For reasons I will never quite understand my Internet connection will not let me access my notes.. so here is my contribution to this months synchroblog about Following Jesus.

With apologies to those who are not normally involved in this part of my life.. you might as well know now.
This months blog is about following Jesus.
Even after I write it , I have to take a deep breath after that sentence.

My friend Jacob Pordiosero once painted a painting of an abandoned boat by a shoreline of the Sea of Galilee ( well I imagined it was the sea of Galilee but it might have been Lake Tahoe) and underneath, he painted on the frame:
'...Dejandolo Todo, Le Seguieron...' LC V:xI

Which translated is
Leaving everything, They followed him.

This is a very romantic idea. When I was a child I imagined --with the help of the missionaries that come to my church -- that I would one day leave my home and family and go to the deepest jungles of somewhere and bring peace and solace and salvation to the ignorant masses. Its unfortunate that the people receiving this solace were often portrayed this way, but that is how it was. We were being merciful beggars who found where the bread was, we were sharing it with our less fortunate brothers. Forget that it was Wonder Bread and they ate Tortillas....

Then later on in high school I was prompted to give up sex and partying for Jesus, even though I had never really sexed or partied in my tired little adolescent life, we were full of promises to stay chaste and stay sober and stay out of trouble for the Kingdom.
Of course this meant we were never in contact in any meaningful way with our peers and often the butt of jokes that had much more to do with our naivete than our moral stances.. We were simplistic about our view of the world because the world we inhabited was simplistic. We didn't get hooked on drugs but we didn't get hooked on life either. We were hooked on fear.

When I started to gain an education and explore the deeper sides of my own intellectual and emotional and spiritual self, I was told that I was guilty of the sin of pride.. that I was too dependent on my intellect and that my questions were evidence of my lack of faith. Any variance from the doctrine of my conservative evangelical church was subject to ridicule.

I really did experience this... once I wrote an essay on Ephesians when I was about 15, an article really and it was freshly my own interpretation and feeling about the book. I was hauled into the associate pastors office where he smirkingly asked where in the world I had received my theological education and why did I think I knew more about the Scripture than well trained theologians whose views I had just questioned... He blamed my grandfather who was a lovely wild preacher of heretical love and grace... but truth was it was my very own.

Only after I went to a Jesuit theology college in London and studied Urs Van Balthasar( and the mystical writings of his confessee Adrienne Von Spier) did I learn that I was not alone in my mystical interpretations of God or of the Ephesians!!

I am a liberal and I care about the poor ( I actually am one these days but that's another story) I support and love my gay friends, I am conscientious about where I spend my dollars, I have lived a long time volunteering or working with marginal groups of people ( all of whom I felt more at home with than the people I am supposed to be a part of.. )

I became Catholic, I joined a house church, I was Unitarian for a while. And all the while I kept thinking, what on earth does any of this have to do with following Jesus.

And what exactly is he asking me to leave?

This week after hearing of the attack on the Sikh temple in Milwaukee, I think I have my answer. I am being asked, by Jesus, to leave Christianity.
I can no longer stay here, in the safe places in the garden of surety, in the hall of the righteous in the gun slinging mosque burning symbol of the West.I can no longer use the name without being ashamed of it I can no longer read the excuses and the self justifications of my liberal brethren and sistern about how this happened because of 'them' ( meaning the right wing fundamentalist nut cases. surely not US. Its nothing to do with us with our smugness or our self righteousness or our safe commentary from behind the bunker of Christ Insanity)

And while I know that not all Christians think this or support this or want this, I also know that no one will believe that we side with the attacked and the oppressed and the persecuted unless we leave our bunkers and go hang out and find out what it means to truly be marginalised and hated for what you believe..

I long ago left the organised Church, thinking that would suffice but I can see that it will not.
I need to become Sufi or Sikh or Muslim. I need to hang out with the people who are being targeted in Christ's name so that I can take my place with them on the firing line, to be sullied, to be castigated, to be misunderstood, to be attacked and dragged from their places of worship and their homes to watch their mothers, sisters, fathers brothers gunned down in their very act of loving God...yes, this is the call of every true believer.

I want to go where they go and live where they live and let their people be my people and their god my god.

I want to leave Everything, and Follow Him who I love. Who is there with us in the blood and the tears and the hate and the spitting on and the tearing apart of and the hate and the hate. answering with love.

Answering with grace, answering with the answer which is
we are all part of each other and there is no separation, so let us be separated from that which preaches separation. Let us be intolerant of intolerance.

Blessed be the name of Allah.

If they hate you , know that they hated me first, He said.
I want to be hated for his name sake while breathing out prayers of forgiveness and grace.

Blessed be the name of Allah.