I wrote this about two years ago. I don't believe any man is a shepherd anymore, but this was the only way I could try to explain what was happening when I was in...


Once upon a time, there was a shepherd who had many sheep. The sheep were healthy sheep, though all had their little differences that made them rather sheepish. Most of the sheep were happy sheep, and they all enjoyed doing sheepy things, laying in the sun or eating the grass and watching the lambs play. The shepherd was happy too. He had a peaceful job, for the most part. He had time to think and enjoy the outdoors. He practiced hunting the bears and lions that occasionally came around looking for fat sheep or little stray lambs to steal, and ensured that none of the sheep wandered too far. It was nice being a shepherd. He protected them from predators, and they, by sharing their wool to make him coats, kept him warm on cold winter nights.

One morning a bear came. The shepherd got his sling and started to stand. The sheep were scared and huddled in close to him. They trusted him, and they would protect him. But then he couldn’t get to the bear, and it was getting close to a favorite lamb, and though he knew they were doing what they knew, the shepherd got angry. He began kicking and yelling at his sheep, trying to make them move. The sheep got scared and huddled even closer together, tripping the angry shepherd in his attempts to get at the bear. When he stood, he saw the bear lumbering away with his little lamb in it’s paws.

The shepherd was sad. His lamb had been lost, and his sheep were at fault. As they calmed down, he did not. He vowed this would never happen again. As the sheep came toward him through the day, he would push them away. He had his lambs to worry for. The sheep didn’t feel it much, through their warm coats. But they felt the shepherd’s anger, and this made the sheep sad. Over the next days, the lambs stopped jumping as much, and the old rams stopped eating as well.

After a few days, the bear came back. The shepherd knew this bear, and immediately jumped up, kicking and yelling at the sheep to move. Most of the sheep, seeing his actions, and smelling the bear, ran to him like they had done earlier that week anyway. But one little lamb remembered the shepherd’s angry voice. It hesitated to get too close, and the bear snatched it up, and lumbered toward the forest. Again the shepherd was angry. Now two lambs were lost to one bear. The shepherd planned a bear hunt, and resolved that the bear would never eat another lamb.

It wasn’t long after this that the shepherd began to notice changes. Some of the sheep were sickly, even though there was nice green grass there, and water nearby, and they didn’t come to him like they used to do. He also started noticing more and more of the sheepish qualities about these sheep. The rams would butt heads. The lambs wandered too far. The ewes were too fat....

mary

I'm not back to the timeline, but want to share another random memory about visions.

My family on my Mom's side is 90% Pentecostal/Apostolic. They are big believers in visions and prophetic dreams. I shared in an earlier post about my Mom and her best friend informing me of a vision that I was going to be raped as a consequence of my rebellion of wanting to wear pants. Another time when I was 17, my great-grandmother told me she'd had a vision about me.

She almost cried as she told me, she was so disturbed by the content of her vision. She said that she saw me at a river, and I got pushed underwater by a tall man with blond hair. I thought she was about to relate a vision about baptism, but I was wrong.

She said that he never let me back up, he held me under the water for a long time and eventually let go and walked away. She didn't see me surface. She said that the scene then changed and she saw people that looked like police officers carrying a stretcher out into the water. They reached into the water and put something on the stretcher. When the carried the stretcher out of the water, she saw that it was me, dead, on the stretcher. She described in detail how my clothes and hair were covered with river mud, moss, and "seaweed" type plants. She said my skin looked greenish gray. The vision ended there.

There were several members of my family around and they were immediately distressed after she shared this and started praying for my safety. By this point in my life, I was 17 and had left home in order to leave the Pentecostal religion (my parents told me that as long as I was under their roof I would be Pentecostal) and I knew that the rest of my family was thinking that this was a warning from God that I was going to die if I didn't come back to the "church".

My Great-Grandmother was not like my Mom. She didn't focus on demons and punishment, and she is not normally a 'sensationalist' Christian. This caused me to take her 'vision' a little more seriously than I now viewed my Mom's claims of divine revelation. I didn't agree with my family that it was a message from God that I needed to be Pentecostal again, but I didn't have an explanation for it of my own either.

11 years later I still don't really know what to make of this memory. I can't write it off as easily as other claims of visions because of the deep respect I have for my Great-Grandma. So far though, I'm still alive.

hillbillygirl

I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd laughed out loud in public til last night. To jump over puddles, to run happily through the rain, to laugh spontaneously... I'd forgotten.

And it felt so good.

mary

Just found this interesting tidbit of information. I always thought the Oneness doctrine was fairly new - late 19th century at least. But then I read about Sabellius.

The New World Encyclopedia says: “Sabellius, a Christian priest, theologian, and teacher, was active during the first decades of the third century, propounding a Christological doctrine that was later deemed heretical. Specifically, he advocated a modalistic view of divinity that described God possessing a single unified substance, albeit one that took particular forms (Father, Son, Spirit) in relation to human beings. As this doctrine denied full, discrete reality of each "Person" of the Trinity, it was anathematized, leading to Sabellius' excommunication from the church in 220 C.E.”

hillbillygirl

I don't ever want to go back to where I was, but I'm not sure how to go forward either. It seems that I'm stuck between worlds, sometimes... not fitting in with groups that are talking about the latest movies, fads, and music, yet not having any desire to go back to the group that I've left. And not fitting anywhere else either.

I'm not angry, and I refuse to be angry, at a group at large. Individuals, yes, and even churches that allow abuse. But not an organization as a whole. It seems like a lot fo people go hunting a battle to fight. Enough battles have found me; I don't need to go looking for any.

There are some good people in UPC and Oneness churches. There are some good teachings. There are also some bad people that manipulate others and encourage the kinds of preaching and teaching that hurt others. But the ones who hurt me repeatedly labelled me as "one of those kind" and I will not do the same to them, as a whole. It's hard not to, sometimes. But I never want to become like the ones I left because of. I don't want to repay hurt for hurt or wound for wound. I don't want to retaliate, I want to heal.

Most people who read that won't really understand what I'm saying. But I'm glad for those who do. I get tired of hearing negative talk about others. That kind of talk wears me down, it wears me out. But there are so much better things to talk about and to experience.

I have good memories of the last 20 years. They weren't wasted years; they were learning years. I don't want them back, but I won't throw them away, either.

So sometimes I feel like I'm in limbo... and I ask, 'Where do I go from here?'

Someone from my former church called me tonight. She started asking how I was and where I was going to church and what I would do in the future. The answer is simply, "I don't know." Not back. Not back to the UPC or any Pentecostal church. But at the same time, I'm not sure where, yet. At work, I've jokingly told employees that the company doesn't state all the job requirements up front... and then asked if they have a crystal ball and a 28 hour day. Sometimes I need those things, myself. God is the only one Who knows the future. I don't know where I go from here... just that I'm going forward.

mary