You Told Me

You told me to believe, have faith, trust.
You told me to ask, seek, knock,
You told me that the door would be opened.
You told me that I was loved so much that I was enough to die for.
You told me that heaven's riches were mine...
Health
Wholeness
Healing

Healing
healing...

That I only need ask
have faith
believe
You told me it would be mine.

You told me that I would not be given anything beyond what I could bear.
Endure.
Enduring
Endurance

You told me
I believed
trusted
hoped.

With the passage of time the endurance
and patience
and hope
and trust
Eroded and fell into the dust.
Pleading, ferverent prayer gave way to angry fists shaken at the silent heavens.
Heavens that offered no deliverance,
comfort,
solace
or relief.
Just the echoing silence of unanswered hope.

The anger burned and the fire raged,
pointless in it's severity.
For heaven was silent.
Even rage prompting no response.
Rage gave way to resignation.

The yoke was not easy as promised, nor the burden light.
Mine to carry, not His.

Wisdom was gleaned from the fathers of old
Those who went to the pits of hell
to wallow in the shit
for dreams never realised.
Abraham
             Isaac
                    Jacob
                            Joseph
                                      Moses
All believing in dreams
and dying without seeing them realised.
Never knowing if the dream was real or the delusions of madness.

Believing something contrary to ones own truth is madness.
Is it madness to believe in a benevolent god when the reality of existence screams the truth of the contrary?
To believe in divine healing in the face of death

Day
      after day
                  after day

A gamut of things contrary
                                          to
                                           what
                                                  one
                                                      has
                                                          been told.
Until I no longer believe in the goodness of the benevolent god
And it becomes easier.
logical
intellectual
to think of it all as meaningless and random
and the task is to let go
                                   enjoy
                                          and simply exist
                                                                   and end in blissful nothingness......
And yet...
When I let go of all you taught, told, insisted was true...

Something calls
Promising nothing
No visions of the future,
No riches
              nor health,
                             healing
                                       nor deliverance
Nothing.

Just the gentle calling of Spirit to spirit
Logic to logic
Heart to heart
Expecting nothing, assuring everything.
I breathe, slow, cease
and become part of something bigger than everything

Nothing is confusing or contrary.
I breathe and again face the reality that remains unchanged
but has somehow become less burdensome.
The yoke still not easy
nor the burden light,
but the delusions have gone;
the hopeless hope released and scattered to the four winds.
And I find peace in what is beauty in the journey.
Strength in the struggle.

From where I stand.

This morning I caught a particular scent in the house. Chloe said that it had been in the house yesterday too. It was the unmistakable scent of my grandmother who passed away in 2009. When I caught that scent in the air it was so comforting. I'd like to think that Nanna has just popped in for a bit; checking up on us. I know it's not something she would have believed in when she was alive but I'm of the belief that there are many things that aren't certain and none of us can presume to know the ins and outs of what happens after we die.

It's a comforting thought anyway, the thought of Nanna popping in once in a while....

Thoughts of Nanna for me inevitably lead to thoughts about faith and religion and it's role in my life. The religion I grew up in and the faith I now have are at constant odds with each other in my heart and mind. I find myself often contemplating and musing upon aspects of the "truth" I grew up in and the faith I experience on a day to day basis. Nanna played a very big part in my "religious history" which is why memories and thoughts of her are usually linked in with contemplations of faith.

Caught up in the heady fervour of the Christian Revival Crusade in the 60's and 70's I think my Nanna may have taken on my diagnosis of achondroplasia as a bit of a challenge and subsequently, a mission. I do have a vague recollection of Nanna telling me that when she was talking to someone about the healing ministry of Jesus, that person challenged her with the fact that I was born with dwarfism. How was she to explain that? Could Jesus heal me?

Not to be deterred, my Nanna took that on as a challenge and prayed fervently for me to be healed. As I grew older I remember being taken to the front at various churches, asking the pastors to pray for my healing. I was even taken to a Billy Graham Crusade in the city once, to no avail. This did not deter my grandmother. There was always a reason as to why my miraculous growth spurt wasn't forthcoming - "If we really believed we would have bought "normal" clothes to bring her home in."

Bless you Nan!

These thoughts flit through my mind from time to time when I catch my reflection unexpectedly and notice my body shape. It seems to be happening more frequently these days as my body becomes leaner from all my training and I notice more of my bone structure and the different lumps and bumps that Nan would notice and sometimes poke. It's not a negative or hurtful thing, just a thought that flits across my consciousness that demands to be acknowledged. I'm in no way resentful that Jesus/God didn't heal me; in fact Jesus, God and me have a pretty respectful relationship these days. But when I had children and actually needed some of that healing power for them for some pretty intense situations, I lost the plot. I wasn't asking for miraculous growth. I wasn't asking for something insignificant that they could live without. I was asking for my babies not to have to have major corrective surgeries....and yet heaven remained silent...and I had to faithfully hand each of my children over to surgeons. The number of times I railed against God, shook my fist at the heavens and told God I hated him....

It's a wonder lightning didn't strike me dead.

Somewhere along the line though I think I came to the understanding that perhaps my view of God and His ways were maybe more than a little left of centre...which weren't entirely my doing. Slowly, gradually, gently I started to let everything go and allowed myself the freedom to discover a faith that was entirely between God and me, independent of any corporate worship centre. As I did this I discovered a newfound acceptance of myself, my condition and everything that I'd ever experienced. I found peace.

Over the years I have witnessed some pretty out there stuff, all done and said in the name of God. During the 1980's I became terrified of having to go to church. I'd start feeling anxious on Saturday night, knowing that on the morrow we would be going to church...and there would be there for TWO HOURS...and there was no way of knowing what would happen. Sometimes the preaching would make me think that there was evil out there all around me and if I wasn't careful it would take me and possess me and I'd end up being one of the scary, scary people up the front being prayed for while I shook and screamed as the evil tried to hang on to my soul. Evil was in the rock music I listened to, the wind chimes I would hear, the rainbow flags I would see waving sometimes, the movies in cinemas....and in the hand of the boy I loved.

Evil and wrong and bad and sinful is what I was when I had sex before marriage and ended up pregnant. Shame followed me everywhere because I was told that all these things were not God's plan for me and for it all to be right and blessed and good it had to be done this way and because it wasn't done this way there were a number of hoops to jump through to make it all good and right and proper.

What made me hang on to that religion? I can't tell you. Sometimes I liken it to an abusive relationship where the one that is abused stays in the relationship because to leave would be even more terrifying. Better the safety of the familiar and predictable than the uncertainty of the unknown. The religion I grew up in seemed to make a life of faith so much more complicated than it was ever meant to be. So many rules, so many expectations, such pressure to perform and be dedicated, particularly to the local church family. Be there every Sunday and at Growth group midweek, be involved in a ministry of some sort and attend all the meetings involved with that and tithe 10% of your income.....plus offerings. I gained employment at the Christian School affiliated with a particular place of worship and it was there where everything came tumbling down for me as I came face to face with the dysfunction of so many who were held in such high regard as examples of the Christian faith. To this day I remain affected....as do others I love.

So I left.

It took a while...and I did go back from time to time to try things out again....but eventually I stopped going to any place of worship where there was a formal gathering of people in the name of God or Jesus. I can even remember thinking on that last Sunday morning, "I can't do this anymore," and I quietly rose from my seat and left.

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And that's the thing...I wasn't giving up. I had just had enough of doing things the same old way, the way I had been led to believe was THE right way. To their credit, the place of worship I went to just let me go. There was no pursuit, no follow up as I was accustomed to. Just release...

I will always be grateful to them for that.

So....where do I stand?

Maybe this is my own statement of faith.

God exists. I cannot shake that belief. I believe in the Creator. How it all went down, I don't know....but I do believe that Spirit was in the centre of it all.

Jesus was a pretty cool example of how to do life as an awesome human being. I read accounts of his time here on Earth and He sounds like Someone I would enjoy hanging out with. No judgements of anyone, except pointing out to those who set themselves up as the righteous ones that THEY were the ones with the problems. The more I read about Jesus, the more I like Him.

Everything else is pretty much open to interpretation. If Jesus didn't specifically address it, then it's an unknown and who am I or anyone to make that call? Love everybody, help others and do your best to live peacefully. It's as simple as that. I see a lot of people of all kinds of faith....and sometimes with no faith.....doing that. I believe God gives that stuff the big thumbs up.

I never was wrong, bad, wicked, evil or sinful. I was just a young person trying to find her own way in the world. Achondroplasia just happened...and that was okay. My little body is beautiful and acceptable and RIGHT just the way it is.

I loved someone....and that was beautiful....and it was always beautiful and it deserved to be celebrated even though events didn't happen in the "acceptable" format. I don't expect celibacy before marriage of my young people. I believe in love and honesty and the celebration of love in whatever form that takes.

Life is good. I am filled with peace. I am filled with more peace and love and joy than I ever experienced going to the place where I was told I would find it.

Are you there God? It's me, Leisa.

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*nods in the direction of Judy Blume*

We're back from the States. We've been back a week. To say that jet lag has been unkind would be an understatement. Being confused about where I am in time and space is another. I'm looking forward to getting back into the rhythms of this life again. I'm looking forward to settling in with the ebb and flow of here.

Since being away it's felt as though the need to write online is dying. After many years I'm coming to a place where I question if I should continue. Being away gave me the space to simply inhabit the now and it was good. I felt solid and private; as though I wasn't desperately trying to put the pieces of my life together into some less confusing order. There were times that things still didn't make sense and I was overwhelmed with the largeness of circumstance and the depth of my own emotion but somehow that was ok. I just went with the flow of the moment and did what needed to be done to get through.

Maybe that's what life is all about really. Staying present in each moment and riding the current without fighting it so you can stay alive and get through.

I am tired of fighting the current. I am tired of wondering why things are the way they are and crying into the howling wind about the unfairness of it all. I've learned that there are no answers. Sometimes I don't even believe there's a purpose to things. Things just happen and when they do you just have to roll up your sleeves and get into the business of making the most of what it is. Sometimes I think we lose way too much sleep looking for the meanings of things. Sometimes there are no meanings. It just is. 

I think once I really accept and grasp this concept I will gain even more peace.

Does God exist?

Maybe.

Is he intimately interested in every small aspect of my life?

Probably not.

I don't know why I ruminate on this. I guess because these two questions had definite, positive answers when I was growing up. I think it's interesting that they don't now. I turn these questions over in my mind the way a child would turn over an interesting shell or pebble they found in their hand. 

No longer having definite answers to these two questions has made me less angry and resentful. There's no one to blame. It just is. 

Having a few circumstances happen in the USA where there was nothing to do but roll up our sleeves and formulate a Plan B and even Plan C was the first time in forever that I didn't meet the circumstances with a howling "Why????" into the wind. I just accepted that it just was and we went to Plan B on the fly. No it wasn't fair and I admit that I went into the new situations with frozen, dogged determination, sucking the marrow out of every fun experience we possibly could. Dwelling on the "Why?" was pointless. Wasting my time trying to change the circumstance was not going to happen. I didn't want to use up that kind of energy. I thought that a $40 taxi ride to the local Walmart and searching fruitlessly for something that wasn't to be found was enough. The next day I spent an entire day away from the situation. A whole day by the pool and spa. It helped.

Memo to self: Do that more often; times where you don't talk about, think about or deal with it. Give yourself a break for crying out loud.

Where to from here? I'm not sure really. Something has switched...or something has died...I don't know. I'm trying to work out if that's a good thing. Maybe the bigness of life has finally killed off the last vestiges of the Leisa who would fight on. Maybe she has simply relinquished the illusion of any kind of control and is finally  content to just be.

Either way, something's changed. It's silent and empty.

Maybe this is where I finally find God.

One for all

J's housemate is praying for us both to be united under the one roof. This man is Muslim. For some reason this has touched my heart. A lot. 

My religious upbringing drew definite lines in the sand between who was right and who was wrong; who worshipped in spirit and in truth and who did not; who worshipped false gods and who worshipped the one true God; who was going to hell and who was not. 

Since leaving organised, corporate religion my heart has been opened to a much better way. I truly know now that God is love and wherever love resides there he is also. Love doesn't follow a formula or a schedule, love doesn't have set rules and right or wrongs. Love does not differentiate between culture or tradition. Love does not expect you to live up to a certain standard before it is given. 

This man doesn't even know us very well. He doesn't know me at all...and yet he prays and shows love. I am simply blown away by his kindness.

I cannot express the freedom I feel. It is like I have been caged all these years. When I gave myself freedom I know I stayed close to the cage, needing it's security whilst I found my feet. I'm finding my feet now and I'm beginning to explore places much further away now. They're not scary, as I thought they would be. They contain hidden nuggets of truth that assure me that God is still in his heaven loving me wherever I'm at.

I am free.

Getting out of the box

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A number of years ago I had someone from a church approach me with a prophesy saying that I was "breaking out of the box". Another person confirmed this by saying that she had a picture of me breaking out of a box in a typical "Ta-Dah!" type fashion. I felt at the time that this was a very relevant word of encouragement....and thought I knew what "breaking out of the box" would look like. See, I still thought it would be within the confines of the way I thought faith was done, the way it looked, the way it sounded, the rituals and what I thought was expected of me.

Things have taken a very different turn and, in my opinion, a turn for the better.

I am open. I am exploring. My eyes are no longer blinkered into thinking that faith only follows one path. It follows many. I honestly, truly believe that now. I believe that God is love and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

And I am.

Still, I find a reluctance to share this journey openly on this blog and on Facebook. I hesitate clicking *Like* on pages that interest me but might invoke disapproval from Christian friends with whom I still associate. Why is that?

Part of the answer comes from my own experiences of the teachings that *this* is THE only way. There is no other way. Period.

But my journey is taking me to a place where I believe that several ways can co-exist and compliment each other rather than conflict. Why throw babies out with their bathwater? Can't all things be sifted and one use the "wheat and chaff" method when it comes to personal truth?

Jesus said some really cool things.........but so did Buddah......and Albert Camus. All said truths that really resonate with me, but I was told to totally reject everything other than what Jesus said.

I admire Jesus, I really do....but I think I was brought up with the "perfection" of Jesus and everyone tended to forget that Jesus being the cool person he was hung out with the marginalised people of society, the misfits, the unclean, the rejected, the sinners, the lepers, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the disabled, the short people! (hey Zaccheus my man!) I think the "good Christian people" made it complicated and exclusive. I wonder if Jesus and Buddah would've gotten along? I think they would have. Jesus didn't demand that people change. People just met him and liked who he was. They didn't have to perform to a standard of behavior for him to spend time with them...and after meeting him they wanted to be better people and started challenging the ways they did life. Did they start going to the synagogue or the temple every weekend? Did they feel pressure to attend meetings in the homes of other believers every week? Maybe. Maybe not. But they still chose to be better people.

And that's what I'm seeking to do. Be a better person....or rather, accepting the better person who has been in there all along.

My faith has been stripped down to this:

In the end what matters most is:

How well did you love?

How well did you live?

How well did you learn to let go?

Buddah

This is not to say that I have become a Buddhist, but this really resonates with me....especially the letting go part. 

So.....I am looking at doing a day-long workshop at the Meditation Centre in Melbourne - all about Self-Esteem. A Buddhist monk will be facilitating the day. The blurb is as follows:

We all want to feel good about ourselves. Suffering from a lack of self esteem can adversely affect our daily life, relationships and spiritual development.

On this day course we will see how Buddhist wisdom offers us a different way of viewing ourself, relating to the extraordinary potential we all have rather than our limitations. Developing this inner confidence will naturally lead us to improve our good qualities and develop positive, happy states of mind, as well as enabling us to be a positive influence on those around us. 

I'm curious....and there's nothing wrong with that.

Quoting scripture

The Bible was quite a significant influence in my early life - and up until recently I suppose. In fact, as a child I can't remember not knowing Bible stories and verses. I remember reading Genesis to Deuteronomy in a King James Bible when I was all of seven. I read it like a story; simply fascinated and intrigued with the story of Moses and the exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt. My Nanna also had comic versions of the Old Testament in book form - kind of manga style, but not. My brothers and I simply loved those books, devouring them every time we visited.

We also knew a lot of "memory verses" due to the fact that we had a lot of LP records of a little doll named Marcy who would sing a lot of songs that were either pure scripture or Biblical stories in song.

It all seemed so real then; simple, uncomplicated, straightforward. God loved you. Jesus loved you. That was it. No more. No less. We were children. We accepted it all and there was no pressure to be good or do good or reach any ideals of Christian behaviour. You could believe in both Jesus and Santa Claus without one compromising the other. You could engage in the mystery and magic of childhood made up rituals without the fear that you were entering into something sinister or evil.

I don't know when it changed...or do I? Adolescence? Going to a place where all things spiritual became incredibly intense? Seeing too many "out there" things that we should never had witnessed without at least a good debrief afterwards? I don't know. Maybe a combination of everything.

Religion has left me confused and conflicted. It claimed to have all the answers and yet left me with so many unanswered questions. I still can't reconcile events and circumstances in my life with the things I was presented with as "truth". Looking at things in the cold, hard light of day there seemed to be a "formula" to sowing and reaping and yet despite sowing what I was told to sow I never seemed to reap what I was told I would reap. 

Scripture quoting sometimes seemed like a bandaid when things seemed to hard to deal with. God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind sounds great in theory but what if you're struggling and have always struggled with an anxiety disorder? What about if your anxiety is so bad that it stops you in your tracks, freezes you to the spot and renders you so dysfunctional that you think you're going to lose your mind? Continuing anxiety seemed to be more of a statement about a lack of faith or trust which then fed into the idea that you weren't a "good" Christian, that there was something wrong with you, that then became a part of the anxiety cycle.

What about if you pray and pray and believe for the healing that you're told is yours in Christ and yet you still have to hand your precious babies over to into the hands of surgeons time and time and time again? What about the woman down the road who prays for a little red haired baby and gets one and all you pray for is a healthy baby, unaffected with a particular genetic condition and yet your precious, amazing, wonderful baby has had to endure more medical interventions than you even care to recount? 

Sometimes "Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and don't forget to thank Him for his answers," just feels like a slap to the face when you're feeling that providing the red haired baby seemed more important than providing you with your healthy one.

I don't think I've ever gotten over that one. Obviously, by the fact that I continue to revisit it.

So here I am. Out in limbo. That's what this feels like. No Mans Land. Neither believing like I did and yet reluctant to extinguish that flickering candle that has always burned for as long as I remember. Even now many of those scriptures come back to me and I turn them over in my mind as one would examine a shell on the beach. I wonder about their significance and application to my life as it is now and whether there can ever be some kind of reconciliation between what I was taught and what my experience actually is.

This is a very lonely place to be in for I feel there is no one to talk to who might relate. There just seems to be these two opposing camps - those who are completely enmeshed and sold out to "the truth" and those who are either indifferent or don't believe at all.

Surely there is a place where the two can live in harmony?

Pathways

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I've decided I'm going to head into Federation Square on Sunday and check out the Multicultural Festival which is also celebrating Buddah's Day.

Once upon a time, back in the day of fear and deep, dark judgement, there would have been no way on God's green earth you would have seen me within cooee of anything that suggested anything to do with Buddah.

My how times have changed - and may I say, for the better. I feel free.

Over the past 15 years or so there has been a gradual stripping away of all things I used to hold to, believe in. These things made my world"safe". They were ideas about what was "right" and what was "wrong, rules about how my world was supposed to function, beliefs about foundations I thought were true and safe. 

But they weren't. My world began to rock. My foundations started to crumble. Things and people and ideas and institutions I'd had faith in began to be stripped away, leaving me feeling so very, very vulnerable, confused, unsafe and even angry.

I'd internally rant and rave. I'd howl at God or the universe, "But it's not supposed to be this way! You said if I did it *this* way all would be well! I believed I the sanctity of "this", the importance of "that"! I had faith in what I was told I was supposed to have faith in, and now they're all letting me down! Some are even turning on me! Life is not supposed to be this way!!!"

But the stripping continued; and the hurt got bigger and I felt I was left with nothing in the end.

And therein lay the secret.

When you've been emptied out then you're ready to be filled.

The slow erosion of all my securities to the point of there being nothing left gave me time to really look at and examine what was left. And what was left was me.

In this new and "unsafe" world I learned how to walk for myself. I learned how to trust myself. I'd examine things like faith and spirituality, turning them over and over in my hands and pondering as to why I thought and believed the way I did. Was it all REALLY what I believed or was I just following what I'd been told was right and I was too afraid to question it?

I discovered that my faith was actually based on fear - fear that if I didn't adhere to its dogma, it's rules, it's formula, then my soul would be forfeit and I'd be doomed to hell. Because that way was the only way and the only truth.

But I thought perfect love wasn't about fear? That's what I'd been told. That's what I read. That's what I believed. And that's what I still believe.

So...I stopped. I stopped doing what the rules said I was supposed to do. And the stripping continued...but somehow I've been okay with that. I'm no longer afraid of it. In fact, I welcome it. It's all part of my journey towards freedom and, dare I say it, embracing that which is Perfect Love.

I've never felt so free. I've never felt so in touch with the presence of the One that surrounds me with His love every single second of every single day. This doesn't need a formula. This doesn't need four praise songs followed by two worship songs, followed by prayer & prophesy, followed by "anointed announcements", tithes and offerings, the message and then a prayer line. This doesn't need Home Group and doing "this" Foundation  Beliefs course and Boundaries course and Self Esteem workshops and Ladies Felliowship and being busy busy busy all the livelong day to fulfill the requirements of what a "good" person looks like.

This is quiet and calm and gentle. This means stopping and listening to the heartbeat of the connections that make up the whole universe. This means taking the time to just be with my loved ones, give $1 to that man in the street who asked for it. This means listening to my body and loving it for the temple it is; tapping into the uniqueness that is me and sharing it with the world. This means acceptance and love towards anyone I encounter - not seeking to make them conform to what I think is right, but letting them be just as they are and learning something from them; gleaning a nugget of truth from their truth.

This means embracing new ways of thinking and doing things; finding God's presence in different ways. Doing different things and feeling assured that I am loved so perfectly and that His grace covers all things. Seeking to get to know Him and please His heart, knowing and accepting that He rewards those who diligently seek Him but that seeking Him takes on an infinite number of forms, not just one.

Because I believe that now. I really, really do.

There are still a few things that remain and that I am turning over and over in my hand, examining them in my hand. There is still a reluctance to let them go as they are the absolute cornerstone of faith as I knew it. This is the ONE THING that was the key to everything. Yet, I am examining it. It scares me, the thought of dropping that particular rock in the sand. 

And yet, I feel that too, must be challenged, because I want to have faith in it because I am assured of its truth and place in my life - not out of fear that if I let it go I will be doomed for sure.

So, I continue this journey along my own path that's set before me. It's a new path. One I am keen to explore. I daily open my heart and my mind to new experiences and people and places. Buddah's Day will be one of them. I go, not because I want to cleave to a new belief system, but because I want to dip into a pool that is new to me. I want to experience a new culture and perhaps see God's hand working there too.