This Carnival of Souls

Greetings Dear Reader,

The combination of those mocking followers of Christ and their need to see who Christ is beleaguers me.  Issues and opinions become battlegrounds where the smoke and fire obscure the true issue.  Those who are supposed to represent Christ take up banners that obscure his love and desire for us to be good to each other.  Those who do not follow him see only the hatred, real or imagined, of those who claim to follow Christ.

Today, not every day, but today I see so little hope that we can move beyond this.  Some of my friends pundit on the fact that much of our society sees disagreement as hatred.  Could it be that it is because we as followers of Christ are not showing enough love.

I return to church today for the first time in some weeks.  I had to take a respite from it because of my own internal struggles.  The pain of being there without my Sons has overwhelmed me and I see how the failure of Christ followers to truly love EVERYONE has influenced that.  I also see how my own failures contributed to this but my issue is not one of blame.  I was seeking respite from the pain so that I could return with more resolve.

My Sons must be honest to who they are.  I will not meddle in their choices but will always be honest about how those choices impact me.  I realize this seems to ramble but it is all the same thing.  In the excellent film, O Brother Where Art Thou, the character Tommy Johnson sells his soul to the devil for his musical talent.  His comment about his soul is the he is not using it right now.

What taxes me so heavily is that we have gotten so far from pondering what we do to our souls daily.  Those around me feel worn and tired.  So do I.  The music blares.  The barkers bark.  The machinery and screams blend into the cotton candy scented cacophony that distracts us from seeing that we are all headed toward a meeting with someone who will ask us how we used the life he gave us.  It is all real to me and today the weight of it is so painful that I can barely move.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."