What goes around...

Irony? Divine justice? Karmic payback? I have people questioning my integrity because I dare to post liberal views on homosexuality. I'm accused of a lack of integrity because I have views that could be seen as rationalizing the liberalization of the church (doesn't make sense to me, either). On the other hand, I have people quoting Scriptures at me left and right -- people who think authority should not be questioned in the church, people who think we should not judge, people who think we should take the mote out of our eyes before we take the beam out of others' eyes...

I think I've reached a place where I'm ok with people's comments and criticisms, as long as I understand what I believe and how I believe it. But I'm also growing weary of a church whose ethos is to praise God with passion and power within the walls of the church and completely ignore the world in which we live. I guess I believe that we're in physical bodies and in the physical world because we are called to be the salt and light of this world. I know I'm impatient, but I just can't get with the idea that we claim that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, while insisting to stick with traditions from yesterday and simultaneously rejecting any connection with today.

It feels better to have gotten that off my chest.

Haven't done The Course in a while, and the next lesson is that "I do not know what anything is for." It tells me that nothing I see means anything because I don't know what it's for, therefore it is meaningless to me. Everything, it tells me, is for my own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose. When I recognize this, my goals become unified, and what I see is given meaning.

I perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals, but these goals have nothing to do with my own best interests, because the ego is not me. This false identification with the ego makes me incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, I will misuse it and try to withdraw the goals I have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them.

At the most superficial level, I do recognize purpose, but not at a deep enough level. So I have to be willing to give up the goals I have established for everything. They are not good or bad; simply useless.

So I'm going to move in that direction, realizing that everything that I do not know what ANYTHING is for.

This is how I hope to learn.