My Unbound Heart

    Staying true to the name of my blog, I'm known to be quite the unholy one.  I tend to swear during my sermons (it's those times I'm so happy the little old ladies can't hear); I got drunk at a parishioner's wedding and had to be driven home; yesterday, we played cards during Sunday School instead of opening the bible; and on more than one Sunday, I too wish I could stay in bed like the majority of the people in my congregation.  That all said, however, I love Jesus!  And it is absolutely amazing how often he keeps popping up in the world, showing me that the the Spirit roams free--if only I would get my substantial ass out of the way.
    So, you know what I've started doing?  I've started praying.  Yep, that's it; good old fashioned, sit down, stand up, fold your hands, raise your arms, opening my heart to the Spirit, praying.  It started with a book (which I'll probably talk about a lot in the near future) called Unbinding the Gospel; my congregation did a test group (10 of us gathered together for about 10 weeks), and we simply prayed together, shared together, cried together, and laughed together.  Now, like I said, i'm the unholy one, who would much rather keep Jesus in my head, and interpret scripture, and talk about things...and praying is not something that us unholy people really like doing.  But, I swear to you--once you let those scales fall away (actually once you let Jesus tear them down), you start to see things in a whole new way.  You actually start to see Jesus.  And people who were scared, start to take a few steps, and the fear you used to have about making mistakes, starts to lessen and you screw up a whole lot more.  And the way you thought God was meant for an hour on Sunday starts to look quite foolish, and you see her in the grocery store and when you tuck your children in at night and even in your mother-in-law.  And you even start to sound a little Jesus-freaky, and for the first time in your life, you really don't care, because that man changed the world and conquered the darkness and made death obsolete and you kind of want everyone you know to hear the story too.
    So, here I am, a stoic Lutheran, who's had a change of heart, who will not become Baptist, but who just might raise her hands in the air.  And who knows prayer changes things and who doesn't care how cliche that sounds.  So, there's the ramblings of the unholy one for today...I'm going to go for now, because the Spirit is moving, and I gotta go find her.