Good-bye Sky Daddy

Goodbye Sky Daddy

Last week I was sitting in my car shell shocked after being robbed by six men in bumper to bumper traffic at a traffic light. It got me to thinking how things have changed. A few years ago I would have cried out to the Lord. It struck me that at no time during the incident did that enter my mind. Even though I got a bit rattled which is normal I had an inner strength and calm. I knew I was strong enough to handle it.

This brought me to thinking about the difference between where i am now, knowing I am one with the life source, creator of the universe and where i used to be, worshipping a man made sky God forced on me by my religion.

There were some comforts in that religion like being able to turn to a higher being for help in a crisis but that is really the only thing i can think of. I sat there pondering how things have changed.

It took me a while to get used to the fact that i no longer had a personal relationship with my "sky God". Now I know that the life source creator of the universe is one with us and every living creature and plant. It is however almost "perfectly impersonal" and "wondrously indifferent".

Even in my uncertainity in this 'organic life force" and just how it is interacting or not interacting within me or humanity it is still much better than the old bullshit I was fed by organised religion.There is so much wrong with the old time religious fundamental theology that it can make one more of an atheist than a believer in something much higher and within all of us. I am having to crawl again but this time with no expectations. I prefer to 'believe" in the life force, the source in all things than to believe in the man made god of the chosen and of the very few!

What we are interacting with is amazing. This system that I refer to is more consistent, more no-respecter-of-persons, more same-yesterday-today-and-forever than any possible "God" humankind could dream up - either in ancient or modern times.

God, drunken baby daddies and gang rape By Rain de Grey

Hello there boys and girls! Today we are going to talk about the bible. You have heard of the bible, haven't you? In specific we are going to talk about Genesis 18 and 19. It is a lovely story full of gang rape and incest and successfully bargaining with an infallible God. I am going to translate it to more modern terms of phrase so that we can all understand it, but feel free to get out your bible and follow along!

Let's get started, shall we?

So God says to Abraham, "Hey I have heard really bad things about Sodom and I am going to go check it out and if it is bad as everyone says it is I am totally going to destroy it."

And Abraham says "I hear where you are coming from God, but check this out as a concept...what if there happens to be 50 good and righteous men in Sodom? Would you destroy the good along with the bad? Would you really destroy all of Sodom, including the 50 righteous man? That seems kinda messed up"

And God replies "If I find there are 50 good men, I will spare the city."

"Ok, that is amazing, and thank you God, but hear me out, I don't mean to nag, but what if it was 45? Would you destroy the city over 45 men.

"Fine, fine, if I find 45 good men I will spare the city."

"Thank you God, and please don't be pissed, because you really are the best, but how about 40?"

"40. Ok, I can do 40." says God.

"Can I counter with 30?" Abraham replies.

"30? I can give you 30."

"Can we go for 20?" Abraham asks.

"...Yes" says God.

"Ok, I swear that this is the last time that I can going to ask, but can we try 10?"

"Ten! Ok, ten. I will give you ten." God replies.

Thus we learn that God can be easily out negotiated and that Abraham is the sort of man that you would want on your side when you are buying a new car.

So God sends two angels down to Sodom to have them check out the town. When the angels run into Lot, Lot invites them to his house to spend the night. "Naw, we are ok," they say. "We are just going to crash in the town square."

"That is a seriously horrible idea," Lot says. "I really have to insist that you spend the night at my house and not in the town square."

"Fine" the angels reply. "We will stay with if you insist so strongly."

Thus we learn that Lot can also negotiate something fierce. Once Lot gets the two guys settled in his place and fed the ENTIRE male population of the whole town turns up at Lot's house and says "Hey, bring out those two guys you have in there. We want to fuck them."

"That is a horrible thing to suggest" Lot says to the horny rapey crowd. "Please don't do that. I have two virgin daughters. How about you gang rape them instead?"

"No way!" the crowd shouts. "We don't want pussy. Pussy is bullshit! We want that strange ass! Hand it over."

This is when God and the angels realize that there are no redeeming qualities to the city of Sodom. "Get the heck outta here," the angels say. "We taking this place down. We are leveling this stranger raping city of perverts. Leave before you also get destroyed."

Thus Lot, the one good man in the entire city, fled and ran around a bit on the plains with his daughters before settling into a cave up in the mountains. His wife didn't make it as she was unable to negotiate with God as well as her husband. After a while his two virgin daughters noticed that they were living in in a cave with only their father around and that there was a distinct lack of baby daddy material to be had.

So his his one daughter says to the other "Hey you know our dad who wanted to give our hymens to an entire city? We really need to preserve the family line. Let's get him drunk and fuck him so that we can get pregnant."

They then totally did just that and both got pregnant. Which must of made future family reunions kinda awkward. And also raises the the question, if the guy willing to offer up his virgin daughters to be gang raped by an entire town to protect the asses of two dudes he just met a few hours earlier is the one decent man in the entire city, what were the rest of the people in the city like? They probably did really bad things to kittens.

Ok boys and girls, that is our bible lesson for the day. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Incest, gang rape and out haggling God for the win, am I right?

My Imaginery Enemy

I had heard of imaginary friends but imagine my shock when I came to the slow realization that I had an imaginary enemy. It turned my life around.

I grew up in religion. My mom did a good job. You couldn't separate me from it. The two of us were somehow one. I knew I was Catholic before I knew my own name. I don't remember a time before religion.

God was the center of my universe. I loved him but I also feared him. Who wouldn't fear a monster that could send most of His creation to an eternity of eternal torment, burning in a flaming pit and gnashing of teeth. A God that would create a devil and make us spend our life fighting him with little or no victory. Yet I thought I had this amazing relationship with him. Lordship. That's what it was all about. I realise now that the God I was serving was a being that I had created. One that the church had created. A false "Sky God" that demanded worship and wanted to be appeased. This was not the real God, the creator of the universe. Someone that created all of this could only be rooted and established in pure love. This wasn't love. The only true God is the one that we find within ourselves and within others.

But that was not the worst part, the worst part was the day I realised that I had spent the last four decades fighting an imaginary enemy. Doing spiritual warfare against a fork tailed monster that didn't exist. Wasting my time, putting on the "armour of God" living each day in a spiritual battle, battling unseen forces, fearing their infiltration into my mind. Everyday problemo is s were seen as an enemy attack. Spiritual warfare would be needed to root him out.

It was exhausting and in truth, there was little or no victory. Any ground that was perceived to have been gained was always ripped back in a crippling defeat. I could never understand why their was no real "victory". Where was the freedom? What a fucking waste of time.

The day I realised that he was a figment of my overactive imagination that had been programmed into me from as young as I could remember was the day that I did find that freedom and victory. I just let it go. A monument was  shattered in my mind. It all came tumbling down. I would never go back into that kind of slavery again. That kind of crippling fear. It had been a part of me forever. Cammy and fear were one. That fear just evaporated. Gone..... Never to be seen again.

I was free. Freer than free. It felt amazing. I could breath. I could be myself. It took me a long time to find that self. I had to unwrap her from all the religions chains that I was wrapped in. I didnt know who I was after spending a lifetime of being one with religion I didn't know my true self. I didn't know how to think for myself. Was I allowed to?

God lives in you, as you....playing in our boodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water. No separation, no duality. Just one.

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in us all...which wolf do you feed..? Remains my favourite question.

We are, after all, what we think.....our emotions are the slave to our thoughts and our thoughts are the slave to our emotions.

I am now revelling in my new found freedom. I'm enjoying being myself. Finding myself. Thinking for myself. No more fear. No more fighting. I'm not living in a battle. I have found myself in all men. One. One with each other. One with the creator and one with love. That's all. Sweet and simple.

My journey from "religion" to freedom. From "fucked" to "unfucked".😌

After deconstructing and shedding my previous "religious" life, at the age of 40, which started off in a catholic convent, horror of horrors (on a serious note, I loved it, even wanted to become a nun, lol), I began discovering that there were all kinds of other societal beliefs, mindsets, narratives and ideologies that I had been programmed with, never thought of questioning and just followed out of default. I was not my true self. I was a robot that had been fashioned by society and the church and taught not to think or question. Now, it can be maddening because sometimes it seems the entire world is blindly entangled in a web of falsehood. George Orwell said, "Truth is treason in the empire of lies". I wonder how much of our lives are ensnared in and governed by these false beliefs, mindsets, narratives and ideologies, which are a violation of what we know through our higher awareness? If we truly divested ourselves from them, I'm guessing we would look like crazy folk to the rest of the world. As Nietasche said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music". I have certainly found this to be true. How far was I willing to go to divest myself of the current order and live according to my newfound awareness? For me, it was as far as I needed to go. All the way. Over the edge. Everything I had ever believed in came crashing down which was a wonderful turning point for me. In the awakening process I found myself becoming aware of a whole new world that that I would never dared to have looked at before. People that I previously avoided at all costs because of their beliefs suddenly became attractive. I suddenly had a lot more tolerance for people in general no matter what their belief system, sexual orientation, fetishes, addictions etc. The only way I can describe this process is that I used to be fucked and now I am unfucked. My mind that is. Now I'm free to be myself, free to explore. I've never felt freer. The freedom that I thought I had before was actually bondage. 

BEING FORCED TO FACE MY GREATEST FEAR

It has been over a year since my last entry on this particular blog.  It is hard to know where to start.  I didn't write a thing on this blog in 2012.  The strange this is that I have noticed that quite a few bloggers that I know didn't write a thing either and by the tone of their last entries it looks like 2012 could have been a year of finding their feet again.  I didn't write as I have been finding my feet again.  Well,  2012 was an amazing year.  It was a good year for me personally.  God was really good and gracious to us.  He is restoring and rebuilding foundations in our lives. 

It was also a very difficult year though in the sense that I had to face my greatest fear.  I don't know how much to say about this but it had to do with control.  Ever since I was a teenager I had a plan for my life.  I thought it was God's plan and initially it was but then I put my stamp on it and endeavoured to make it come about with all of MY strength.  My greatest desire was to follow God and be serving Him as a family, preferably in full time ministry.  When my children were born I had a plan for their lives,  they would serve God from the time they could speak, be speaking in tongues by the time they were three etc.  I had a plan for my husband's life as well.   I had made an idol out of "the calling".  Well anyway, as the years went by I saw us steadily going forward in His plans for us.  Whenever anything threatened this forward move, I would panic and start to control.  I wasn't controlling in a very noticeable way but I nevertheless I was.  I wasn't willing to leave things up to God, in case He messed it up.  Can you believe that?   Well,  we got involved with a group of people tbat were into works but no love.  We obviously didn't see it at first.  It unfortunately or fortunately took us years.  I say fortunately because I now don't look back on this part of our lives as a mistake but rather a place where we learned so much about God, people and ourselves.  We also learned how not to do things.  On reaching the end of this period we were faced with the choices we had made and the consequences thereof,  and where we faced our dream going up in smoke and were left with smouldering ashes, broken relationships, hurts, disappointment and trying desperately to make sense of it all.  God, didn't you tell us to do this?  Didn't you make it soooo clear to us?  What happened?  

This is where I personally realised my greatest fear.  Having no control whatsoever over our family's destiny. Realising that we were so damaged that we might not recover.  My greatest fear was that my husband and children might not follow God?  This was terrifying.  I didn't know what truth was anymore.  After five years of having a "different" gospel drummed into us, I found myself questioning everything I had ever believed.  This is where I gave up.  This was where I gave my precious family, my husband and children to God.  I laid them at his feet and took my controlling hands off the situation.    He has a plan for each person's life and it is not my job to try and orchestrate it.  With regards to their relationship with God, that is His plan to work out not mine and most importantly, IN HIS TIMING.  All I can do is love them, accept them and pray for them whilst trying to regain my own footing again.  

I have found such freedom in this.  Such Grace.  There truly is freedom in Christ.  He is slowly taking me on a journey of showing me Grace.  After being in a group of people that frowned on grace, this has been so refreshing.  I have seen how He is slowly working in all of our lives and the beauty of it is that it is real, truth. It is Him working and not me.  I can see how He is gently touching my family's life and working in each one of us to reveal Himself to each one of us in a personal way.  This time without me getting in the way.  He is establishing our foundations again and showing us grace, grace and more grace.  I love NOT being in control.  I love leaving it to God and watching Him work. I love that He loves my husband and children and He will be the one who takes them through life and reveals to them that He is the true lover of their souls.   I love being at peace where I am right now, regardless of my circumstances, regardless of whether I am serving the kingdom or doing nothing at all.  I know that He loves me no matter what state I am in. I never want to control again.   

This is why I don't despise the period I went through with Kingdom Encounters.  I believe that God allowed it so that he could purify our walk with him.  In the future we will make sure that it is God we are listening to and following, not man.  We will never put works before relationship.  We will never make idols of certain aspects of the kingdom, like works, or missions, or prophecy or healing etc.  I personally will watch out that I don't go into control again.  I never want to try to God's job for him.  Our relationship with him is the most important thing and everything will come out of that.  

Back to Basics - Back to Grace - Freedom in Christ

Wow, it has been just over a year since my last blog entry. I don't know where to start. I can testify to one thing. He is faithful and will never leave us nor forsake us. It has been an amazing time of learning more about Him, His grace, His faithfulness, His love. A lot of it has been very difficult. I truly feel like we have been through the valley of the shadow of death, the desert, etc. My faith was tested like never before. Believe it or not, I never believed that my faith would ever be tested. We have, however, come through it (still are) stronger and having a deeper knowledge of Him. For me it has been amazing to see how God has been there for us throughout the whole process, unchanging, steadfast, faithful. Even when I have felt at my lowest, hopeless, He has still been in control, waiting to show me the next step and to teach me another mystery of His Kingdom. Isn't this beautiful.

I cried out, "I am slipping!" but your unfailing love, O Lord , supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. (Psalm 94:18, 19 NLT). Because of this scripture, I can say confidently, never give up.

We have learnt a lot of "how not to do its". I am not saying that this is for everyone. That is for your to figure out but this is what I am learning from my walk with him.
Never take one aspect of the kingdom and make it an idol. The only idol we can have is Jesus. The most important thing is our relationship with him and then others (discipleship plays a huge role here). So many churches focus on one aspect of the Kingdom and then think they have the secret, the answer. Some of them focus on missions (missional church) or prophecy or healing. The only thing we should focus on is Jesus and our relationship with him. Out of that will come our works. It will be a natural process. There is danger in becoming a group of people that focus on one aspect and make an idol out of it, thinking we have the answer and perhaps even becoming proud of our works.

We are a group of people addicted to and obsessed with the work of the Kingdom, with little to no idea how to be with the King.
Many church leaders unknowingly replace the transcendent vitality of a life with God for the ego satisfaction they derive from a life for God.

Another vital truth for me has been love. John 13:35 By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. If this is missing then the warning bells should be going off. Don't be so busy performing that you don't love your neighbour.

For me it is back to basics. The fundamentals of our faith. I know once again see the beauty of grace, the freedom we have in Him. I had been so busy with works that I had lost sight of grace. That is so sad. There truly is freedom in Christ. Why do we as His children try and negate what He has done for us by putting our works stamp on it. We are so busy with performance that we don't love each other.

We are so quick to point a finger and judge when others are not doing what we think they should be doing according to a specific section in God’s Word that we ascribe to. I never want to judge again.

Man-made rules that we wear like a cloak. We hang them on ourselves until we are so burdened by them that we are in bondage. We can’t love; we can’t minister; we can’t worship, pray or respond to our Father coz we too busy to hear His voice and then we sometimes hear what we want to hear.

John 16: 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

We are in a period now of healing, taking stock, rebuilding our foundations, listening only to Him and not man who has his own plans. Back to basics.

AUGUST 2010

August was a wonderful month. Freezing, Warm, Sunny, Overcast, God working in us, Paradigms ever changing and so forth and so forth.

We have been working hard on our "calling" and have learned so much these last few months. Right now we plan to spend about 4 to 5 months of a year in Asia. We are working on what the time in SA will look like and what God wants us to do with that. We are looking at 4 or 5 areas where we can get involved and serve. We can highly recommend "stepping out of the boat", "jumping out of the nest", "leaping off the cliff" to anyone. It is terrifying and causes you to face your deepest fears but at the same time it is indescribable to be caught by God. He truly is holding us in his palm and lighting the path before us. We are realising more and more that we cannot do what He has called us to on our own. Whenever we think that we can "take it from here", he kneecaps us and reminds us that we are entirely dependant on him and must walk with our hand in His, involving him in every decision. Yes, that scary word, Lordship. He is in control, actively involved and His will is known. This is a difficult lesson as we in our "western culture" like to be in control and independent. But we are learning that this cannot be. Another thing we are learning is that "laying down your life" is a daily decision. It is really not easy but there is no other place we would like to be. This is the veld that we go walking and riding in each day with our family. It is the most beautiful place to spend time talking and listening to God. It also give us a bit of much needed exercise.
















Home school has been forging ahead. Lots of maths, english and other subjects, among others, snakes. This python, Strangles, piqued Jo's interest in snakes again. Coco is avidly trying to tame her Tarantula, Charlie. The problem is that we've discovered that we all suffer from severe arachnophobia. It is amazing what terror that palm sized creature can inspire.


































Joachim was very excited when he won a Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief DVD from Puffin Books in London.


















Proof that homeschooling can be done whilst babysitting the neighbour's baby, Danika. The children are also learning to serve, serve, serve and willingly look after her.



















We had dinner with Ansie, newly returned from Discipleship Training School in Chennai in India. She spent six life changing months there. It has been wonderful to see the change in her. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Missions definitely changes us.