True To Who I Am

The issue of authenticity is a big one in matters of faith community. Many times our belief system calls us to be sanctified or perfect (so we think). Many of us who came from fundamentalist or legalistic backgrounds as Christians were taught to act religious. In doing so, we put on our Super Christian masks and went to church. Acting for several hours a week as our "perfect" selves. We then tried for the rest of our week to remain perfect, most often failing quite bad as we tried to walk the chalk. The failure then leading us to self-condemnation, disillusionment, and at worst, depression.

As a belief system begins to evolve, we realize that we're fooling no one, especially God. Showing our authentic selves is scary, very revealing and difficult at first. We may face rejection. It's okay, so did Jesus. It's believed by many progressive people of faith that sanctification is a lifelong process, not something that happens automatically when you get "saved," like many fundamentalist branches believe. The scripture that says "be ye perfect" is actually frequently mis-translated from the original Greek text that said, "teleios," which means perfect, but not in the way that we think of the word perfect today. It meant, mature, complete, whole. It did not refer to a sinless state or absolute earthly perfection. Big differences will happen to your theology when you understand this. It frees us to be our more authentic, spiritually evolving selves. To just be.

The bottom line is "BE". Be you, be authentic, be real, be whole, be the best you can be in this moment, be loving, be kind, just BE! When we are true to who we are, we become the change we want to see in ourselves and in the world around us.