Just Breathe

I went to Bishop T. D Jakes’ church this past Sunday in Dallas and I am still almost speechless when it comes to putting the experience into words.  It was nothing short of amazing.  I learned more in that short 3 hours.  Yes 3 hours…for a church service… and we left before he was done… but I say “short  3hours,” because I feel like I learned more, was challenged more,  and my thoughts were stirred more during that short stint at  The Potter’s House than they have been in several, several months… and here’s why…

Because it was something so very different.    My personal experiences with Jesus have unknowingly gone from one extreme to the other since I moved form College Station.  I’m going to try and refrain from going off on a rant about the Christian sub-culture at A&M because I could talk on it for days and I don’t want to become cynical towards something that was so formative in my own life… it’s funny how it is only those things which we are the closest to that we can truly despise… we have to know something or someone very fully before we can despise it/them, you know… you would never get absolutely livid at someone who was a mere acquaintance, that type of rage is reserved for your best friends and your family… those you are closest to… wow..we are some messed up people!  Anyway, I say all that to say I have a constant love/hate relationship with the christian sub -culture at A&M because it was them that taught me the Christian-ese I now speak, yet despise… it was them that convinced me that this or that was dangerous for me, that is was going to draw me down a path of evil and despair, and now I can’t get their voices out of my head, they’re nagging judgements and wagging, accusing fingers are blocking out the view and the voice of my God… it was them that messed me up my thinking about love and romance and dating and flirting and marriage, I can’t listen to my own heart, because they grabbed a hold of it, held it so tight, squeezed it in the rhythm of the pulse THEY wanted it to have, instead of allowing my heart to beat with its own, unique,beautiful, God-given rhythm. I feel like a lot of people can share these frustrations with me.  They feel them towards their parents for raising them a certain way, or the church people they’ve encountered for treating them a certain way, or towards organized religion for saying certain things… I don’t know what your personal beef is, but we all have them… we’re so dang rich and lazy in America that we have time to sit around and get vehement about things… maybe we should just get rid of all of our technologies and higher-education and conveniences…. then we’d have to work all day to survive… and we’d be so dog-tired at night that we’d just go to bed instead of laying awake, staring at the ceiling, getting all angry and worked up about things…  that’s a whole other story… but anyway… I don’t know what your personal beef with religion or faith or whatever you want to call it it, but, know that we all have them… the agnostic, the homeless man on the street, the pastor, the guy on the corner screaming about the end of the world, the grandmother who goes to mass and says the rosary everyday… everyone has their personal beef with some aspect of something under the over-arching title of all things “spiritual”…it’s easy to get worked up and passionate about things of the spiritual realm because no matter what faith, religion, idea you are talking about… they all have to do with things that are not visible and things that are personal and things that go on in your insides, in that place where there are few adequate words for descriptions… because all things spiritual are invisible and internal, they are always open for speculation… there are far fewer passionate debates about whether or not the grass is REALLY green or whether we simply think it is green or why it is green… everyone can see it, everyone can describe, it, it is universally accepted… while it is interesting to think about why the grass is green and whether or not it is green or if we all see the same green, etc… it is simply that.. interesting things to think on… not something we will live our life by, that will affect us even beyond this life…