Time Travel, New People and Life

"Change starts in your mind/leave the past behind/forget everything you know/make a change, let go" - Fear

"Why can't we tear down the walls/and show the scars we're covering?" - Inside Us All

     What a weekend I just woke up from. From spending time with an awesome new friend, to listening to music I used to listen to back in high school and things still going on.
     Friday night I spent it with my new friend Mel. Believe me when I tell you that sparks flew in our awesome hangout. Don't believe me? Just ask her. We spent most of it at Barnes and Noble checking out and reading some books (something I haven't done in years). What did piss me off, however, was how there are 3-5 different books written to explain how to use TWITTER! WTF?! You'd have to be brain dead to not comprehend how to use the easiest social networking site known to man. I understand big books that explain the eccentricities of Windows 7 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard and maybe even iPhone. But Twitter?! Dear God, the only way that makes sense is if it's in the children learning section, all of which it wasn't. We then headed off to Starbucks and talked about writing, faith, and bathrooms. We randomly had a nice convo with this cute young lady who was trying really hard to not piss on herself. Good times.
     As far as time travel, I hit a new nostalgic high. I found myself downloading albums of artists I used to listen to back in high school and let me tell you, I felt like I was a teenager. It was easy to remember the things and feelings I went through as I listened to the tunes of Tait, DC Talk, Salvador, Tobymac, early Skillet, Todd Agnew, Jeremy Camp, Kutless, early Third Day among other albums and artists. For me, I cannot trace back to my roots without listening to the songs I was listening to at that particular time and place. I can't retrace the beginnings of my personal journey of faith to Evergrey, Alter Bridge or Killswitch Engage (even though I love their stuff). Some people's taste in music usually change due to relationships, new friends, bands, culture trend, fad and the like. Not so with me. I always try to find something new without straying from my beginnings.
     Which brings me to my current state of spiritual rehab. When I attended Awakening last night, we were talking about how sometimes our spirituality, our faith and views are just downright messy. Believe me, I repeat, if you think you're life is squeaky clean, I'm willing to bet when you search deeper down that you will find very ugly things you have to confront and deal with.
     What happens at times is that we get stuck at that point where we believe God accepts us, even with our imperfections. This is very much true but let's not forget the aspect of spiritual growth and learning how to cope and overcome those things that sometimes distract us from God's communion with us. I see it this way, Jesus died for your sins, you accept and embrace this reality, awesome. Now what? From what I've been re-learning, it's cultivating a relationship with Him. It's from scratch. You throw out what you heard from the street corner preachers, the right winged conservatives, the wolves in sheep's clothing. Time to get to know the Man that paved the way for you to conquer the madness.
     I'm pretty much back to square one in that respect. No more of the yabadaba dingdongs of pentecostals, the don't do's of religious Pharisee-ism or the excessive zeal of the conservatives. I'm the RAGman as a follower of Jesus-- nothing more nor less. The Church hasn't, cannot and never will be the path of salvation. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Body of Christ came to die for us. It did, however, show Jesus dying for us. How we take that is for us to decide and make of that.
     Oh and, uh, don't listen to those nutjobs that say repent or die. As long as we're humans and animals on earth, you're gonna die anyway. If anything, I think saying, "Jesus Loves You" does a world more of relief because there's no threat involved. Those nutjobs would (or should) know well that even Jesus said "thou shalt not kill" so in threatening others with death for not repenting, they're asking for a Godsmack themselves.
     I'm currently learning to bury hatchets and live in peace with others in the meantime. Instead of, "life is short, live to the fullest and go as crazy as you want", I would rather say, "Life is short. While you're alive, make it the greatest period of life you can ever know".