Transience

unfamiliar games

I don't date. I never really have. So suddenly feel like I've been plunged into the middle of a game, but nobody remembered to tell me the rules. All of my boyfriends have been in Europe. We never did the typical "dinner & a movie" stuff. Just hung out and talked and shared life together. So now I find myself obsessing over things like what it says when I offer to split the bill at dinner. Seriously, I woke up at 4 am and couldn't stop thinking about it. I finally hauled myself out of bed for a sunrise walk around Lake Como.

My thoughts are that, in this day and age, I don't see why someone should be expected to pay for me just because of the bits between his legs. No worries about whether I "owe" him anything. No worries for him about whether I'm only showing up for a free meal. It's not like either of us has much money anyway. I don't want to make spending time with me into a financial burden.

This weekend I've been reading "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity." In some ways, I think it ties in really well with our current sermon series on the development & history of Christianity. I've been thinking a lot recently about the nature of what we believe and know. Of what I believe and know. It's kind of eye-opening to remember/realize/grasp that the development of Christianity into a set of rules and doctrines that everyone must adhere to is a new(er) development, that there was great diversity in the beginning.

I find myself wondering how we made the leap from the things Jesus is recorded as saying to the things of Paul. It seems such a big shift, from a focus on telling everyone - especially the outcasts - that God is here and loves you to a focus on judgement and rules and things to do or not do. I know this isn't an accurate description of what's really going on in the Bible; more just my muddled, heat-dazed thoughts on a Sunday afternoon. How did someone who didn't even know Jesus become the one who shaped Christianity so much? Why did his teachings, which seem to have such a different emphasis from those in the gospels, become the accepted version? I am thinking a lot these days, and it's not just about boys. Some days it is just so hard to believe.

Toss out a prayer for me if you think of it, please. So much is going on - I'm applying for a new job today & searching for other options, going out on date 3 Monday night and fearing for my heart, struggling to understand and define the basis of my faith. It's exhausting and elating and terrifying and I really wonder where I'm going to end up at the end of it all. All I know is that it's probably going to be somewhere I can't even imagine this afternoon.

Posted by rachel at July 17, 2005 01:51 PM