Journaling

I don't journal very often, certainly not on a regular basis, but I thought, when I was signing of for a two hour shift in the prayer room, I would bring along my little used notebook. Over the last two years I have generated seven pages of journal entries on five different dates, so I was looking forward to spending some time writing about whatever seems spiritually relevant. Typically my journal entries are of poor quality as far as legibility and grammar are concern but always give me a chance to process information in a way that I normally don't. When I got here I started by reading the posting on the wall and on the blog site and was struck by one of those ideas that you know instantly is the right one and that willing or not you are going to do. So instead of putting some thoughts done on paper I am going to ramble on in the electronic realm for a while.

One of the first things I notice about the numerous and widely varied wall posting (and the bloggings, too) is that everything seems to be upbeat, and hopeful, even on the most serious of matters. I don't really know why this stuck out to me so much. My guess is that I am so haunted by the knowledge of my own short comings in any moral or religious sense. One of the main reasons I had become so detached from any mainstream Christian groups in the last couple of years stems from the epiphany of how hopelessly far short I fall of God's ideal and the equal hopelessness of me trying to be a good moral person on my own. The bible does say trust in God, presumable being hopeful and optimist, if you can call waiting for God to answer a pray as simple optimism. Should we have a sober, even pessimistic, view of the problems in the world and in ourselves? Does following Christ through thick and thin, even through our own failures, shortcomings, and self-delusions create that optimism? Is it this place that is set aside as a place to meet God give a feeling of hope that I often find to be absent in the rest of the world? I guess I haven't got past the view of my own miserable, abject failure to be a good person or even a person who would be worth of God's grace to see that hope that He should generate.
I suppose that brings me to the second thing I notice about the writings here and so much of what the outside world claims is 'christianity'. The christian jigonsim, the stock sayings, and over quoted bits of isolated scripture. I know why the repetition of this rhetoric bothers me. It is because I used it so well and for so long to fool myself into thinking I was a good Christian person. I find that it is easy of words or phase both good and bad to lose meaning and impact with over use. That saying something becomes just that, an empty saying, heavy on connotation and a desire to fit in but low on the real truth. I hope that these posting are sincere and that this place of pray and worship breeds honest words that reflect what God is really saying, not what we have already decided that He should say because it meets our ends and desires or because it makes us look good, like some one who belongs. I pray that this is a place to be honest with ourselves (myself) and with God, and that what we (I) hear come from Him not from our (my) own selfish motivations.
I thinking that the back of the door leading outside my be the most important of the many papers plastered here. Those that remind and encourage that, unlike Los Vegas, what happens here does not and should not stay here. The messages and the movings of God are meant to continue after we leave here. This is just a starting place, a place to get tuned into God. I think I have always found that call to action particularly challenging. Not the remembering to pray or think about what God has said by the the socially awkward abnormal applications of Christianity in the 'real' world. Even just the fact that following Christ is not a part time occupation but is a radical new standard to follow for every spur of the moment inspiration to the long planned and intentional actions that seem strange and out of character to those who know us best. Disobeying that social pressure to be normal (not even cool, but just normal) is hard. I have always found that being blatantly, flamboyantly Christian is hard, even when it is no big deal. The little things like saying 'because I am Christian' or the simple action you know is right and really isn't anything major have always come as a major challenge. Until it becomes dangerous to thing about my failings to step up to the plate and make the right choice or say the right thing because of the abject depression that can result from taking the time to have an honest look at how well I have been following God.

I noticed that my pronouns got mess and swung back and forth, from the plural to the personal, and I apologize if I sounded preachy. Hope my rambling e-journal was less preachy and negative than it was constructive and honest.

P.S. Thanks to spell checker the spelling should be passable, I will, however, have to resist the temptation to modify what I have put down and will leave even the grammatical errors in peace. Of you go to the electronic public.