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There are some concepts that come under the category of ‘too hard’ or ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘don’t want to go there.’ When I was asked to think of some consonant words I got to sky and wyrd (which is from the Dragons of Pern so may not be a word in use) and then had to add in vowels to get other words such as eighty, eighth, heights, weights and my longest … eighths. I managed to get a consonant pentagraph but wasn’t sure of the rules. The book I was reading was written in 1865 and was a grammar primer for university undergraduates of dead languages and it was like there was a whole pile of rules that the intended reader already knew.

I feel like that in church sometimes, that I missed the giving out of the rulebook. I don’t in my everyday life use expletives however I do in my writing if the character would speak in the vernacular. Since attending church regularly I have noticed that other people don’t swear either so it got me into a quandary for my main protagonist in a story I was writing. She was steeped in Celtic mythology, she was an urchin from an estate where the only colour in her grey life would be the blueness of the language.

 

Parenting, and my lack of wisdom in that area has always been an issue for me even before I attended church. I am trying to raise independent young men that can take care of themselves, give generously and love well. In church I found that the rules include corporal punishment, include not being allowed an opinion, in some cases include kowtowing because it is a man. I still don’t understand the rules but am failing as a parent anyway. (see prev posts)

 

I certainly have no concept of the rulebook regarding being a wife, we married young and had for our reference: a Catholic abuser/enabler/alcohol model and failed relationship model. The main issue we had our entire marriage was financial virtuosity. It is impossible to give generously if there is no concept of fiduciary. I still have no concept of the rulebook, we got a partial divorce and it has made our marriage stronger.

 

Then there is the whole set of rules about being a Christian. I just don’t get the rules I am shown by regular church going. I have had to go out and seek people who are willing to get ‘real’. For example x shares to y. y keeps the share but lets a, b and c know that x shared and that x shouldn’t have shared. Or there is an elephant in the room x is addicted to blah, no one in the congregation tackles x about addiction just pats them on the back like a good Irish mother and enables the addiction. When I was asked to write a five min testimony I struggled, really struggled on how to word it so I wasn’t sharing anything.

 

My male friend travelled to England with his married sister to be there for her whilst she had an abortion. My friend is eaten up with guilt over doing that, his sister is having another fling, the guilt is making my friend bitter, his heart is hardening, he is blaming, he is shaming but is keeping the secret for his sister. So it is manifesting in other ways, he is angry, but it is internal anger and he is getting more and more self medicated. That is real, that is reality for him. It is not my story, it belongs to him but he would never share that in church, he wouldn’t feel comfortable, he doesn’t feel it is a sharing environment.

 

Rules and who makes the rules?

God given rules I try really hard to follow, some of the ten commandments are really hard for me to maintain, I struggle with them. The two rules from the NT, to love and to go – I can do this, I do it, I am so thank full that God wants me in his family and if he wants someone like me, I know there is a place for everyone else in the world in his family. It is getting past the human made rules, jumping over the hurdles humans make, and to be honest that I make for myself – that is the hard bit. To keep the heart soft, unbitter, unhardened when surrounded by hard, bitter hearts.

 

Church is good, it is good to come together to glorify our Lord, to praise and worship him with others as they did in Acts and the epistles. It is good to fellowship, to share, to say when you are struggling, to say when you are thank full, grate full, praise full, worship full but is just as likely as anywhere else to have Satan trying to get in, trying to twist things, to make offense.