When religious fear cripples the heart, the life, the breath.. When religious fear suffocates what do you do?

A comment I got today hit home.

A fear of making a religious mistake, was the utterance.

I flashed back to months ago, to a year ago, to a lifetime ago.
I have lived a life time knowing fear all to well...
Those same sentiments filled my heart.
Religious fear.

You know what cured it?

Me, the yoga mat, an Episcopal Priest, some new friends, and the Spirit of the Living God.

Let's just start with what finished that last sentence.  Maybe that's where I should have begun. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom! Not fear. There is permission not restriction. There is internal change not an external adherence of religious criteria and standards. There is beauty. There is wonder. There is power. There is life. Where the Spirit of the Lord actually is, there is LIFE! Light, joy, peace, kindness, compassion... That is the Spirit of the Lord.

I've lived a life time, decades;  living with  discernment, intuition, knowings. I was taught by others  how to hone that which was within me. I teach others how to understand what is within them. I was shown how to trust that which I felt, saw, heard, knew. I show people how to trust that which is within them and beyond them.

 Beyond any of my training. Beyond any of my education. My favorite teacher has been Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit's job to lead into all truth. Not the role of a man or a woman. Not my role and not yours. To know the Spirit is to know the nature and character of spirit.  The Spirit is whole. Lacking in nothing. Kind and generous and true. Capable and beautiful. If one of Christ's last promises to humanity was that the One who would be sent back to earth had a job to do. That job was to lead into all truth. ALL. Not American, white, heterosexual, name a denomination's preferences for theology, etc...TRUTH.. BUT TRUTH
 The Spirit's job is to lead all of humanity into all truth.  WHAT AN IMMENSE and COMPLEX JOB!  Only suited for the Spirit of the Living God.  Not for me. Not for you.

So how dare we take a whole practice that is 1000s of years old and deem it unworthy, deem it demonic, deem it 100% dangerous regardless of the practitioner.  I won't go into the arrogance of that. Because the reality that keeps me grounded and full of joy and able to hold the tensions and questions that come, is that when Christ appeared on the religious scene the religious were afraid.  He was new. His message tore at their insides. His message compelled humanity to reach higher and beyond human flesh into the heart of divinity and to become higher, and more like the very one who had created them.

 His teachings threatened the status quo of centuries. His teachings brought the religious face to face with God and the religious hated it so much that they killed the very God that had come to save them. His teachings opened up access to the leper, to the woman, to the Samaritan, to the child, to the hurting, to the sick, to those that were deemed untouchable, unclean. God came down and pronounced that there was no human being unclean, unable to touch the hem of the garments of God, none unlovable, none unacceptable.

God came down to earth.  There is no place on earth God wouldn't go.  So ask the questions. Admit your afraid. Admit you don't know. Admit that there are things in the world of spirit and light and liberty and joy that we don't let ourselves touch. AND THAT IS SAD!  Out of fear we call something that is holy and beautiful demonic.  They did, we do.. it hasn't changed.  Religious human beings called the Christ demonic.  Let that set in.  Fear... Fear of change,  fear of being led wrong, lack of control.. FEAR.. fear... fear kills. Fear breaks up friendships and creates 1000s of denominations.  We like what we like and we want to have an us and a them. BUT CHRIST made humanity the US.

It took me and takes me deliberate energy to overcome religious fear.  I was paralyzed. Enter an Episcopal priest who had nothing to lose and nothing to gain from my life.  My religious community had lots to lose.  My religious community had to face that one of them was changing. One of them didn't want to have an "us," a "them." But that man, that priest.. had nothing to lose by being my friend. Nothing to gain because of who my husband was, or who we had been trained by, or any number of things.  (Just as a side note... next time any of you think to ask me what John Paul Jackson would say about yoga realize that I know! I know because I heard him myself, say what he personally felt about yoga. Don't you remember? My husband was on staff. We graduated and taught for the ISD. So of course  I know what JP would say.  Do you want my truest answer? Not polite. Not reverent of the dead. Honoring yes.. I honor that man. You have no idea, how much he changed my life.  BUT GUESS WHAT?!?! He was just a man. AND HE COULD BE WRONG! He was wrong about things. Why? Because he was a man.  No ONE man can lead ALL of humanity into ALL truth, unless that man was God. And while some treated that man like a god! HE WASN'T. We can all be wrong.

So how do we know if we are right? What do we do when fear comes crashing in? What do we do when someone says God is going into Samaria and allowing lepers and women and children to touch Him. What do we do? Do we crucify? Do we kill? Or do we realize that this God is so much bigger, so much more capable, so much more full of love!  What do we do when religious fear comes to suffocate?

Pause.
Breathe.
Remember.
Pause.
Breathe.
Remember.

Call to mind the nature and character of Spirit.

Pause
Breathe
Remember

Allow love to come in... WE all pontificate that perfect love casts out fear. Maybe we can close our mouths for a while and walk it out.... There are utterances all over the place in the culture I have been a part of, desires for the new thing, hunger for more of the Spirit,  need for an "outpouring."  I guess my question is, NO.. I know my question would be when that presence comes if it is on the yoga mat would you scream crucify? Yoga mat.. Samria?  Woman with the issue of blood.. Yogi in white? Tongues... Kundalini?

Religious fear comes and says there is danger because actually there is danger... and religious fear knows it... There is danger because there is power, light, love and liberty.  Religious fear and people recognized Christ and were threatened. Religious fear wanted the source of light and love and liberty dead, so that light and liberty and life would die.  BUT the thing I know about religious fear.. is that if we pause, breathe, remember.. maybe we can touch the hem of the garment of perfect love and cast it out.

That is me.. that is the ME part of my equation.  It was me, a yoga mat, an Episcopal priest, some new friends and the Spirit of the Living God.  It was all of that and so much more. I touched perfect love, I touched a love so true, so real, so magnificent and in its perfection I have begun to cast out fear.... So ask your questions and take your steps BUT don't crucify all over again the one who walked into Samaria...