Methodist Annual Conference 2011

As I sit here today, our last day of annual conference, I'm one big conflicted mess.

I'm a rational thinker, one who likes order, who prefers to see, feel, touch, smell, taste, or whatever to know things are real. I like to get up to my elbows in gunk to know what it is. This has always, ALWAYS been my problem with being Methodist. God, Jesus, all of it, they stories of man, tales told, written down, changed, and passed down. Can anyone say they've met God? Shook hands with Jesus?

However:

There a side of me that just wants to let go, open up to the literal "what if" questions about God, Jesus, the Bible, and just dive in. I watch the people around here, not the paid "holy" people, they don't count. The laity, those who do just because they believe. No payment, no "back scratching", just being servants because that's what the Bible says.

It conflicts me because in the grand scheme, I want to make a difference, to matter, to make my life mean something. True, I can do that without the church, but the amazing things they do, I cannot image this happening WITHOUT the church.

I've talked with people who've done great things with the church, yet, I've had elders in Alaska talk about how they were beaten by those of the church, told they were speaking "the devil's tongue" when they did spoke their native tongue, again, conflict.

At some point, this will get worked out, good, bad or otherwise. Until then, I live, tending my garden, loving my wife and kids, and trying to do the best I can.