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Loss and Grief: How are you doing?
Loss & Grief | Last Active: Apr 7 12:18pm | Replies (932)Comment receiving replies
@jimhd, @muppey I understand much of what you are both saying but would like to make a suggestion. At times, it feels to me as if you are painting all church people with a broad brush, and that may just be my reading into your posts something not there. There are quite a few people I see (virtually) on here who get their greatest support from a church family or minister. Please don't take that away from them. I am a child of the church as we never missed a time when the doors were open. My Mom told me recently that she now thinks that her insistence on being there for everything when me and my brother were younger was probably not one of her best parenting moves. As an adult I have always been in church regularly until I got sick and have a fear of large groups borne of opiates`, but did not begin to have a true relationship with my savior until after I got sick and learned to let him drive the bus and become needy in His presence. I still try to take the wheel at times and it never works out very well. Our religious experiences are always very unique to us and in every person's past is a "pillar" of the church who turned out to not be and for some that is an entire group. Jim, like you I stopped for a phone conference and have forgotten where I was and what I was thinking, so maybe I can pick it back up later.
Replies to "@jimhd, @muppey I understand much of what you are both saying but would like to make..."
Thanks for the observation, Gary. Absolutely, I shouldn't paint the church with a 12" brush. My experience has been that only one percent of Christians behave badly. The other 99% make it a joy to assemble together as a church family. It's unfortunate that the church is sometimes judged by the actions and attitudes of a few. The same thing applies to pastors and other leaders. Media, both print and social, seem to focus on the 1%. The same thing is true with the treatment of politicians and elected officials. It's easy to lose sight of the majority who do their job well, with dedication and integrity.
I'm a firm believer in the importance of the church as a force for good, whether personally or societally. I've missed very few Sunday worship in my 67 years. Church family is for me a tremendous support system.
I think that it's appropriate to paint with a broad stroke the picture of the church as a group of unrighteous people. (Romans - There is none righteous, no not one.) We're all subject to making mistakes. It's pretty much a universal condition, Jesus being the lone exception. But in the Father's eyes, we are loved and seen as righteous through the righteousness of the Lamb sacrificed for our sin.
Since none of us is righteous, there's certainly no room for looking down on others as less than, or as unforgivable.
More sermonizing.
Time for my appointment with the therapist. I'm going to be talking with him about the frustration of losing access to pain meds.
Jim
gman007, It's like I said above...."OK! Like I said, I'm learning things from you people. Thanks for the clue." When I say that I'm not being funny or sarcastic. In the past I've asked people, mainly family, what do I do to people that gets them so mad at me? No one has been able to answer that for me, and that's part of why I always wind up alone. Of course there is the occasional family visit and today I ran into a young lady friend I've known since she was 4 I guess, and she just got ghosted by her husband. She asked me to call and said she'd drop by. So maybe there's hope for me??? Nothing romantic going on here it's we've been friends and she boarded her horse here for 2-3 years, and etc.
What jimhd has gone through is very similar to my experience except he was part of clergy and I wasn't. Just one of my experience's is that I was trying to explain that there was a lot more to what is written than the things being said. After a while I was cornered into a 3 man trial. They told me that if I didn't stop talking about that then I am not welcome. So I left and was all alone again. It was another small town in CA.
These things compound to make a man crazy as the gossip starts and isolation and on it goes.
Don't mean to hurt your feelings because none of us needs that from another, and I apologize if that's what you perceived. I'm not a mean person but I can get defensive and lonely all in one stroke.
@jimhd I hope I don't have to have that convo with my psych. You are absolutely right about the whole church being unrighteous and I guess that is why those who are filled with self-righteousness are so frustrating, but that is just one more thing for me to work on. I can't remember where I wrote it, but I have a book titled "Religiously transmitted diseases". It is not a page turner and I have not gotten all the way through it, but universally, going back to the crusades, and likely farther, there have been many wrongs committed in the name of religion, but even so...I believe your statement about the church being a source for good that is greater than the bad is definitely correct. I certainly hope so. I wish we could get together in Rochester and talk theology, but that is just too far for me to venture from home.
Blessings, Gary
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gman007.
Really don't paint them all the same but when a person is subjected to the strange behavior of some of the preachers out there it can affect your life a lot. It can even cause a person to just not attend a church group anymore because they are treated unkindly. When they say things they can be mean and I just fade away from them. Don't need it.
Sorry if I upset you, and don't mean to do that. What bothers me is that I've seen people give up and become Atheist just because of what people do to them. I'm pretty sure they don't want to go that route but they just don't see anything kind.
I'd like to get more info from you if you'd like.