Sunday Sundays. they never fail me.

I really freakin' love Sundays. They are more faithful than Jesus at showing up with some sort of pleasant thoughts of peace and perspective. It consistently happens on sundays for me.
I started off the day with a nice message from at a local houston church. good words on Toleration. and then on Fear. Fear drives me a lot on a lot of my day to day decisions and actions. it either paralyzes me from doing something i want to do....or it makes me do something i despise to do. My fears are best kept inside my mind for now.

a picture i was taking.

the guy i speak of in the paragraph to the right.

Then i went the local river/strip of chillaxation in the woodlands where i am staying. i was taking several pictures when some guy started taking pictures next me. we got to talking. i was absolutely totally encouraged by this guy. He was on his first day of his trip to experience and enjoy life. "Theres so many people who think it's about.....stuff" he said. he wants to enjoy life. participate in life. anyhow. he was very well versed in many things.. it sounded like he's a writer, engineer and a musician from our short dialog. He was also quoting people like jack carawak and referenced people like hemingway and all these other people whom i've never read or even heard of. smart guy. I'm not much of a reader. But it amazes me how people can understand and quote other peoples poetic writings.. Even my friend derek quotes movies like no other. My recall part of my brain really sucks. anyhow. This guy encouraged me on my trip ..and i really dug our short convo. he even did what i'm doing (cross country road trip) last year.  =) good day to me. inspirational.
Then we (kat derek and olive) went swimming and it kicked my butt!
anyhow.. That's today!

I was asked today what i would think about a particular something if i was my old christian self again. Putting myself back in how i would think is appalling to me. I immediately take out my brain and no longer think for myself, and i start making decisions based on the bible. I start critiquing. I start comparing things to what the bible says. "what does the bible say about it?" I start wanting to tell people what they need to be doing in life based on Jesus' example and other scripture references.. I can not be a christian because i cannot separate from myself a mind set of legalism. The to-do list. The how-to-be list. The what-not-to-do list. The how-to-think list. I was a legalist. A fundamentalist. I don't like that. I don't like the standard for life given to me in the bible.  it's too narrow. too exclusive. Too unclear. Too easily used as a proof text weapon...that is to say that anyone can take any scripture in any book in the bible and use it to their advantage to prove a point. Hence pretty much 10 different people have 8 or 9 different opinions about who jesus is and how he relates to them. I introduced my neighbor Neil to TBN one day when we were hanging out. His dad was recently murdered (Bastards!! they still haven't caught the folks who did it) and he has recently been going in to the faith as I myself am leaving. But he was intrigued by Jesse Duplantis, a silly televangelist who uses the bible to show that God wants you healthy, wealthy and wise...at least, that what it looks like by all appearances...i don't really know.. But he was tripping out watching these guys on TBN and seeing how they manipulate (at least in both of our opinions) the scriptures and how sooo many people are eating it up. He coudn't turn off the TV.
now i'm fine with that and whatever else people want to do with all the bible stuff. cuz .....well, it has no bearing on me whatsoever. before, i wanted to be biblically accurate. i wanted to hold to sound doctrine. I wanted to "study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth". 2tim somewhere.
So i'm free from that now. i know every Christian isn't like that. i know some pretty amazing christians. But i was like that.... and i'm washing my hands from that behavior. Since my little journey has started, I've had to apologize to at least 3 different people for my legalistic behavior and attitudes in the past that i know have caused offense! how dumb!
i'm learning. We all are.
Adamo.
p.s. sorry. these blogs are really easy to make really long. oh well. it will be fun to go back to them in the future to see what was going on in my ever changing thoughts.
Here is a painting that Derek, Kat and myself did last night.