doctrine than what I find in a non-denominational fundamentalist church.  Dogma is a term they often reject, along with religious, yet conservatives are very narrow on what they believe must be accepted to be a member of their church, and to be considered a Christian.  I won’t pretend to be a part of something, I honestly let people know that I differ on this and I try to either accept what my Catholic tradition states is necessary for common faith, or I understand that honestly, even if I don’t necessarily believe that happened that way, I have no problem usually being wrong about it.  That is why I can overlook so much, I can have faith in that, up until it is an obvious fact that it is not the case.  For example, I have a faith in God (Love), that transcends the necessity for Jesus Christ to have been raised from the dead; I just don’t need that truth to believe in Love, to believe in a being greater than existence as I know it, and for me to be dependent upon the grace of such a being to evolve and become more than possible apart from it.  However, I have faith that Jesus did rise from the dead, and I see no way to prove that he didn’t, and I know that if I’m wrong it doesn’t affect my faith, even though it would be detrimental to many others, and I embrace this as true because it is a facet of my religious tradition and I choose to believe in this man who has been glorified as the only Son of God.

I won’t turn my blog into a evangelism site, I’m just not that type of person.  I will however share what I believe especially when it has proven to be such a soothing balm upon a broken and proud soul that is so grateful to have found my way back to a prayer life that both edify’s and uplifts me, both here and eternally.

Thanks for letting me share some of my journey along the spiritual path that I have chosen to follow with you, my fellow bloggers, and faithful readers.