Thank you dear brother Shane. (and others!)

I've labeled myself a Christian my whole life. My Christianity was one of fear. The story of my "faith" went something like this:

So there's God, who is God of all- but only us protestant white folk from the states know just who HE is and what he wants- which is for everyone else to become just like us. So God is this big male character who created us because he needed someone to worship him- but he only wanted perfect people to do this. He went ahead and made us so that we would fail this standard so that he could kill his son to make us feel real bad. Now that this ordeal is all done we have to scurry about telling the whole world that unless you become best friends with this son, his dad will send you to hell- hallelujah. Oh- and I almost forgot, we have a time limit. We have to tell the whole world before the good ones are sucked up into the land of perfect golden freeways with no traffic jams. God will then release all the evilness he had been saving up for the right moment and all those who didn't make his son their best friend will be tortured until they do. And this all has something to do with being republican.

So needless to say I was just about done with all that. The only thing keeping me there was fear. My whole life I kept trying to be best friends with Jesus because my daddy (both) said so. I really wanted to believe the radical things that Jesus said, but I somehow wasn't allowed to believe them. The "words of Christ in red" were constantly watered down through the lens of rich mega churches, and a condemning "cloud of witnesses". I was becoming sick and disillusioned. I didn't want to go to heaven, much less tell others to go there if all it was lonely rich, perfectly landscaped mansions, with as much orgasmic entertainment that we could dream of. And I sure as hell didn't want to worship a cologne smelling republican (I don't want to worship a democrat either, okay!)
Well, they must of known what was going on in my life-
although seriously there is much more important things going on in the world than my issues with theology or whatever, geez-
so to make a long post short, through a series of miracles, including a book that I want you to read (http://www.thesimpleway.org/shane/book.html), I found Jesus. Turns out, he's this crazy ass radical who smells, doesn't wear shoes, doesn't drive, drinks alcohol, and he even likes THOSE PEOPLE from the middle east! I think he might even like white rich people too, in fact he might even love them, more than I do.
A whole new story of the gospel is emerging from the lifeless ashes of the church. A story I'm starting to get new glimpses of, that has really nothing to do with the story I grew up with. This is only a beginning.
I feel something new starting, and I'm not sure what to do with it. (and I'm not alone). And I'm going to end this post abruptly and awkwardly because, the revolution takes time (and blood, sweat, tears), not eloquence.

Before its too late

I just read this http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=C&NewsID=5485 article. If I knew the slightest thing about html I would hyper-text (?) "this" so you could click on the link. But you go a head and copy and paste the address for now. I will comment on the nature of "A" beast later when I get caught up on diapers.