Back to the blogosphere
I really want to get back into blogging.
There, I’ve said it. For some reason, I’ve had a hard time keeping up with it lately. It seems like I’m tired quite often, and when I’m tired, I just don’t feel like blogging. That said, I still want to start posting more than I have been lately.
A lot has happened in my life since the last time I posted an entry. I did get baptized on January 10. After that, though, things started to go downhill with the person I thought was my spiritual mentor. I started to see a very different side of him. I’m not going to sit here and bash him, which would be like stooping to his level, in a way. I’ll simply say that a few things became very apparent.
First, it became apparent that we are in completely different social classes with different views. Second, I started to realize that he was mainly in this for the thrill of the “conversion” (spiritual rebirth) itself and didn’t want to do the follow-up that he’d promised. Third, he started revealing things about Christianity that he’d kept hidden from me because he knew I’d have a “hard time” accepting them. Lastly, I am now pretty certain he really just wanted a disciple to follow him, not to follow God. He had apotheosized himself and apparently assumed I’d done the same.
I came to a realization that I do not need him to find my way as a Christian. I also realized that there are still a lot of Christians in this world who have a complimentarian worldview. In my lack of experience, I’d assumed this was an outdated practice and that most Christians were a lot more advanced by now. Silly me!
Turns out there are lots of “complimentarians” out there – those Christians who think women are not allowed to teach or lead men or mixed (male and female) groups. The men are supposed to lead, while the women take a submissive role and can only lead if they are among other women.
What?! Yeah, really. Again, I thought this was an outdated, archaic practice. Little did I know that it’s alive and well. Thankfully, there are also plenty of “egalitarians” out there – those who think women should be allowed to be pastors, as well as to lead groups and teach in general. I fall into that group, as does Dave.
Basically, the complimentarian view is based on a twisted interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12. I won’t go into it in-depth right now, but what was written as a reference to a particular group of domineering Ephesian women has been taken out of context and has been applied to all women in general. Thankfully, my research gene has turned up all sorts of material to support the fact that this verse doesn’t apply to all women…and there are lots of other verses that support equality of the sexes in general.
In spite of what my former spiritual mentor thinks, I am not going to “lose my way” without him. I am still studying, watching the pastor’s messages online, and researching the egalitarian churches in the area. Thankfully, we will have easy access to them in the valley…even in that sparsely populated area, we’ve found at least two churches that support Biblical equality!
Anyway…what else? I promised this wouldn’t turn into a blog that’s strictly about spiritual things, so I’ll move on.
I’m going to save the homestead photos for the next entry, as this one is already getting lengthy. The last time we were up, the woods looked amazing…like the aftermath of a flood. The creek had overflowed its banks earlier in the week, washing out a lot of the brush in the woods. It looked eerie, like a wasteland of sorts. There is a benefit, though, in that some of what was washed away was the thorny bushes I’d been planning on clearing anyway. They’re not all gone, but it did help, and I’m going to try to get rid of a bunch more this spring.
I’ll also have to write an entry about some of my favorite Etsy sellers and finds. So much great stuff there!
Right now, we’re in the middle of a major snowstorm. It’s been snowing since shortly after 12 noon yesterday, and it’s still coming down! I haven’t gone out to measure yet, but some of the cars parked along the street are completely covered. Just kind of chillin’ out – literally – for now. 
One of the things Martin Luther accomplished when he nailed those 99 Theses to the Wittenburg Cathedral door was introducing the idea that you don’t need a priest to speak to God or interpret the Bible for you. Glad to hear you’re keeping up the tradition and doing the work for yourself!
And you may not want to get rid of all the pricker bushes at the Homestead. I was planning on doing that at the Mountain house until I realized that all of our pesky thorn bushes were actually raspberry bushes! RASPBERRY BUSHES!! Oh, how I miss them. [sigh.]
Thanks! Doing the work for myself has actually been very interesting. I’ve found some pretty interesting things since I started looking into some of the supposed doctrines.
As far as the bushes, the ones I want to get rid of definitely aren’t raspberry bushes…but we do have some of those on the homestead! Since we don’t live there full-time yet, the wildlife eats most of them, but we did get a few last year. Yum!