One morning, sitting on the porch, coffee in hand, Helder tying flies for our trip into the Slumgullion, I asked him if he was a Christian. “Great question, Passerby! Depends on who’s asking (i.e., judging) me.

Well, your question is one that I have given considerable thought to. So, pour another cup and get comfortable. There are some pizzelles on the sideboard.

In the spring of 1970, my military responsibility was completed, doing my part to protect the ‘honor’ of the French who had gotten themselves in a bit of a jam in Vietnam. If that sounds a tad cynical, please remember that they drafted most of us who served during the Vietnam era. Over the many years that I served military veterans as a hospice chaplain for Veterans Affairs, I never met a single Vietnam veteran who believed the Vietnam War was justifiable or good.

• • •

“I don’t mean that Christianity doesn’t ‘work’ for me, as if its veracity were measured by its specific utility in my own life. I understand that my understanding must be forged and re-formed within the life of God, and dogma is a means of making this happen: the ropes, clips, and toe spikes whereby one descends into the abyss. But I am also a poet, and I feel the falseness—or no, not even that, a certain inaccuracy and slippage, as if the equipment were worn and inadequate—at every step. And that’s in the best moments. In the worst, I’m simply wandering through a discount shopping mall of myth, trying to convince myself there’s something worth buying.”

—Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss

I returned home a ‘Christian.’ I had prayed the “sinner’s prayer.” Master Chief Cliff Wright, a fellow who, when he was home, attended the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, baptized me in an underground swimming pool. So, since all I really had to do to be considered a Christian was say I am one. I guess I was official.

At one time, I needed to know I was a Christian. One day, because of my experience with Christians, It occurred to me I was simply too embarrassed to admit to being one any longer. When I understood myself as a Christian, I meant I subscribed to and followed the teachings of the man Jesus. But, Christianity as the means of preserving and empowering the economic and political domination systems of our time to the distinct advantage of the powerful and to the obvious disadvantage of the powerless leaves me cold. Oh…I was never for a moment embarrassed by Jesus or his Father, and I can honestly say my trust in Her never failed, even for a moment. I have simply become too ashamed to go to church anymore, and I can no longer think of a context in which I would claim to be one.

I‘m a lover of the Great Spirit and a friend of Jesus.

There was a time when a small group of women and men followed the Rabbi from Nazareth. He had no credentials. As uneducated as they were and yet anointed by the Spirit, he spoke the eternal words of life, and they trusted him. They followed him because he spoke words of hope for the likes of them. He experienced being forgotten, bruised, and abused by the entitled, the educated, and the powerful because he was them. He said and did things because the Spirit was upon him and with him.“

“I’m one of those. A follower of the man, Jesus.”

I affirm and follow the teachings of Rabbi Jesus, who teaches me to Love his Father with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength so that there is nothing left over for the love of any other god, and because of that, I extend Love to all that She Loves, which turns out to be, all that She created. Often, to those who say they are Christians, I am a lost soul, unsaved, a backslider, or not one of the elect. To some, I am just a heretic, and to be fair, since I am no longer able to affirm what they claim I must to be Christian, they’re correct.

Passerby, Are you one of their elect?”

“Good question. I don’t know, maybe not. I once thought I was.”

• • •

“The one thing I would offer if I could provide you with no other words about anything, are these;

“If all you have become is the Lover of God by the end of your life, then I will be pleased, and you will be satisfied.”

These words, spoken to me by the Sacred Spirit in the fall of 1969 when I was a very young follower, remain the most important words She has said to me over the last 55 years of seeking an intimate relationship with Sacredness. The statement is deceptively simple, as She intended. But with 90% of my life now in the rearview mirror, I see more clearly how much my false (old man) self has suffered and died (Luke 9:23-25) as a direct result of my Love for Her, allowing my true self to see the light of day, a good thing.”

Suffering truly is the only thing I know that is capable of killing the spiritual pride keeping me from the fullness of Her Love.