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Welcome to my humble abode. Feel free to sit down a while and warm yourself by my fire. I write here mainly to inspire, encourage, perhaps confront, to empower, and to change. If you leave with a lighter step, an answer to a question, really questioning long held ideas that may not be taking you where you need to go, or with a lot of new things to consider, I will have done my job. Please enjoy your stay. With love, ~Mother Star

Sunday, April 19, 2015

My Most Powerful Good Friday Ever

Well, Dickens said it well when he said, "It was the best of times it was the worst of times."
On Good Friday this year, I was under the impression that my dad did not want to speak to me anymore. Therefore, when I thought about Jesus' agony in the garden, knowing he was soon to become sin for us and accept our punishment and out judgment from the Father, I could relate. It was an amazingly painful situation, but through meditating on how well Jesus understood my pain, it made this the most powerful Good Friday of my life.

I really enjoyed the Paschal Triduum. In the Protestant Church, we had to cram the whole thing into an Easter Sunday Service. It was awesome every time. Being raised Pentecostal, I was used to prayers for everyone who needed it on almost any Sunday. I noticed that more people actually got healed when prayed for on Easter Sunday. It is a powerful time and has always been, at least for me.

It didn't work quite that way in the Catholic church, it was still very special and restorative. One of my old friends who has gotten out of fellowship and into a lot of weird or heretical teachings came to my confirmation. It was nice that he went to church, for once.

The staff advisor of the PRIDE chapter at my community college was there on Good Friday. His husband (in the states eyes, but obviously not in God's) and the kids they have both adopted were not there, though. He was there alone, for some reason. He  kissed he cross and walked out singing, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom," and left before they served communion.
He sang solos at the Saturday Vigil, and was in the choir for the special music. Again, the man he is involved with and the kids they are raising together were not there.
I pray for God to draw him, and to bring healing to his life, to the other man's life, and to do a profound work in those children's life.

I was invited to my Methodist Friend's Good Friday service. They sang a hymn about how Sunday's palms are Wednesday's ashes. Both churches sang a black spiritual called "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Both churches read a lot of the same verses and said similar or same prayers. I was allowed to take communion there even though I am not Methodist, while at St Patrick's it was the last time that I couldn't. Communion is a powerful experience for me, even when I was Protestant. I had been really missing that while going through RCIA.


All this time I was thinking I had no blood-family anymore, except my mom. I later learned there was a problem with the phones that was really strange and I am glad my dad did not actually turn away from me in real life.
I sent my dad an email on Good Friday Evening, from an email address he did not have in case he had blocked me. A few days later I got a text message that said, "I LOVE YOU!" from him. I called and we figured out what had happened, bit not how it had happened. Somehow, his number in my phone got edited and one digit changed, and he wasn't getting my messages. It was someone else's phone that was set, at the subscriber's request, not to accept my calls.
 Jesus was also restored to His father. My dad told me emphatically that he would never, ever, do such a thing, he would never decide he did not want to be in my life. I hope that this is true. I know it is true of the Father I reached for when I thought that my earthly dad had turned away from me. It was a crazy mix-up of communication devices there an it caused a lot of pain, but it also helped make this the most wonderful Good Friday service ever.


Monday, April 13, 2015

On telling the truth that hurts/offends

Lots of people complain about ANY Christian who stands by the Bible on homosexual behavior.
I already told my tale of battling this temptation for years myself and how bad it hurt when people handled this truth-telling obligation the wrong way, but I want to illustrate the point with a different sin, since sin is the same thing no matter what form it takes.

When I think of people speaking truth that is not comfortable and someone being alienated as a result, I think of when I was admiring this particular group of people.
They do really interesting things like trapeze artists or sort of like dancing in the air and swinging around, but they are hanging by huge hooks shoved through the skin on their backs and shoulders. The swinging and such they are doing is pulling harder on those wounds. It would be pretty cool if they weren't hanging by really big piercings, but they are, so... it's not.


It was on Ripley's believe it or not, and they were explaining the deeper meaning s of "body altercation" it is a meditation/zen type thing but instead of relaxing into an altered state of consciousness, one shocks themselves into one through self-torture. Very demonic, and more clearly so than T.M. or some other unhealthy spiritual things people sometimes do. I was totally enthralled and in love with it.


My dad and sister got upset (probably the one thing they should not have done though, lose their cool and yell), and dad talked about how we treat our temple and quoted a verse, I don't remember which. He said, "drinking isn't as bad as that!" (which is wrong, getting drunk is a sin, just like this is). He said doing this to yourself is like doing this to Jesus (he was right, it hurts Jesus to see stuff like this as if we did it to Him).

I got offended and accused them of judging. I think I quoted or misquoted some lame verse all out of context. I went on like they were mistaken about what they were saying. My dad corrected my obvious error, which I then disagreed with and said he was judging and tried to act like I was being the nice, Christ-like one taking the high road and he wasn't, and like he didn't make logical sense. He also said having pleasure in someone else doing it is as bad or worse than actually doing it, and I think he also mentioned that Christians aren't supposed to revel in things that hurt God, and that you can't minister to people by doing that, but maybe my memory injected that because I know it now in hindsight. I'm not sure...
My sister said something like, "You know its wrong and you don't have anything to say to prove it isn't. You just won't admit it because you think it's cool." I was FURIOUS, and yes, I was further alienated from them in this argument. Would a different response have helped? I doubt it. If they had soft-pedaled it, like saying, "Maybe we see the Word differently and that's just fine. I don't agree with it but you should do whatever's in your heart. I'll try to keep an open mind..." Then it would have planted a seed of confusion more than I already had! I really believe that. Later, when I let God deal with me and renew my mind/spirit, I got over that unhealthy perception - with a vengeance.

Sometimes truth actually hurts. The truth that homosexuality was a sin hurt a lot when I was tempted for it, but I still accepted it as truth and persevered until I was free, until my thoughts lined up more with God's thoughts.. Even if folks get upset, when they are willfully doing what they should know is wrong and are choosing not to know better, they need to hear the truth even if they hate it, just like I did.

Since ALL sin looks like this (above) to God, telling someone its ok to continue in sin is like advocating for THIS in the name of Jesus and in the name of love - and actually very strong emotional bonds form between the practitioners of this "art." People are drawn to it, as I was, by a sense of connection, belonging, strength, "beauty", a lure of "freedom" (believe it or not), a "high" caused by an altered state of consciousness, plus maybe other stuff.

Now, if I were reaching out to the guys doing this, I would NOT handle it the same way; only a person who claims to know Christ who did that or was enjoying watching something like that (like I once did) requires such heavy handedness. If I was talking to the men themselves, I would have to be less "dogmatic", if you will, because they are on the outside. They need truth too, yes, but do not carry the responsibility of being salt and light that professing Christians do. These guys are not being hypocrites or misrepresenting Christ to the world; they are just the regular lost that all of us have been.

Today, I feel bad for those guys instead of admiring or envying them, and sickened by people who look on with relish. ALL sin looks like this to God, in the spirit realm - be it drinking, or porn, or homosexual actions, or B&D/S&M, or T.M. or Wicca or "the Left-hand Path," or lying, or stealing, or enjoying watching this kind of stuff, or anything else. Sin is sin, period. It is destructive to us on the inside and it hurts God to watch it, like this should probably hurt to watch especially if you were the mother/father of someone in this film, which I have cut screenshots out of to spare you having to watch it in case you feel you probably shouldn't or are not allowed to by parents (for good reasons).



 I think we all look like that (above) to God and angels when we sin and pursue sin, and like justify it or whatever. We sit there hurting ourselves like crazy and think that it's great. We might even want to let the world know or raise awareness of how great it is and how wrong anyone who insists that its wrong is. Other times, we might point our finger at someone else's sin who disagrees with us and say "Look how wrong they are...! That means I'm right!" or some other ridiculousness.
We just can't understand why a God who loves us would absolutely demand that we stop.
Truthfully though, how could He love us and not?

Godspeed

~Mother Star