I often wish that I could be a consistent Christian, and solely that. It is hard to be a mystic, and I admire both the cradle Christians who kept their faith into adulthood, and the "born-again" Christians who are excellent at testifying and ministering. But I always fallback at some point, either I am plagued by some specific biblical interpretations of these Christians, or I am pulled to the occult arts, from whence I came.
Another reason is that I get really bored with technical theology. Yes, the Catholic Church is rich in tradition: it has the fruits of the saints dating back thousands of years, which includes some who were reportedly alchemists and magicians, such as Albertus Magnus who holds the greatest esteem. He has been declared a "Doctor" of the Church - a saint who is said to hold magnificent intercessory powers. In over 2,000 years of history, and countless saints, there are less than forty of them. But it's a long trudge to study the saints. Even in the writings of the more mystical saints, such as Saint John of the Cross, produced works are still very rigid and dense. I invariably am left feeling so alienated, and I find it not worth feeling so separated from others.
However, I have found as of late that my Program of Recovery is enough of a "religion" for me, whereas all else is but a supplement. In the final analysis, all of my spiritual routes agree with each other: there are no contradictions, and therefore there are no distractions. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), and so I feel I can trust these aids.
I can be born-again regardless of my professed faith. I become a new person once I accept my devastating weaknesses, and stop fighting and manipulating to get "my way". I come to understand that my problems are all because I get attached to a false sense of ownership, of entitlement. The key here is TRUST, and that is not easy for anyone who has been repeatedly disheartened and is malnourished in spirit. I have found that the mania to "obtain" what I "want" is a result of fear - fear that I will be neglected and not survive. And that is extreme, not only because my livelihood has never been threatened, but also because the fight has been to procure excess, and that is insane.
Trust needs to be taught, I had to learn how to trust, I had to listen to people whose truth was evident explain how to attain this through basic, very basic instruction and examples. I have had to rest the past couple of months, but I have re-emerged in my rebirth, and am ready to be a witness to living a healthy, peaceful, and trustful life. The confidence I have gained though is a double-edged sword: I must not rest on my accomplishments, and I must remember to be humble, which means acknowledging that I in no ways attained enlightenment through my own design or study. Yes it took independent work, but it also entailed the honesty of letting others know that my wineskins were in fact old and that I needed a new direction.
Starting each day with the intent to represent God, in other words to be kind and considerate even when my patience is provoked, is when I set the intentions to GOD that I will exist in his image. And when I fall short of that mark, which I inevitably will as even the saints have, to not feel defeated. For me, I have come to find that my feelings often betray me, and part of my training is to not give into them when I am thrown a curveball. The enemy - that which keeps us from being blameless, wants us to be discouraged. It wants us to stay away from things that heal us, and we agree because we feel unworthy. The truth is, we must always turn to God and others for help, even when we are embarrassed or disappointed, because otherwise, how will we get better?
Fear is the root of all evil, all sin comes from one form of fear or another. Even in the Garden of Eden when Eve disobeyed God, she was acting out of fear, even though that might not be an immediate observation. The one who wanted her gone told her she could have super-powers, and BAM, she saw only what she believed she didn't have, and it was imprinted in her that she wouldn't live up to her full potential. She didn't trust God, she didn't believe in all of the good things that he had planned for her. Not trusting God is the absolute worst thing that we can do to ourselves. All anxiety and remorse stem from our distance from God, which then lead to really dangerous actions manifested from thoughts of anger, envy, and greed, to name a few.
To trust and believe in God is ultimately to trust and believe in ourselves. But when we are confused, that inner voice is muffled, or worse, completely ignored. That is the enemy's intention: to obliterate any voice of reason or conviction: to convince us that we have nothing to offer, to make us feel ashamed and unworthy to go to God, or to believe that we are not "good enough" to apply the talents that he gave us to share with others.
Now that I have been reborn, this is all so simple for me, but it took a lifetime, most notably the past ten years of intense spiritual work that never really yielded any consistent results. My old life has now passed away: I have been given new wineskins. In order to recognize the limiting beliefs that had been impressed upon me, and that I had nourished myself, I became hurt and levelled enough to step out of myself, and into hope, with no guarantee of gain. I had to admit that all of the efforts that I had exerted in order to obtain was an abysmal failure, and that there was a better way. This is because I was beginning to respect the witnesses that came before me, and I only understood once I was ready to accept that my way doesn't work.
Thank you God for giving me the strength to accept what I cannot change, and the courage to change what I can. The courage to change my direction, and the strength to move along it. What was a meaningless parroting of words is now the bedrock of my life, and today, it is an exceptionally good life.
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