2015: Looking forward, looking back..

This blog has been a space to can write out my thoughts and process my spiritual journey in recent years. My readership has never been very big although I’ve sometimes had very interesting comments on my writings (here and elsewhere) from bloggers whom I repsect enormously as thinkers so I don’t think what I’m doing is completely worthless.  I’m writing in the first place because no-one else says what I want to say anyway. The thing is that need to not forget this, an that jumping on bandwagons and writing about ‘canonical’ blog subjects ould probably give me a bigger readership, but it’s not what I’m writing fir.
At certain moments in the past I’ve been influenced here a lot by the international (read: mostly American) Christian blogosphere, but 2014 has seen me finally letting go more and more of any attempt to fit in anywhere in that world. Only by not being chained to the same old consensus as the rest (often in the form of petrified false dichotomies) I can really have something to say about them on the occasion that I stumble across them…

But what did happen here in the last year? You can see it here and here if you want a summary.

2014 might not have been my most productive year but it surely was an interesting one, a year of picking up the pieces and reconstructing what’s left to have something to start over with again after all the things I’ve let go. What started as a year of demodernisation (and more de-Americanisation) got me had me investigating a lot of stuff that doesn’t seem to exist for neither Evangelicals nor academics, and plunging into more occult and esoteric terrain that is completely not taken serious by most people. which is a pity.
I do think the late great ’emerging church’ discussion could have learned a lot about postmodernity, religion and paradigm shifting by studying the principles behind chaos magic for example instead of sticking to the contemporary academic canon.  We can and should go much further out of the box if we want to find our way back in my opinion…

All of this doesn’t mean at all that I’m letting go of my faith in Christ. To use a Pagan term, I’m oathed to Christ and it’s not likely that I would ever let go of Him… He is more real to me than anything I’ve encountered yet, although it’s hard sometimes to make sense of anything at all. In fact I might even be sliding a bit back in the ‘conservative’ direction on the spectrum (which still is as far away from fundamentalism as it is fom liberal theology), towards some basic Christian middle-orthodoxy that I’ve alwayw been seeking… Quoting more C.S. Lewis her might have been a sign of that. I’m also in a new way going back to my more Charismatic roots, including the stuff no academic Christian will talk about, and also with and openness to Truth anywhere.

And yes, I’m eucumenical  as a Christian and go far into dialogue with other religions and traditions, but you’ll see me stay away from any form of enlightenment materialism for a while. I’ve had more of it lately than can every be spiritually healthy for anyone… Letting consciously go of it was big relief

I also need to just be still and know God is God.

God is too big for any of our systems. If we think we’ve completely got him in our system, we’ve only created an idol… God just is, and our thoughts about Him are not that relevant actually. Living in connection with Him, through Christ led by the Spirit is what matters. Loving all of His Creation including all of our fellow humans more than our systems of thought is what it is about.

Listening to everybody (especially those not listened to) might not be a bad idea though. And asking the Spirit for discernemt. The majority can be wrong, as has happened so many times.

2015 will probably be a year of slowing down, re-evaluation what I’ve found, deepening, and throwing out some clutter that I’ve been collecting for years… Learning to ignore the big noise and the cathedrals of wind that have kept me distracted for way too long and held me from developing what’s been waiting to be discovered more from the beginning on. And listening to new voices, Christian or Pagan, Muslim or Atheist or whatever, that have been unheard, and also to a Voice that I’ve been ignoring in all the noise regularly.

Or it could be something completely different…

We’ll see..

I hope to see all of you readers back for this new chapter…

peace

Bram

This post is part of the January 2015 Synchroblog – Looking Back, Looking Forward.

Here are the other participants:

• Done With Religion – Looking Back, But Moving Forward 
• Mark Votava – Learning to Love: Crossing a Decade of Rootedness 
• Tara at Praying on the Prairie – A Year of New Beginnings
• Carol Kuniholm – Looking Back, Praying Forward  
• Mary at lifeinthedport – roaring chickens: how i found my voice
• Moments with Michelle – The Year that Was: Looking Back at 2014
• Jeremy Myers – What I learned from almost following my GPS to my death
• Glenn Hager – Things I Don’t Ever Want to Forget 
• Michelle Torigian – Looking Back at All the Stuff 
• Fedex at His Urban Presence – A Year of Changes
• Charity at His Urban Presence – God is There 
• Lisa Brown at Me Too Moments for Moms – Lessons from 2014
• Bram Cools – 2015: Looking Forward, Looking Back