The Curious Pilgrims

The News reports are depressing. The pictures of children starving in Gaza are inhumane. The destruction of property and the killing of innocent people in Ukraine and Gaza due to war are inexcusable. The establishment of a whites-only community in Missouri is disgusting. The flood deaths in Texas are beyond belief. The number of senior adults in America living in poverty….we could go on.

Paul writes in Ephesians 6 “This is no weekend war that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish…” (The Message)

We are in the same place that those before us faced. We are dealing with powers that control us: political, economic, and religious. They determine what is legal and illegal. They determine what we will pay for things that meet our needs, and they seek to tell us what GOD wants. They can be forces of good or forces that destroy, abuse, misuse, and kill.

Paul writes in Ephesians 6 (The Message) , “^13-18 Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.”

The news makes us feel so helpless, but Paul reminds us to use every weapon that God has issued. Paul lists the following weapons:

1. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life.
2. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon.
3. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters.
4. Keep your eyes open.
5. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

What great advice!!! Hang in there!!!

¹⁸ But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.^{[i] 19} They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. ²⁰ For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Romans 1:18-20

What a crazy time to live in the United States of America! I thought I had seen it all as a child growing up in Mississippi with churches burned, lynchings, and segregation. 60 years later, I see something worse. I see what Paul writes about in Romans 1.

The Gospel or the good news of the New Testament that Jesus practiced is summed up in Ephesians 2, which tells us our relationship with God comes from God’s grace, not from obedience to the law. How can you claim to be a Christian (claim to be a follower of Jesus) and not understand Matthew 25, which tells us how we will be judged?

Paul writes in Galatians 5:1 “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” Christ sets us free from the demands of the law so we can learn how to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus defined our neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan was considered unclean or a migrant, an illegal immigrant under the law, but he helped a Jew who would have been declared unclean by the law for touching an unclean person.

Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day, “Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24). We are so worried about illegal immigrants that we deny assistance to those who have medical needs, are hungry, and homeless. No doubt there is waste in government. It begins at the top with our current leadership, who make laws that benefit themselves and their views rather than what is best for all the people.

My prayer is for all of us who have chosen to follow this path. May God open our eyes to see the error or our way for allowing this to continue. We need Grace, not law. We need mercy not punishment. May God have mercy on us and all those who have already suffering from this path of destruction.

Christians call the Spiritual being God. Muslims refer to their Spiritual being as Allah. Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world. Religious people are spiritual because they take their religion seriously but not all spiritual people are religious. Spiritual people who are not religious do not need a church building or a mosque to connect to God or Allah.

Spiritual people who are not religious do not need a set of beliefs or faith to be spiritual. Spiritual people who are not religious are inquisitive, not judgmental, and practice equality and mutuality. One of the biggest differences between religious and spiritual people centers around what is considered true. For Christians, the source of truth is the Bible. For Muslims, the source of truth is the Quran. Christians believe God reveals God in the words of the Bible. Some Christians believe God stopped revealing God when the Bible was completed.

A nonreligious Spiritual person may encounter God, Allah, or the Great Spirit in a movie, a song, a book, or a walk in the woods. Movies connect me to the invisible, intangible world known as the Spiritual world.

In my seminary ethics class, I was assigned a project entitled, Should the church ordain Gays and Lesbians as pastors and elders.  The professor suggested I should watch a 1994 movie called Priest.  Priest is about a homosexual priest who is in the closet.  A student reveals in the confessional that her father forces her to have sex with him.  The movie is about the struggle the priest has with his own secret and the secret of the incest victim.  The end of the movie is a communion service where two priests are offering communion to the church. All of the church members go to the straight priest.  The only person who gets in line to receive the communion from the gay priest is the incest victim.  I entered the spiritual realm at that moment.  I was forever changed.  My journey took a turn.  Since then, I have found connection to the Spiritual world in music, in art, in others, and yes, in movies.

There are experiences in life so profound that they transform us, though we may not fully grasp their impact until someone says something, we hear a song, or we see a movie that opens our eyes to the changes we need to make. For me, that moment came through a song—“The Fine Line” by Wayne Watson. This song set me on a pilgrimage of discovery that has lasted for 36 years.

My story begins with a pivotal loss. My father, who served as a pastor in the Free Will Baptist denomination, passed away when I was just 14. At 15, I became the pastor of that same small church, and by 16, I was ordained into ministry. Despite my youth, I embraced the responsibilities of the role, and after high school, I attended what is now Welch College. It was there that I met a wonderful woman who became my wife when I was 19. Life seemed to be on a steady path, but by 1988, after 19 years of marriage, we divorced. That period was one of the lowest points in my life.

For months, I struggled to find my footing. Then, one day, I visited a Christian bookstore with a friend. Browsing the music section, a cassette tape titled Fine Line caught my eye. Intrigued, I decided to listen to it there in the store. The opening lines of the title track struck a chord deep within me:

There’s a fine line Between contentment and greed

Between the things that I want And the things that I need

As the words resonated in my heart, I began to feel a stirring—a nudge I couldn’t ignore. Could it be that God was speaking to me through this song? I’d always been taught that God’s voice came only through the written Word, the Bible. Yet, this moment suggested something different. This song planted a seed in my mind, and over time, that seed grew into a quest for understanding.

Change didn’t happen overnight. The journey was gradual, but it led me to embrace new ways of thinking. By 1999, I made a significant decision to change denominations, joining the United Methodist Church. This denomination’s perspective was a revelation to me. While it holds that the Bible is the primary source of truth, it also recognizes the importance of tradition, reason, and experience in discovering God’s truth. This holistic approach to faith guided me to new horizons, including seminary.

In seminary, my pilgrimage took another step forward. During an ethics class, I was assigned a movie that profoundly shifted my understanding of God’s presence and voice in the world. This experience reinforced the idea that God’s Spirit moves through various mediums: the words of others, films, music—not just Christian music—art, athletics, work, and the vastness of the universe itself.

Today, I see myself as a curious pilgrim, constantly learning and growing. My journey has transformed my understanding of humanity’s relationship with God. I no longer view people as inherently born sinners, as many Christian traditions teach. Instead, I see us as immature creations, continually being shaped and formed. Life is a process of creation, a journey of lifelong learning. The Spirit of God speaks to us in countless ways, inviting us to grow through every experience and interaction.

This pilgrimage of discovery has taught me that divine truth is not confined to a single source. It is woven into the fabric of life, present in the mundane and the extraordinary. Through openness, curiosity, and a willingness to listen, we can hear the voice of God calling us to become the people we are meant to be.

Chaos theory, a scientific and mathematical theory, teaches that small changes in a complex system can lead to changes in the system. Greek mythology teaches that chaos, a gaping emptiness, existed before creation occurred. The Hebrew Bible describes the earth as being without form and void. The Earth was in darkness. God began to speak, and the chaos changed into light, land, vegetation, animals, and humanity.

Chaos still exists in the world as humanity knows it. Variables such as political power, religious power, and economic power can alter the behavior of Earth’s inhabitants. For example, if humanity continues to pollute water, land, and air, humanity will incur epidemics of disease, or may not have sufficient water and food supply to sustain populations.

Religion may convince political power to ban some behavior, like homosexuality or divorce. Political power may exert force to stop protests and resistance. Economic power may use its resources to create war between nations or rebellion within the nation. For example, slavery and states’ rights are major causes of the American Civil War.

Chaos brings change. Individuals deal with crises daily. For example, illness can produce change. Death creates change. War brings change. A car repair can alter behavior. Hearing a sermon in church can change attitudes.

Humanity needs a solid foundation that can handle the chaos in life. My foundation is based on the premise that life is sacred. I do not believe in the concepts of secular and profane. The creation story states that when God created everything, God looked at it and saw that it was good. I still believe that the universe is sacred and holy. What makes the universe bad comes from the selfishness of its inhabitants. Selfishness creates chaos. Chaos brings change.

I have a simplistic view, for we tend to forget that God is love and the breath of God or love is in all of us. We create chaos that leads to wars, death, and destruction when we fail to love God, others, self, and the universe as God designed us to do. Yes, I believe in free will or the right to make choices. I chose to love and not hate.