BECKY: THE "TRUE(?)CHRISTIAN

Thank you for responding back to me Becky.  

The very thought that you're think you should take the forgotten poems down because they represent a part of your past you prefer not being reminded of is the very problem with the rest of everything you had to say about your belief that Jesus is Christ.  Not all of us can express our sadness, grief, confusion as creatively as you did.  They serve a purpose once for you helping you get to where you are today. They can still help others this same phase in life you once were getting where they need being.  Without this creative outlet, you could have been bipolar, unipolar depressive, exhibiting manic behaviors, etc.   

This phrase you used, "true Christian", such an oxymoron as Jesus himself is not dictating what is and what is not a true Christian.  If the life he lived and died can not stand on it's own, have meaning,  without believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then I'm not sure I even understand what the example was that he lived.  The sad fact remains, we will never know the truth until the day we die, then we are free.  Our fate is set.    

Plus you can not take what Jesus said then, repeat it today, and have it mean the same thing.  You just cannot do this.  Not even Jesus himself could.  This is called pragmatic competence.  And it's our intention that creates our reality.  Some of us have to be "Charming".  It is my understanding that Jesus did not have to be charming and kind and just.  And it take a surplus of some kind being able doing this.  Those with a surplus are better able controlling their circumstances.  Those without are controlled by them; one is not always able exercising good judgement. 

Well he had some sort of surplus and he exercised judgement he did not have too.  This is simply not conforming to the norms/choices others would have chosen against their will.   

Plus...

a truly virtuous man would come to the aid of a distant stranger equally as he would a close friend; then again, a truly virtuous man would have no friends.  If you read the words carefully Jesus said during the last supper, he referred to his diciples as no longer being his servants, but his friends instead.  The quality of a good leader is one able disappointing his own people at a rate they can absorb.  There is no way, even GOD himself in the flesh as one of us could have spoken a language all would understand.  It's even possible the words Jesus spoke weren't even meant for the masses who gathered to hear him but for a selected few within the audience he saw as being  vunerable to being persuaded into following him.  

Sometimes the human heart needs more than the old ways can give it.  

For example, the Samaritan woman at the well...

Jesus was on her tuft, already at the well waiting for her when she came to fetch water, a daily routine with a predictable habit for all women of her time. And all he had to do was tell  her everything everyone else in her village already knew about her.  Nothing new at all for her to hear except from an unexpected stranger who said it with kindness and without judgement.  Then he sits back and let's her do all the work for him; spreading the news of someone they all thought viewed them with disdain. Sounds to me as if Jesus made new friends.  

What makes you think the previous men of her life didn't say sweet thing to her as well in the beginning.  It would have worked no other way.  Jesus was crafty, and this is still call empathy.  And manipulation and deception eliminates the possiblily of consent.  Just don't get too carried away with this "true CHristian" thing.  

Again...

"I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.   Your Christians are so un-Christ like." 

~Ghandhi

It can still be done without the need labeling yourself a "true christian."  

Let others do it instead.  

It means so much more this way.

And...

it was Bert's mother, crossing over to my side of the the street first introducing herself to me and her husband Bob's, nationally known pastoral consultant G. Robert Gary, Sr. ThD associated with Emory University Candler Shool of Theology, who as usual was not at home.  

After living several years acrossed the street from his parents, this was the first time meeting anyone face to face from that household.  There was a reason it had to be them introducing themselves to me first.  After this old woman finished telling me they had been approached by property developers offering them twice the value of their property to sell on the condition all seven consecutive lots acrossed the street from me agreed to sell,  I then told this clueless woman very pleasantly, 

"My name is James Avery.   I'm a veterinarian.  

And...

I live in this house.  

Not only am I gay, I'm an atheist as well."  

Very pleasantly I introduced myself to to this woman this way.

"Oh we're not that kind of Christian!" she quickly brushed me off with her immaculate ejaculation.  

And that's my point.  

All you have to do with "TRUE CHRISTIANS" is beat them too it; 

then they hang themselves from that point on "for all eternity living in the present!" 

It never fails.