Written 100609

Age 35 – The Dream – The Night I Banished the Radical Christians

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I suspect that on the deeper levels of my being I continued to be bothered inside of me because of the radical experiences I had in connection to my Mother being ‘born again’ and the religious abuse that I experienced at both her hand and the hands of those members of her Assembly of God church that chose to participate in her abuse of me.

By the age of 35 I had long since decided that I believed everyone not only has the right to pursue the religious beliefs of their choosing, but they have a spiritual responsibility to bypass the age-old tradition of blindly following the religion of their parents and instead need to independently investigate the truth of religion for their self.

I also suspect that if a person knows what they are looking at, and examines the context of a radical, ‘fundamentalist’ follower of any religion, they very well would probably find a disorganized-disoriented insecure attachment disorder.  Those are the exact patterns that predispose people to organize and orient themselves radically around external ideas, causes, objects and people — instead of around a perfectly healthy SELF.

I also knew that I was not going to subject myself to ANY experience with ANYONE who assumed they had the right to bully me in any way with their own religious doctrines, demands or condemnations.  But evidently until the night I had this dream I had not completely taken back my own peace and power from those who would pursue religious bullying behavior.

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The Dream

I lived in the country on a peaceful farm with my family in this dream.  One night we celebrated our friendships by inviting those close to us over for a potluck dinner and an evening of visiting, music and board games.

A feast of wonderful food was spread across our table.  The many people who were our guests continued to dine at their leisure as the rest of us enjoyed one another’s company in good conversation and pleasant laughter.  The peace of the evening was suddenly broken by hard pounding on our front door accompanied by loud shouting.

I heard a man’s voice, clearer and more demanding than the rest.  “Open this door!  Open this door now!  Let us come in!  We have the message of the ages and we are here to offer you Christ’s salvation.”

I tried to ignore the ruckus as I attended to the comfort of my guests.  But the fray only worsened.  The pounding and the shouting began to disturb and trouble my company.  So I walked around the back of my living room couch filled with guests watching a crackling fire in my fireplace, across my stone-tiled floor to my front door and opened it.

There stood a crowd of people, all holding their Bibles in the air, swaying and stomping their feet, yelling in unison, “You are all sinners!  Repent!   Tonight is your night to fall at the feet of your Savior and ask His forgiveness for your sins!  Let Him wash you all clean as new driven snow!”

I simply stood there and stared at them, watching as their frenzy increased like a pack of wild dogs that have spotted a vulnerable prey.  They looked all the world as if they’d plum lost their minds!  My eyes left their faces as I raised them to the sky.  There above us was a blanket of blackness that sparkled and shown with ten trillion bright stars.  A soft evening breeze ruffled the leaves of nearby trees, and an owl hooted faintly in the distance.  I knew this was one of the clearest, most perfect night skies I had ever seen, and I raised my right hand upward and spoke softly and distinctly to this rowdy, demanding crowd.

“Look there,” I suggested to them gently.  “Look up there.  Look around you.  Listen to that night bird.  See those diamond stars.”  I waved my arm slowly through the air in all directions around me and continued, “This is my God.  Here is my salvation, right here in this perfect night, here with my well loved friends, as we gather in the warmth and comfort of this home on this land.  See it all.  Feel it all.”

One by one each of the twenty or more noisy people crowded around my front steps shut their mouths and lowered their Bible waving arms to their sides, and became absolutely silent as if in stunned surprise.  One by one they arched their necks and allowed their eyes to gaze upon the perfect beauty above them, and then around them.  The entire crowd grew silent like a scared child will when held closely and soothed by its trusted parent.  “Oh-h-h,” they murmured.  “Oh-h-h-h,” they sighed, one by one, as if they had never before this moment seen the beauty of the world around them, as if feeling peace for the first time, something they had been missing all of their lives.  “Oh-h-h-h, I see!”

They began to turn around, one by one, speaking softly to one another as they wandered slowly away, disappearing into the night’s peaceful darkness.  I have never again, since this dream, been bothered by any form of religious bullying.  I will not allow it to encroach upon my dreams.  I will not allow it to approach me during my waking days.  It is finished.  I knew it the morning I awoke from that dream and I know it now.  I had never known that banishing the radical Christians from my life could be so easy — but it certainly was!  Hallelujah!

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