Coincidence? I Think Not.

I listened to Peter's YouTube reading of his latest short story, or novella or whatever these things are called nowadays and I thought it was quite good. Mel did not hear it and asked me what it was like.

I responded that it was kind of Stephen King-ish with a not obvious Christian twist (a spiritual message is definitely there!) and Mel's response was:

"Do you think we listened to too much Steve Taylor when he was a kid?"

I laughed and said something on the order of "How could you listen to too much Steve Taylor?" :)

I was going to look Steve Taylor up on YouTube and post something about it, but then got side tracked by Andromeda and the Milky Way and collisions and stuff. I did NOT write to Peter about it, honest.

So imagine my surprise when I clicked on his blog this morning and saw a post about Steve Taylor! I laughed right out loud and then wrote him a message asking him if we had "A harmonic connection through the thought vibes of the atmosphere?" or something.

I listened to his YouTube post of Whatever Happened to Sin? and then looked up more YouTube Steve Taylor. I always really liked this song.
I still like it a lot. Growing up in the church I did I often felt like if I was just a clone everyone would be a lot happier with me. Don't rock the boat. Don't question anything. Learn to speak the right language. Fit in. Be a good girl. Follow the rules. God won't love you if you don't follow all the rules and laws and regulations and ... And so forth and so on ad nauseum. Oh what joy it was to me when I discovered grace! When I realized that God made us each individually and that he gave us each our own personality - and it was good! And that I don't have to look like and live like and do like every one else in the church so that He will keep on loving me. Freedom from man-made rules and regulations. There is so much freedom in Christ.

Why does anyone want to be all bound up by someone else telling them what they must do, how they must live? "Be like all the other women in the church! Wear your hair like 'this', wear 'this' kind of clothing, get married or you are worth less to God, have 'this' many children, go/don't go to 'this' college, do/don't do 'this' job, only read 'this' Bible, and on and on. The list can be endless, really. If we are all alike then it makes someone happy - but I am sure that someone is not God. It might be one person or it might be a group of men. I've seen both, men who have to control. Why do people let other people control them like this? I've never understood it.

Such a short step from living in freedom and grace to living in bondage and the keeping of the law on our own.