So Long

Dear Organized Religion,

I suppose we have both known this was coming for quite some time. It isn't any secret to anyone familiar with my life that we don't get along. For so long I have tried to make it fit, to shove my heart and thoughts and dreams in a neat little box with your name on it. But I am done.

I will no longer defend you. I won't stand for your oppression, your hate, the wars fought in your name. I will stand on the side of those weeping because of you. Those who feel like they have no place, I will be holding there hands. Those who are forgotten because there life isn't neat, who have other plans on Sunday morning, I am going to hang out with them.

Many of my friends like you, they hang out with you regularly and like how neat and tidy you are. They like the security of feeling like they are in the "right" while everyone else (God save there souls) is wrong. They enjoy having all the answers, knowing the right phrases, being on the inside. That is ok, I can be friends with them still. I can respect there love of you even when you have no place in my life.

You see, there is this dude in my life, he has been here for a while. I like Him. He doesn't love religion either, it makes him mad. This guy is the one who sought out the repressed and invited them to dinner, he is the one who told story after story to try and help people understand what it means to love, really love, radically love. Jesus and I are cool.

So with this I say goodbye. I don't want your neat box. I don't want your stupid, unending, fruitless arguments about pre-trib and post-trib, new earth and old earth. I don't want to hear any more of your polarizing drivel about dinosaurs on Noah's ark. I won't play on your team. I am much to busy to bow to your sacred cows, to honor your traditions that are empty and me and to pretend I care about your ceremony.

I don't need anyone to agree with me, I am now confident enough to walk my path hand in hand with a creator who made me in His image. Please, don't try and track me down. I will be eating meals with my friends, two men who are madly in love. I will be going on adventure with my kids and my recently divorced friend who is struggling to find his feet. My life is much to full for something like you.

Uninterestedly Not Yours,

Gretchen