Day 4: Your Views on Religion

Now, this is a blog challenge question I can get behind! Any time someone asks me about "religion," a very clear picture comes into my head: There's a scene in the movie "Jesus of Nazareth" where He is teaching at the temple, when the Pharisees ask Him what to do with some chick who was caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1-11). He doesn't say a whole lot; rather, He bends down and draws something in the sand.

This is the scene from "The Passion," but you get the point. Evidently, in that film, Mel Gibson's Jesus draws a line in the sand. Not biblical, but I understand his point...Anyways, when I hear the word "religion," that's what I think of: Pharisees, AKA "Painted Sepluchres," throwing accusations and stones at people, when the One Who is right, the One Who is kind, loving, just, gracious, and merciful, simply stands there and offers forgiveness.

Religion is rigid. It's harsh and commanding, judgmental and cruel. It's regime and ceremony, it's habit and hard lines. "Religion" is why the gay community is almost unreachable by Christians--we offer NOTHING when we go to people with brutality and condemnation.

My husband once preached a sermon about the difference between condemnation and conviction. Religion preaches condemnation; love gently convicts. When you go to people with your list of "should nots," you beat them down. Love meets people where they are, and gently builds them up into lifestyle changes. The Holy Spirit works on them from the inside, out--not beating them down from the outside, in. That's love. Religion is NOT love.  Religion is a well-used tool from the enemy that Christians have used in horribly misguided attempts to cause people to "come to the Lord" under a mantle of feeling like crap about themselves. 

When Jesus knelt down and doodled in the sand, He spoke volumes. He didn't jump up and yell at this woman (which, BTW, we have no idea why she was caught in the act of adultery, or where in the world was the guy!?!?!?!?). He didn't grab a stone to throw at her. He kind of physically turned His back on the Pharisees and on the situation, as if to say, "You are so petty." I mean, HE DREW IN THE DIRT. That was His reaction--to doodle! I can't get that image out of my head. Religion grabs rocks. Love acknowledges the situation, but puts it into perspective. Love awakens us to the reality that we are all equal--equally messed up, but equally redeemable.

“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” [John 8:1-11].

He had so many things that He could have said, and the Pharisees would have jumped on it. They were looking for a way to trap Him. He could have responded in judgement; He could have responded by grabbing a brick. Instead, He responded with simple, uncomplicated love.

The woman--she is me. She is all of us. She was confronted with death, but given grace, and she has no idea what to do with herself. Rather than run off as soon as the Pharisees began to go away, she's shell-shocked. Jesus stands up, looks her in the eye, and gives her that beautiful reality of freedom and forgiveness...That's what Love does.

So, that's my view of "religion." I don't like it. I'm guilty of playing that role, of living that lifestyle...but I don't want to be. Religion leaves no room for Love, and since God is Love, well, looks like those two are diametrically opposed.

"It's not a religion, it's a relationship." Yeah, that quotes' been overplayed. It's Christianese 101...but my relationship with God brings me closer to Him, and the closer I get to Him, the more I learn to love, which is right about where I think I'm supposed to be. Love all. Be Jesus. Judge none.

Stripped...

Every now and then, I run off into uncharted territory, for me. Sometimes I blog about mundane, trivial things; sometimes, not so much. This is one of those blogs that requires more transparency than I feel ready to give, yet I'm so troubled, I feel like I have to  write it all out. Maybe by bringing things into the light, I will be able to stop struggling with the dark...

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with purity. There's been an inane curiosity where sexuality is concerned, that has not served me well. In spite of my mother's best efforts, there were things I was exposed to at a very early age that left an indelible mark. I don't talk about these things--they're embarrassing, invasive, and nobody's business.

Yet, the older I get, and the more I see, the more I realize that the exposures I had are NOTHING compared to what our young people are experiencing now. This tells me that the struggles I've had are NOTHING compared to what our young people are experiencing now--they've seen so much, they don't even know it's a battleground. My stuff doesn't seem so bad, really...It's such an incredible loss of innocence...

We put ourselves in the position to be exposed. As women, it's accepted for us to have a collection of steamy romance novels. "50 Shades of Gray" made S&M "cool" last year, and "Magic Mike" made it all right for women to ogle men. Men think nothing about checking out the girl in the tiny bikini or grabbing a graphic magazine. Stuff sneaks in on you--David and I went to check out a new series on Netflix that had rave reviews; within the first few seconds (as long as it took for the scene to register, and for a remote to be grabbed), there were bare breasts and two women in a shower. I was shocked--NONE of the reviews I'd read mentioned anything about it. Today, itt's not even worth mentioning in a review.

We're raising a generation of people who are defined not by who they are, but by who they choose to  sleep with (or be attracted to). They're basically finding their identity in sex. I'm straight, so I'm this/I'm gay, so I'm this. It's maddening. When a person has a major accomplishment, it has ceased to be about their accomplishment; it's about their sexual identity, and THEN their accomplishment (if they're gay). I don't mean for this to be offensive, but I just don't get it. I'm not defined by the fact that I'm straight. I'm Cassidy--I'm not "straight" Cassidy. I don't wear it on a shirt (and no, I don't feel like I could/should). I don't have a parade to celebrate it, and I don't flaunt it in the work place. I think the ultimate example of equality is not feeling like you have to mention it in the first place. Be who you are, not who you sleep with/want to sleep with. If you start our conversations out by telling me your sexuality, it's going to take me a while to be able to converse with you, without thinking about that. I'm just being honest. I'm not saying "don't ask, don't tell;" I'm just saying "who cares?" I don't. I'm going to love you either way.

It's a struggle for a lot of people. When you push sexuality, and you push the agenda (gay or straight), you are pushing imagery at people that is difficult to process. We are surrounded by sexual imagery from a very young age, and it is messing us up.

Don't tell me that "oh, they're so much freer about sex in Europe." I don't care. I don't live in Europe, and I don't want to. I don't want to turn on a new show that sounds really interesting, and be accosted by nudity in the first 30 seconds. I don't want to have to process that for the rest of the day--I don't want to have to ask forgiveness for putting myself in that situation. I don't need anymore junk in my head. I have too many years of reading stupid romance novels, and too many years of a vivid imagination for garbage. Purity is a huge battleground, not just for me, but for the past few generations.

It's worse for every following generation.
Do we even know what purity is, anymore?

 I know how sexual things can get trapped in your head. Joni Erickson Tada wrote about how, after she was paralyzed as a teenager, she would get lost for hours in sexual fantasies ...It was her escape, and her rebellion against her accident. It took a lot of deliverance for her to get free of that. No, she wasn't acting out her fantasies; but diving into those, getting caught up in your imagination--that's a huge trap, and it can easily turn into an addiction. Your head can be your worst prison; getting freedom in that area is incredibly difficult, and once you've gotten it, you'll do anything to maintain it.

I understand Joni Erickson Tada. I get it--been there, done that...and it's hard. It's incredibly hard to break free, and it's  a lifelong battle. The littlest thing can send you on a spiral, where it's all you think about; it's a mental drug. Only Jesus can break the addiction. He's the only One that can break addictions: mental pornography, actual pornography, sexual immorality, whatever. He can cleanse it all...

But it doesn't do us much good if we march out into the mud as soon as He's cleaned us up.

Once you've made a commitment to purity, and you're in the process of cleaning house, you start to notice what your triggers are. Certain songs. Certain books. Certain advertisements that pop up on your list of "recommended reading." Certain jokes. Even the news...These things either trigger a "relapse," or they make you sick. I pray they always make me sick. I hope the mention of these things continues to appall me. The iTunes account is in an ever-ongoing process of getting cleaned out; the books have been cleaned out...I just wish I could somehow set filters on Netflix, so that I couldn't even see the titles of things. That's where the curiosity gets me--I don't even want to wonder what some of this stuff is about. Am I closing myself off? Yep. But it's not much different than an addict who gets rid of all of his friends, so that he's not surrounded by drugs anymore.

I've gone back and forth, for decades. I'd go on a "bender," and read every romance novel I could get my hands on. I'd get lost in fantasies for hours--I guess it's like being high, although I've never done drugs. Then I'd feel convicted, and beg for forgiveness....then I'd clean everything out (although I'd never REALLY get rid of everything), and I'd feel great...and then I'd go on a bender. This cycle repeated for YEARS...and this is the first I'm telling of it.

Nothing like going public, right?

But I feel like I'm finally free. And no, I really don't want to have an actual conversation about this...even though I feel like I'm really free, I still feel ashamed to have ever let such garbage into my life. I know I'm forgiven. I'm just embarrassed. Writing about it is much easier, for me, than talking about it. Besides--conversations about such things feel very condemning, rather than liberating, and I'm not into that. I don't need anyone to naggingly remind me that "garbage in = garbage out." I got it. Jesus gives freedom. Period.

Like Joni Erickson Tada, I always knew that getting lost in such fantasies, and fueling those fantasies, was wrong. But I didn't think it was "really" wrong, and I think that's the lie that we're all buying these days. If we're not actually going out and sleeping around, we think our little fantasies are okay (male and female--guys, you're not innocent, here). It's okay to see the exposed breasts on TV, or the "covered" sex scene. It's okay to read the popular book--I mean, everybody's doing it, so what's the big deal?  The big deal is that purity is priceless, and that once it's gone, it's a painful and long restoration process. It takes a lot of discipline, and it's a lifelong battlefield. I don't want my son to have that battle.

When I finally got pregnant, I made a commitment to filter everything I listened to, everything I read, and everything I watched. I wasn't perfect. But over the past year, I've seen God strip these things out of my life. He's bigger than my curiosity; He's stronger than the triggers. He's given me the strength to turn things off, or to keep something out of my house. And yeah, maybe I'm a little crazy with it right now; and maybe there are a few things I've let slide, that I shouldn't have...But for the most part, I'm trying to do what I can to not only keep myself pure; I want to raise my son with that same purity. My mom did her absolute best. She kept stuff turned off; she tried to keep things and people out of our house. She was vigilant, and I want to be able to say the same thing. I also know how with so many parents, the stuff still creeps in, in spite of the vigilance; that's where prayer comes in. So that's what David and I will do...We will do what we can, to instill purity into our son, and we will trust God to protect him. Whatever he may be exposed to, we will trust God to keep him safe and restored.  It's all we can do.

This generation is carrying a burden of sexuality that is too heavy, and it will cause them to collapse. It's Fahrenheit 451, and society cannot possibly handle it.  I feel like to the mainstream society, purity is lost; being a family that strives for it will make us outcasts.  That's a journey  worth making.  We will be outcasts for the cause of purity.

I look at my son, and I think to myself that someday, we will have to discuss these things. He will have questions, and I and my husband will have to provide answers. Corrie Ten Boom talks about how when she was a very young girl, she asked her father, a watchmaker, about sex. His response was to ask her to pick up his briefcase--a very large bag, full of metal parts to repair watches and clocks. She couldn't pick it up; it was far too heavy. Casper Ten Boom looked at his little girl, and told her that was his response: The answer to questions on sexuality are far too heavy of a burden for a child to have to carry.

It's not ignoring the question; it's protecting the questioning. We will cross that bridge when we get there, and when we do, I hope that I can share my struggles, and the struggles of many others, with my son. I hope that he values the simplicity of purity over the complexity of flagrance. I hope that he values himself and his identity in Christ...

If this post has been offensive, I'm sorry. It's just that in my own quest to regain purity, I find myself frustrated at the level of exposure that I face in daily living. I don't seek things out; I try to censor what gets in, and even with that, stuff still creeps up. Old thoughts creep in, old garbage that I've read, whatever, and it's frustrating. I wish I could erase my brain, and start over. I wish I could stop the things that creep into my dreams, slap my face, and erase the things that I've read. It's hard to deal with imagery from the past, and imagery in the now, and walk in purity. It's hard to get made fun of for going postal over something on the television that you weren't warned about. I find myself watching a lot of Disney movies when I'm home alone, because I know they're clean, and I won't have to worry about seeing something I shouldn't--how ridiculous is that? But I've had to get ridiculous. It's worth it.

So, this is where I am. And right now, I feel pretty exposed. My husband knows about the things I've struggled with, but I'm not really sure even he's understood the magnitude of the issue. I'm really, really good at hiding these kinds of things. He's definitely noticed the issues with what's on the television/radio; hopefully, he gets my reasons for being so quick to turn things off. I'm hoping that he's seen that I'm serious about cleaning out my books and my music. I've shrugged the idea off for so many years; this is the first year I've truly gone after it. One of my girlfriends was very open in her struggles with "mental pornography," and with her husband's struggles with "actual pornography." It almost cost her their marriage. She has been far more open with this stuff than I've ever been, so I have the greatest of respect for her. She survived this process...so I know I can, too. I've written a lot of fluff pieces over the last few months...a lot of random thoughts, etc...and I think it's been because I've been afraid to get real over the struggles I've been facing. Well, I don't want to be fake. And I know I'm not alone. If you're someone who's struggled with this kind of stuff, then maybe we can walk through this process together. You're not alone.


(It's taken me almost 10 minutes to hit the "publish" button. I feel like I'm going to throw up.)