Filling Minds With Fear!

I’m not sure how old I was when I quit receiving the FEAR that my denomination was teaching me; however, it was about the same time that I chose to leave the denomination of my youth and adulthood, and strike out on my own.

I soon discovered that I took ME with ME when I left.

In other words, though I left the environment that preached hell, fire, and damnation, the residue of decades of teaching still had many tentacles attached to my psyche. It took another decade to shake off the unconscious drivers that were shadowing me. And then it took another decade to SEE what the options were. Wow. What would my life have missed if by the grace of God I hadn’t made it to age 61?

The answer is- A LOT!

John Calvin wrote, “I confess indeed that artful men have introduced many inventions into religion to fill the vulgar with reverence and strike them with terror, in order to obtain greater control over their minds. And that they who cunningly impose on the illiterate under the pretext of religion were themselves were wholly destitute of any knowledge of God.”

I don’t blame my early child hood teachers. They were teaching me what they had been taught.

Thankfully, I am no longer teaching people what I have been taught. Nor, am I DEMANDING that what I am teaching they MUST embrace, nor that it’s the ONLY interpretation. We’ve been offered unconditional love and so that’s what I want to give: regardless of how hard that is to accomplish. Whatever failings I still have, and I am sure there are more than I know, I do not want to put FEAR into the minds of any- nor control others.

I just want to teach LOVE and more importantly BE LOVE!

Easier said than done!