Father's Day

With Father’s Day having just passed, I thought I should write something about fathers in general. The question is, “what?” I mean seriously, I didn’t really have a father growing up, so what could I write about fathers? Then I remembered a blog I wrote earlier about “Not Sinning Keeps the Devil Away?” (http://wfwoodbury.blogspot.com/2015/07/not-sinning-keeps-devil-away.html) That’s when I realized that there are all kinds of fathers in the Bible to write about.

The first father of course, was Adam. He and Eve had three sons that were written about. There was Cain and Abel, then Seth. If you’re familiar with the story, then you know that Cain killed Abel because Abel’s sacrifice to God was accepted, but Cain’s was not.

Then there’s Noah. He had a few sons who took their wives with then when they entered the ark.

Isaac who was told in his old age that his wife, Sarah would bear him a son. Sarah basically scoffed at the idea because she was past child bearing age. She gave him her handmaid thinking that’s how God was going to fulfill His promise to her husband. The handmaid, Hagar, bore Ishmael. Later Sarah bore Isaac. This created all kinds of problems. Including, but not limited to Hagar feeling a certain pride that she could bear a child while her mistress could not, which in turn caused her to disrespect her mistress.

Isaac had two sons Esau and Jacob. Jacob in turn had 12 sons from two wives. Leah, his first wife bore him ten sons and Rachel, his second wife bore him two sons.

The Bible also talks about God as our heavenly father who cares for us more than any earthly father can. He loves us so much that He sent his only son to die on the cross for our sins. That’s powerful love.

So, why did my blog about “Not Sinning Keeps the Devil Away” remind me of fathers? Job. I know the primary story of Job is about how God allowed the Devil to take everything away from Job to the point that he was sitting in the ashes with boils on every part of his body. However, the former friend that I mentioned in the blog told me that Job had offered sin sacrifices on behalf of his children, even though by every standard there is, they were responsible for themselves. He said that was wrong. I’d never noticed that before, so I looked it up for myself.

In Job 1:1 we read:

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil.” NAS

So, here we have God saying right off the bat that Job walked uprightly before Him. Blameless.  In other words, this was a man who did not sin.

In verse two, we see that Job had seven sons and three daughters. Verse three lists his worldly possessions that comprised his wealth. In verse four we read that his sons hold a feast in their house, each one in turn and invite their sisters to eat and drink with them.

In Job 1:5 we read:

“And it came about, when the days of feasting had completed their cycle, that Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering up burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, ‘Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually.” NAS

Given that in verse one, we see God calling him a man that was “blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil;” that alone tells me that Job offering up sacrifices on behalf of his children is not a sin. In fact, it strikes me as a good thing. A lot of people would say, “Okay, my children are grown, they’re in houses of their own and they are no longer my responsibility.”

But not Job. He loved his children and was willing to sacrifice out of his own herds. Now, I realize that Job was rich, so the financial cost of sacrificing on behalf of his children would not have been a burden; but how many fathers love their children enough to make such sacrifices?

Personally, I wish all fathers were like Job in regards to their children. If they were, this world would be a very different place. Children would grow up feeling loved and safe, which in turn would make them better adults. That in turn would help our country become a better place. A place where people could be safe in general.

A Tribute to One of My Best Friends

I was going to write a “Mother’s Day” post and maybe share some stories from the trenches of motherhood as I remember them from my son’s younger days. Then I sent flowers to a friend of mine’s mother and that got me to thinking about her son. Why is that so important? My friend is deceased, so I sent them in his honor.

He died last year in March, probably of natural causes. I didn’t go to his funeral because his family forgot that I had my name legally changed from “Mayone (my own)” to “Wynter.” I learned about his death when I realized that I hadn’t heard from him in a while. He usually called me every couple of months or so and we’d talk about whatever was on our minds. When I realized that I hadn’t heard from him, I tried to call him. When I got a recording telling me his number had been disconnected, I tried again. When I got the same recording after double checking the number, I really got worried. I looked him up on Facebook, but his page was gone. Thankfully, I knew he had a brother, so I looked for his page. That’s where I found pictures of my friend’s grave.

So, now it’s over a year later and Mother’s Day has just happened. Why not do something about Mother’s Day? Well, sending flowers to his mother in his honor got me to thinking about just how much I missed him.

Never again will I hear him say things like, “Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise,” or the way he’d say, “Great” in that slow, sarcastic baritone he had. I’m realizing more and more that I miss him more than I ever thought I would. Never again will I hear him tell me how his mother had hoped someday we’d marry. While I loved him as a brother, I was never going to be romantically interested in him. Largely because he was younger than me.

We met in junior high as we were both in a special education class. I don’t know why he was in there, but for me it was about learning how to deal with the mean kids in school without creating more problems for myself. I had no idea back then that he’d become one of my best friends.

At our class Christmas party, I believe we drew names. I don’t remember whose name I received, but I do remember that he got mine. He gave me a comb his mother had made with blue and white silk flowers on it along with a bottle of Sweet Honesty perfume. I wore that comb to death and kept the flowers from it for years after it had fallen apart.

We went to the same high school and would see each other in the halls. I always looked forward to our meetings. Then I graduated high school, his family moved to another state, and we lost touch. He did write and I meant to write back, but never got around to it.

Fast forward about 20 years and a website called “Classmates” becomes available. I signed up, then started looking for him. I’d forgotten that he was two years behind me, so I kept looking in my graduating class. Lol Then one day I remembered that he’d been two years younger. The moment I checked his graduating class, I found him. That’s when I paid the fees for membership so I could contact him.

I immediately e-mail him. I was thrilled when I heard back. We started e-mailing back and forth, then pretty soon he said he had something to tell me and he wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. He was gay. I e-mailed back and told him that in John 3:16 “God so loved the world . . .” If God said that, who was I to differ? From then on, we kept in touch via e-mail.

He later told me that he’d found me, but was saving up the money for the fee. I simply had the money first.

It turned out he was still living in Oregon. Several weeks later, I was able to drive down to see him. I spent the weekend at a local B&B and we had a good time hanging out. We went to his favorite bar and just generally caught up in person.

That was a wonderful weekend, then several weeks later I took my then young son down to meet him and some other friends of mine. We spend the first day with Nathan and the plan was to spend the next day with my friends on the coast. The second day I woke up with a nasty headache and no pain reliever. I’d forgotten it at home. I managed to get through breakfast, then find a store to get some pain reliever. I had my son buckled in his car seat and told him that mommy didn’t feel good and needed a nap before we went anywhere else. He said, “Okay.”

Just as I settled in to the driver’s seat, my cell phone rang. It was Nathan telling me he’d had an urge to call me. When I told him what was going on with me, he immediately invited me over. Told me I could lay in his bed and he and my son would watch movies. I thanked him, then drove to his place. He lived on the second floor of a barn in a small apartment. The moment I got to the top of his stairs, I saw a couch of some sort and collapsed on it. I felt him cover me with a blanket, then I was out. When I woke up, I saw my son and Nathan sitting in his chairs watching a Disney animated movie, Tarzan, I think.

When I woke up, we got on our way, but I would not have had a good day had it not been for Nathan.

If memory serves, the next time I saw him, he and his parents had come to Washington for a short vacation. I invited him and his parents to dinner. While dinner was cooking, my son, Nathan, and I went across the street to an old school playground so my son could run off some energy while we visited. They were camping, so I believe I visited them at the campsite while they were here.

Anyway, from then on, we kept in touch, usually by phone, but occasionally by e-mail. We’d call each other although he called me far more than I called him. Every time I called him, I felt like I caught him at a bad time. I think it helped that anytime I was in Oregon, I made it a point to see him.

I knew he had serious health issues. He’d told me at one point that his doctor had told him that his lungs were so bad, it was if he was 80 years old and had smoked a pack of cigarettes a day since birth. That made my head and heart ache. Especially since he was younger than me.

The last time my roommate and I were in Oregon, we visited Nathan at his apartment.  While we were there we prayed for him; that he would be completely healed. After we returned home, I continued to pray for his healing. So, it came as a shock to learn that he’d died. I really had thought that God would heal him, but I also know God has reasons for not doing so.

Anyway, all this goes to say that Nathan had a wonderful mom. I don’t know her well, but I do know that she’s a good cook, she makes cute pot holders, and enjoys doing cross stitch items as gifts for her extended family. Most importantly though, she accepted my friend as he was. Even when he came out as gay. She even helped him choose his alter ego’s name. If more parents were like that, this world would be a better place. 

So, as the month of May ends, I’d like to salute all the Mom’s out there doing their best for their children.

P.S. I didn’t think to write this before I posted, but Nathan did walk away from the gay life a couple of years before his death. He got rid of everything related to it and lived the rest of his life as the wonderful man that he was. 

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff?

Several years ago there was a new attitude – “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff.” I never fully agreed with that idea, although I think whoever came up with the idea meant well. The problem as I see it, is that lots of things in life are built on “small” things.

I mean, think about. There are houses built of bricks. Now bricks aren’t very big, they’re actually kind of small, but stack enough together with mortar and you can build a very nice house. Even while the bricks are being laid, the bricklayer must periodically check that they’re level. If they’re not, the house won’t last.

If you’ve ever played “Tetris,” then you probably have a fair idea of what I mean. Making too many little holes in your game can cost you the game.

The same sort of thing applies to our personal life.  How many times have you had one small thing happen, that even though you brush it off, it almost seems to be the start of a bunch of small things going wrong? By the end of the day, you’re so tired and frustrated because a bunch of little things have gone wrong.  It’s as if the Universe has conspired to make your day horrible, using little things.

Then there’s the relationships in our life. Sometimes little things can add up if they’re undealt with in our relationships. I know I get impatient with my son when he doesn’t do his chores. I realize that to him they’re not important; they’re just little things, but they affect how the household functions overall. If he doesn’t take the recyclables down to the basement for instance, the little bucket overflows into my kitchen. Then there’s the towels. He’s expected to fold them after I’ve washed and dried them. If he doesn’t, I run out of kitchen towels, not to mention bath towels when one of us needs a bath.

Whether we like it or not, small stuff can add up to big stuff, which can become a real problem. I think the biggest problem we have is in deciding what we can truly ignore and what must be dealt with as it happens. We have to ignore some things like someone cutting us off as we’re driving, except for honking our horn, but things like household chores or whatever helps our lives run smoothly, we can’t afford to ignore.

11 Books You Can’t Put Down Plus One

Awhile back I came across a list online of 11 books that you can’t put down – supposedly. For a while I kept a tab open in my browser so I’d have no trouble finding it when I wanted to read the books. I finally just ordered them all from the library. Thankfully, they weren’t all available at once. I’m a fairly quick reader, but even I have limits as to how much I can read in two weeks. The great thing about this list is that most of the books were genres and books I probably wouldn’t have read without something like this list prompting me.

#1 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

I know there’s a TV series based on this book, but I’ve never seen it and have no desire to see it. Having said that, I loved this book. I read it first thinking it wouldn’t be one I’d really enjoy. Boy, was I surprised. The heroine, Claire accidently travels back in time 200 years in Scotland. As a result she’s forced to marry a man she’s just met, despite being married to another man in her own time. She can’t tell anyone where she’s really from, yet her medical knowledge is more advanced because of having served as a nurse during a world war, which gives her a certain importance in the clan she’s become part of through her new marriage. As soon as I have time, I plan to read the rest of the series.

#2 The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

I thought at first that this book would be a boring girl meets horse. I was wrong. Velvet is an inner city girl who gets accepted into a two week program for children like her. The children who get accepted into the program are hosted by families in another part of the state. The story starts with Velvet’s point of view, switches to her host, Claire’s point of view, then back to Velvet’s. One of the great things about this is that by the time I’d finished, I’d seen things through not only Velvet and Claire’s point of view, but also through Velvet’s mom’s eyes and Claire’s husband, Paul’s. This could not have been easy to write, but it made for a more thorough understanding of the main character, not to mention “why” things happened.

#3 The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This book is a post-apocalyptic look at a father and son’s journey to the west coast. I didn’t get past the third or fourth page. The big reason was that when either character spoke, there were no quotation marks to differentiate what they said from the rest of the story. I ended up re-reading passages because I wasn’t sure what was happening.

#4 The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

The main character in this book is a young woman who gets everything she wants; or at least think she wants. The voice is world weary, at times bordering on sarcasm. It almost felt like staring at a train wreck. I want to look away but I can’t.

#5 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

One of the great things about reading is that you can put your book, magazine, or newspaper down, walk away, come back later, and pick up right where you left off. However, every once in a while you come across a book that holds your attention hostage to the story. I can only think of two stories that have truly done this to me, before now.

“Justice Denied” by J. A. Jance

And

“50 Years in the Church of Rome” by Charles Chiniquy

I must now add to that short list, “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline.

This is a book about a video game that also serves as a public school for young people. If you have money or credits, you can explore several virtual worlds on a private space ship, but if you don’t, you’re stuck on the world where your school is.

The owner/creator dies without any heirs, but he leaves a will. In his will he specifies that there are three keys. Each key can be found by solving a riddle. The person who solves all three riddles first will inherit the company. What happens next is a race to see who gains control of the company. Most players are single players who love what the game has to offer, with one notable exception. There’s a corporation in the race that is willing to do anything and everything to gain control, including murder.

The story kept me up later than I intended more than once. I truly did not want to put it down once I started.

#6 The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

An autistic man decides to seek the perfect wife. To that end he makes a 16 page survey to winnow out potential candidates. Of course in matters of the heart things don’t always go as planned. I don’t read a lot of romantic comedies, but this one really tickled my funny bone.

#7 Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

I wrote notes about all the books I read, or so I thought. I know better than to trust my memory, but apparently I forgot to write notes about this one.

I do remember that it was a mystery based on the idea that Sherlock Holmes had a brother named, Mycroft. I love mysteries, so I really looked forward to this one. I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, this made me think that I should look into reading the original Sherlock Holmes series.

#8 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

This was supposed to be a historical fiction about King David. Ordinarily I enjoy this kind of thing, but this one bored me so bad, I didn’t get past the first few pages.

#9 The Life We Bury by Alleen Eskins

A college student interviews a Vietnam veteran who’s also a convicted murderer for a college paper. In doing so, he discovers there’s more to the man than anyone realizes. Part of what I liked about this book is that it’s a reminder that people aren’t always what you see on the surface.

#10 The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

In this book, a man who owns a bookshop on a boat, decides to go on a voyage of self-discovery after finally reading a letter from a former lover. So, he unties his boat and starts floating down the river. Along the way, he makes new friends and has a few adventures. Very enjoyable read.

#11 A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

This was the last book to come in and I didn’t get past the first 5 pages. The main character’s constant worrying drove me nuts.

Plus One – Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice

This is about our education system and what’s wrong with it. The author also makes suggestions about how to repair the system, including allowing children to choose what they learn.

This book was not part of the list of “11 Books You Can’t Put Down,” but after reading it, I thought it was worth mentioning here.

  

For anyone who might be interested, this is the link to the website where I found the original list of books. If you can’t click on it, then copy and paste it into you browser’s address bar:

https://www.romper.com/p/11-books-you-cant-put-down-no-matter-how-hard-you-try-1171

Documentaries

I have a habit of watching TV when I’m eating or folding laundry. Keeps me from getting bored; especially when I’m folding laundry. Normally, I'll watch a series I really enjoy or a movie, but recently I’ve watched a few documentaries which I think were well worth the time spent watching them.

The first one was “Requiem for the American Dream.” It was an interview with Noam Chomsky discusses wealth in this country. One of the most interesting points I thought he made was when he pointed out that back at the end of WWII, this country didn’t have a lot of money, but education was fully funded. We were even sending our veterans to college on the G.I. Bill. Now we’re one of the richest nations on earth, but education is woefully underfunded.

Here’s a link to a trailer for it. I know it’s available on Amazon.com and Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyFSvnLnCZ0

I just discovered that if you let the trailer run, part one will play with English audio and Spanish subtitles. I know part two is right behind it, but I’m not sure if it’s the rest of the video or not.  

I also found an official website for “Requiem for the American Dream,” and some articles. Here are the links for those:

http://requiemfortheamericandream.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-berkowitz/requiem-for-the-american-_b_9203578.html

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/requiem-for-the-american-dream-2016

There are more if you want to look, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you.

I would add here that college is no guarantee of a job. I was told that when I started college. I also read an article recently about a college graduate who said he started out at an entry level job in his field and some companies are now doing their own training for entry level jobs. So, unless you seriously want to enter the medical, engineering or legal fields, or something that really does require a high level of training, you may be better off skipping college altogether.

The next documentary was, “The Human Experiment.” This one was about the chemicals we encounter in our daily life and how they affect us. The reality is that there are tons of chemicals in everyday items, but the companies that produce those items don’t care. They literally spend millions lobbying to keep things the way they are.  Those chemicals can not only make you sick, as in give you cancer, they can also affect your ability to have children. Those health issues have gone up in recent years, among others. If you finally manage to back the chemical companies into a corner over their products, they have several defenses in place. The worst of which is blaming us, the customer. They’ll say we had choices. When it comes to things like cigarettes, yes, we have choices. When it comes to a lot of other products, furniture and toys for example, our choices are limited, unless we can make our own. This is really awful. There are chemicals in virtually everything we buy. Harmful chemicals, but the chemical companies don’t care as long as they’re making money. And the worst part is that they’re completely untested.

This is a link to a trailer on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WvhB5hkIjc

You can also find an official site for the movie here:

http://thehumanexperimentmovie.com/

I also found a documentary titled, "Farmageddon." I know, interesting title, but what was really interesting to me is that it showed how the U.S.D.A. and state departments of agriculture aren't truly looking out for people like you and me, but rather using their position to protect the interests of big corporate food producers. How? By harassing and intimidating small, independent farmers that might compete with the big corporations.

In this film you will see that use local police and swat teams to enforce their decisions, regardless of the harm they cause to the farmers and their families. You will see perfectly healthy sheep loaded into a truck at 5:30 in the morning during a blizzard, because they "might" have mad cow disease despite the fact that showed no signs of it and every blood test given to them in the course of a year was negative for the disease. And that's just what they did to one small, independent farmer. There are other examples of abuse of their power as well.

It also shows how eating the right foods can help our bodies heal. I hope you check it out.

Here are some links to this movie:

http://farmageddonmovie.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p1HYgQj938

The last documentary, but certainly not the least is titled, “Race to Nowhere.” This one was about education – or what we call education. It highlights how education has become all about testing and homework. Students are being assigned so much homework in middle school and up, that they literally don’t have time for anything else. To make things worse, if students want to get into a top college, they must have outside activities such as sports or volunteering in the community. I’ve known for a while now that our education system is not what it should be or could be, but this shows that it’s worse than I realized.  The best thing I saw was that one teacher for an AP class realized that you couldn’t teach everything “required” in a year, so he cut the homework in half. He said that when he did so, test scores went up.

Here’s a trailer for the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uem73imvn9Y

Here’s also a link to the official site:

http://www.racetonowhere.com/

If you can watch these, I hope you do. I found them informative and enlightening about our current systems and way of life.

New Year’s Resolutions

 It’s that time of year again – the time when we all make some sort of “New Year’s Resolution.” A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that when we make “New Year’s Resolutions,” we shouldn’t wait till New Year’s to act on them. He makes a good point. Why wait? I mean, most of us think about it ahead of time, so why wait to act on them? I think if we acted on them in little ways, then when it comes time to make the resolution or publicly declare it, we’d not only be ahead of the game on New Year’s Eve, we’d have a better chance of following through during the year.

I know that I’ve made a couple of resolutions that I’ve been acting on. One is to become primarily vegan. I know that conjures up pictures of granola eating, save the planet types. It’s something I’ve thought about off and on for years. In part because of what’s written in the Bible about diet. Man didn’t eat meat till after Noah came off the ark. I just couldn’t imagine giving up meat, eggs, and dairy. Now I can – most of the time. I admit I love beef. In particular, pot roast and steak. I don’t care about chicken that much, so that’s no big deal. The thing that really made me decide to go more vegan was the documentary, “Forks Over Knives.”

In it, two doctors specializing in two different health problems, living in two different areas of the country started looking at diet as a way to help their patients. What they discovered was that countries where meat is five percent or less of the overall diet, people were healthier. They had less incidence of cancer and heart disease. In fact, Switzerland had really high incidents of cancer and heart disease till Hitler invaded and took all their meat for his troops. Without meat in their diets, cancer and heart disease incidents became radically lower. Once he left, the incidents of cancer and heart disease went back up. Hearing that was enough to make me and my roommate decide to cut down the meat in our diet. The only “disagreement” we’re having is whether to use beans or tofu in place of meat. I like beans, but I know eventually we’ll tire of them, so we’ll see what happens. In the meantime we’re cutting our meat in half for some recipes and using beans in others.

Here’s a link to “Forks Over Knives: The Extended Interviews”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY_J6QDWRrs

Since we started going more vegan, I find that I like meat less, at least ground meat, such as hamburger, anyway. I’ve also learned that silken tofu makes a good smoothie. It also helps that when I’m fixing meals for just me, I eat primarily vegan.

I’ve noticed that on days when I eat vegan or primarily vegan/vegetarian, my weight trends downward. If I eat meat, it trends upward. This is good news for me as I struggle with my weight, which I know contributes to the health issues in my family. Both sides have/had diabetes and heart issues. My mother’s had cancer, though she’s in remission now. Thankfully, mother’s side has longevity, but if I’m going to live as long as some of my maternal relatives, I’d like to be as healthy as possible.

Another resolution I have for this year (actually, I’ve had this one for a while, just haven’t had the courage to test it) is to get on an elliptical exercise machine and workout for at least five minutes without getting my butt kicked. I got on one a few years ago while in Idaho for my maternal grandmother’s 90^th birthday (this is what I mean about longevity – she’s still alive and kicking). It kicked my butt in less than three minutes. Since then I’ve been trying to get regular exercise, but I don’t always due to things like colds. I’m getting better about being more consistent and intentional about working out, so I think sometime this year I’ll hit that goal.

Another resolution I have for this year is to get back to my Latin studies and practicing piano. I set them aside when I got really frustrated with the mess in my office. Not to mention some of the mess ended up on my keyboard and bench. Now that I’ve got all the cleared away and figured out how to use my time wisely, I can start doing both again.

My final resolution for this year is to finish the novel I started during “National November Write a Novel Month.” It also means sitting down to write daily, except for the days when we go grocery shopping. By the time we get done with that, I just have time to do dishes and call it a day.  I was unable to finish in November because I had to stop to make an outline. Not only that, but I had to make a list of character’s and who they are in my story. If all goes well, I’ll finish it by the end of March. I’ve learned that while some authors, such as Stephen King and Debbie Macomber, can go to their offices and write till they’ve hit a certain word count, I can’t. I usually have about three to four hours a day before I have to go make dinner. If I use a crockpot to cook, I get an extra hour. That makes it difficult to hit a high word count.

So, those are my resolutions. I’ve started working on them already. How about you? What are your resolutions? Feel free to share in the comments.

Why I Don't Go to Church

I ran this blog early on, but am re-running it for a friend of mine. We were hanging out this past summer and I was telling her why I don't go to church. She told me that I should write a blog about it. I told her that I already had. So, Erica, this is for you.

Going to Church

I used to attend church on a regular basis. When I was younger, I went to the same church for over 10 years. Then it imploded in a spectacular way. The church actually made the news. I suspect partly because it was so large, with over 2,000 people in our congregation alone (there were satellite churches in other states as well). By the time the church fell apart, I had quit attending due to things I saw and heard that didn’t seem right to me. I know now that God was trying to heal people’s hearts of the emotional wounds they’d received in their lives, but the devil managed to get in there and twist things around.  As someone I know pointed out, when God moves, the devil isn’t going to sit back and watch it happen.

After that church fell apart, I didn’t attend any church on a regular basis. I was too hurt and unsure where to go. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d been fairly well indoctrinated that that church was “THE” church to be at and their rules were “THE” rules to live by. It took me several years to realize that there was a lot of legalism there and a lot of years to get past it and truly learn more about God.

I did eventually start attending a church that was held in one of the buildings formerly owned by the last church. After a few years, I started attending a second church on alternating Sundays with my roommate. It made sense financially to attend both churches in one car, rather than me attending one church all the time necessitating the use of both cars every other week.

Eventually, I got tossed out of the second church. My roommate and I had a meeting with the pastor and an elder after which, they told my roommate that he could attend church as long as he came without me. Why? I’m a woman, my roommate is a man and we’re not married, nor are we likely to ever be married. I was surprised at this, but my roommate was not. He told me that God had told him this was going to happen. So, we left and continued to attend the other church.

Before I go on, I should mention that the pastor at the first church we attended also knew that we were living together and were not married, nor likely to ever marry. He didn’t throw me out, but he did refuse to dedicate my son before the Lord. Dedicating a child before the Lord is a public acknowledgement of responsibility for the child and a promise to raise the child up in God’s way to the best of our ability as a parent.

The first church eventually fell apart due to financial reasons. According to the pastor, it cost a lot more than people realized just to turn the lights on every week.  

So, now I’m without a church again. I’ve actually tried attending a few and I’ve been reminded that the “church” is actually the people inside, not the building itself. This doesn’t mean I’m looking for a “perfect” church. I’m not. I’m simply looking for a church where I feel that God is free to move however He wants and people truly want to grow in Him. What I’ve found is people playing “church” or worse yet, coercing people to come to church.

Allow me to explain what I mean by the numbers, so to speak.

Church #1 This one had a woman for a pastor, which bothered me, but I attended as it was literally across the street and I was having problems with my knee at the time. It was Easter Sunday and my son and one of his friends came with me. The service started out with the usual music/worship and then they proceeded to do a special Easter Service. In this case, rather than having a large group of children/young adults do one play about Easter, they had every age from pre-school to high school on stage doing something for Easter. The youngest ones were supposed to simply quote some scripture, but you could see some didn’t want to be up there. The older children did more of a stage play for their part. By the time every group had given their presentation, I was thinking, “How many times and in how many ways can you tell the story of Easter?!” I truly appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I just don’t appreciate having it retold to the point of feeling like I was listening to and watching a broken recording. It also made me wonder what my son’s friend thought about it, although he did ask me some good questions.

Church #2 I met an old friend from my former church (the one that imploded) and went with her to services at a couple of churches she attends. The first church was nice in that I saw and talked to other people I’d known from the same church she and I’d known each other at, but the more I attended, the more saw that they were fearful of end times. I understand that fear as I used to worry about it to the point where I’d pray, “Lord, if possible not in my life time please.” Then one day I realized that in saying that I was cursing the next generation or possibly the one after that. It dawned on me that the end times as written in the book of Revelation are going to happen and if I trust God no matter what happens He will see me through them.

Church #3 I went to one service at the other church my friend attended and was again delighted to see an old friend from the former church that imploded. When the music service started up, I was startled to feel like I’d walked into a jazz bar or coffeehouse. I learned after the service that the woman leading the music service that morning had been a jazz singer and had decided to dedicate her voice and talents to the Lord. That’s a wonderful thing, but I’d been taught that in those situations a person like her should have been part of the congregation till she’d walked in that decision for a while.

Church #4 I went to this church because my son attends with my mother and I thought it would be good to know what kind of church he was attending. I actually went to a couple of services, one on Sunday morning and one on a Wednesday evening. What really bothered me most was the music service felt like miniature Hollywood. One time there was a choreographed dance before the Lord, complete with matching outfits on the dancers. I don’t have a problem with dancing before the Lord as a form of worship when it’s spontaneous and comes from the heart. The other time the music ministry group was videoed and put on a big screen, which didn’t bother me a lot, until they did a close up of the leader. He wasn’t singing a solo that I recall at that point, but was simply part of the whole group. To me, that was a way of glorifying the leader, rather than God.

Church #5 I attended because I’d read their signboard in passing several times and thought it might be interesting. What I found was a church that was teaching very basic, foundational doctrine. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. This church has been around for several years and I kind of thought that by now there’d be more maturity. Not only that, but I hung around in the foyer/lobby area for several minutes after the service in hopes of seeing a friend that I knew attended that church. No one, NOT one person walked up to greet me.

The final two churches really stand out for me for very different reasons.

Church #6 This church is literally located up the street from me and therefore I could walk, which was nice. I stopped in on impulse one Sunday morning and got a huge surprise. The men sat one side of the church and the women and married couples on the other. Okay, I can live with that. The pastor was talking about dating that morning and I was in full agreement until he said that the problems in Jacob’s marriage were cause by Jacob’s lust, yes lust, for Rachel. That brought my thoughts to a screeching halt.

Jacob’s lust?! What lust?! Lust does not wait and work seven years to attain its goal. Lust yanks and pulls and demands instant fulfillment. Jacob not only waited and worked seven years for the privilege of marrying Rachel, he agreed to work another seven years for the privilege upon discovering that his father-in-law Laban had deceived him by sending Leah to be his bride. Laban’s deceit of Jacob was the cause of the marital problems in Jacob’s house.

At this point I decided to leave as soon as I could do so unobtrusively. During a break in the service, I got up and walked out. Only later did I realize that the men were filing out while the women puttered in their pews waiting for the men to finish leaving.

Church #7 The last and most recent church I visited, my roommate and I actually attended for three weeks. The biggest problem was something I learned after the first service. Another old friend from my original church (yeah, we’re pretty scattered; some of us live across the country now) came up to us after the service and greeted us. I was delighted to see him.

We talked for quite a while after the service and my friend told us that some of the people in the congregation were renting low income housing from the church. As a condition of renting the church housing, the people had to agree to attend at least one service a week. This truly bothered me. It bothered me so much that I finally told my friend that I thought the church was coercing people into attending service. He justified it by saying they had a choice about renting a house on church property.

I don’t agree. It can take months just to apply to get on a waiting list for low income housing. Then when you finally get on the list, there aren’t a lot of choices available.

More importantly to my way of thinking is that nowhere in the Bible do we see God doing something for someone and then demanding something in return. God says, “I stand at the door and knock…” Not, I bang on the door and demand to be let in.

Jesus spent his ministry sharing God and performing miracles. The only thing he ever asked in return was that they would not sin again. He never asked for payment or made demands. He simply did what God told him to do and let things happen as they would.

Why should we be any different?

I also heard the minister at the last church say, “God only asks us for one day a week.” In reading the Bible, the only things God says in relation to one day a week is for us to rest. He does tell us that we should not stop gathering ourselves together, but He doesn’t say how often we should be gathering. He never specifically said, “You must attend church one day a week.”

I really would like to find a church where the Spirit of God is free to move at will, but until then, I think I’ll skip going to church.