Thank you, Marni, this was wonderful. It is funny to be now in a place where I have lost my quick and easy scorn for "Conservative Christians." It was so pleasing to have this enemy, feeling ever so holier than they (or thou or anyone else). Funny, if not so tragic.

Truth is, as you observed with Buddhism, to be found everywhere...if we allow our eyes to be open to the discernment of spirit. Discernment (not judgment)--able to separate soul from spirit, the finite from the eternal--is the vision of Christ.  Then and now, it is my experience and conviction that God wastes absolutely nothing for our peaceful R&amp;R: reconciliation and redemption. 

It was my study of Buddhism, initiated by what I believed was my disgust with the American Church, that helped bring me to an intimate relationship with Christ, as well as a whole new attitude and outlook upon his message. Their Bodhisattva is very much like our being hidden in Christ. Their Middle Way is very much like our "living on earth as if already in heaven,"  These two elements are, to me, the essential message of Christ.

During this period of studying Buddhism (and dabbling in a few other paths), I still pridefully clung to the notion that my particular sect was the most enlightened in matters political or otherwise and could properly claim the title as "the one, true faith." 

Five years ago I went to bed with that firm belief and woke up the next morning already on my knees praying and weeping over my loathsome hubris. Not only did I no longer see my sect as THE SECT, I saw all such divisions in the Church as missing The Mark and patently absurd in the context of Scripture. The easy labels of Liberal and Conservative suffered the same fate. The use of any other name but Christ for doctrine and dogma (Lutheran, Calvinist, and Wesleyan, et al)  suffered the same fate. Yet in that moment, by the grace of God and nothing else, I had only compassion for this sad Wonderlandesque state of the Church. Indivisible is invisible, the kingdom of God within: that love binds us together and we need, as you desperately urge, to live and move and have our being in that kingdom alone. This is what separates us out to be of maximum service to the Lost and needy, in the world and not against the world (or each other).

This was a simple awakening and not the last word. And I would love to state that from that moment I immediately and completely embraced this abrupt change of seeing and that wondrous compassion but that is not the case. It has been a slow, yet I feel steady, renewing of my mind on this subject.

Thanks again for the article and allowing me the space to share my view, which is not meant to be the last word on this subject but only how I feel God is working on me.