Earlier Today, Craig Gross posted this blog and this youtube video.
My name name is Seth Taylor. You don’t know me and that is okay. I am working on something new that you will hear about later. Craig asked me to share my thoughts on this conversation because if you haven’t seen what has happened on Facebook... you need too.
There is this ever present conundrum in Christian theology – how does grace hit the stage of life?
It’s like we are all sitting back asking this question about it.
“Did he say that we’re all forgiven and there’s nothing we can do that separates us from his love?“
“Yeah, I think that’s what he said.”
“Wait….does that mean we can do what we want without getting sent to hell?“
(biting lower lip) “Gosh…..I think so.”
“Wow. You sure? That seems kind of….extreme. I mean, the old god was easier to understand. Yeah, he was an a-hole, but I’m not sure this whole love thing makes sense to me.“
“Well….yeah. But that death was a bit…..extreme. Right? He said he finished something. Maybe the old gods don’t count anymore?“
“Good point. So, wanna smoke a bowl?“
“Yeah. I guess so.”
End scene – and then we head off with this strange warm feeling in our bodies instead of the shadowy suppression we’ve always experienced. Love is so confusing. After a while, the warmth starts to outweigh the pain and the need for whatever drug we medicate on starts to fade. This is the redemptive work of love.
The best way to deal with Pharisees is to recognize that it’s a very specific energy -and it’s demonic at the core. And then stay back from it. People are going to say what they are going to say and it still remains the choice for everyone to set foot on the path. Sheena has chosen a path and there will always be those who will judge her for not being farther down the path than she is or not walking it fast enough. But to deny that God is with her on that path is where we begin to project onto Sheena the absence of God that we feel at the core. Pharisees feel abandoned by God at the core of their unconscious. It’s very painful when the demonic camps out in those wounds. It’s all energy. Sheena has this beautiful innocence in her experience of God in that she is clinging desperately to this promise that seems to have been made to her by the Spirit – that she would be loved no matter what. And no matter how hard the world tries to steal that promise from her, she is hanging on. And it’s encounters like the one she had with the people of God at the show, that draw her into deeper experiences of that transformative love.
We have to stop judging people for not being in the “right” place on the path. We have to draw each other further down the path by showing them that path is 1) safe and 2) full of beauty. The #1 motivation for every human being is to be loved. and we seek that from so many different places and at different levels of consciousness. Her video was a beautiful example of 2 Corinthians 12. When “sin” rises, grace rises higher.