Reflections on religion,freedom and the Shawshank Redemption

Last night I watched the final scene in the Shawshank Redemption.
The character played by Morgan Freeman; ‘Red’, has been released from prison and while he is at his job bagging groceries, he catches the attention of the store manager and asks, “Personal break boss?”

The manager beckons him over and says, “You don’t need to ask me every time you need to go take a piss… just go…Understand?
Afterwards, Red reflects,

“40 years I’ve been asking permission to piss. I can’t squeeze a drop without say so. There’s a harsh truth to face, no way am I going to make it on the outside. All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole so maybe they’d send me back. Terrible thing to live in fear, Brooks Hatlin knew it, knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense where I won’t have to be afraid all the time…”

The thing with my traditional religious upbringing is that I became as institutionalised as Red. For so long I’d been told what to believe, how to pray, how to please God, even more so, how to anger God. Everything was structured, predictable...
Becoming a Christian broke my neatly ordered world. This should be a good thing right? But then why do I feel that I am in a kind of free fall with no parachute. Or like a surfer caught in a rip tide, drifting out to sea, helpless against the strong currents
Nothing is black and white. Issues like homosexuality, faith, healing are still grey areas and open to personal interpretation. I cannot rely anymore on unchallenged liturgies, catechisms, and sacraments to tell me what to believe.
There are no formulas because...

“God is not a vending machine”,

"God is not tame",

"He cannot be manipulated".

With no rosaries or books of common prayers to help me, I find it difficult to even find the ‘right’ words with which to pray. I struggle to have faith in a God who may or may not choose to heal or save people; or to be a witness to the boundless love of this God in the face of human… even Christian... suffering. I cannot in all honesty testify that the Holy Spirit can transform your life, when mine, 18 years down the line, is still unchanged, selfish and rotten to the core.
And I am afraid because I don’t know how I can claim to be Christian and yet have such treacherous thoughts. I’m like the Israelites, who having escaped slavery, longed to go back to Egypt, the place of their captivity.

Or as more recently portrayed in the movie, the Matrix, by Cypher, who having become disillusioned with the grim existence in the real world, betrays Neo to the Agents because he prefers his old life of ignorance within the matrix.

"Ignorance is bliss" , he says

But is it?

I recognise that ‘religion’ was a kind of prison, and I broke away from it because I felt it was lacking something. But it was easy and the rules of engagement were clearly defined. You didn't have to think for yourself because others did it for you

Religion = safe, secure, predictable

Christianity= dangerous, uncertain, unpredictable, SCARY!

I'm torn because, as Red said in the movie, I want to be back where things make sense where I won’t have to be afraid all the time.
Yet, I don’t want to miss out! I don’t even know what it is I don’t want to miss out on. I don't want to go back to the emptiness, hollowness of religion, and yet I don't want to keep on feeling...unstable

Snapshot

So it’s been a bit quiet on the blogging front- there appears to be NO movement in the blogosphere – so it isn’t just me

• Credit card bill is currently £1200+ - How did that happen?
• Weight back up to 14 stone – when did that happen?
• New job is going ok now. I’ve made a new best friend, Carlton
• Jonathan not going out of his way to talk to me. The most I get is a brief nod! And then last week after 5.00pm service, I hung about (without being too obvious) to have a chat, and he just blanked me. Okay so maybe he really wasn’t in to me
• My VERY young admirer, Sam introduced me to his grandmother and brother who were visiting from America. Sam is cute but is probably 25? Last week he said ‘jokingly’ that he would like to travel to Italy with me next year… was he was flirting? I can’t tell because I am so rubbish at flirting.
• I fluked an invitation to a celebrities party, David and Carrie Grant’s. Their sitting room is as big as my whole flat and they’ve got a nice swimming pool. I had a camera but felt it wouldn’t be ‘appropriate’ to take photos. Now I wish I had for 'vidence'! I indulged in the free expensive champagne and Baileys – got very drunk, said some strange things to my vicar and played with David Grants dreadlocks (cringe). A friend insisted on driving me home. I don’t think I’ll be invited again!! (now you see why I should have taken photos?)
• My mobile phone fell into an un-flushed toilet! Can’t really afford a new one, so I nicked my sister Ngonzi’s spare handset to use with my sim card, that she’d left at my flat by mistake. When she came over to my flat last week I removed it out of sight from the sitting room to the bedroom. However that girl must have some kind of radar because she went straight for my bedroom and said “Hey isn’t that my phone?” So busted!!! She's let me keep it. Phew!!!
• Attended the Thames Festival. Really liked the Korean entertainment.
• Attended my first emergent church worship service at St Mary’s Ealing… hmm don’t really know what to make of it. There was stuff that I liked about it. We sat, I lay down, on bean bags, the visuals were stunning. I really liked the music, Holy Communion, creating a mosaic out of broken tile bits to represent our brokenness and the prayer of commitment at the end. However, I hated the chant (i.e. kind of like Gregorian’ish) and can’t understand why they didn’t refer to Jesus by name
• Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and X Factor are BACK!!!
• I start my Italian classes tomorrow!!!
  

A Victim of Fraud!

I couldn't believe it when I saw it!

£125 visa payment to 'Month End Money, Internet' on the 29 August 2008. Who the hell are 'Month End Money'???

I was checking my bank account online on Sunday night, when I spotted the payment. There was simply no way I could have spent £125 in one go, and then to a company I'd never even heard of!

Thank God I found out about it this way. Just last week my friend Emily discovered that she was also a victim of credit card fraud when her card payment was declined. She was understandably embarrassed and in shock, because she'd only JUST got the card, and had not used it much. When she requested a statement from the credit card company, she found someone had spent up to £1500!! £125 seems tiny by comparison!!
I got on to the phone straight away to my bank. Fortunately they have a 24 hour phone line... Good Old Nationwide!!... and had the card stopped. Next day I phoned their Special Investigation branch to explain that a fraudster had gotten hold of my card details. I could not understand how this could happen since I hardly ever use it online. The lady I spoke to explained that you only have to use your card once... if someone on the other end is dishonest, they will use your details to make unauthorised transactions. These things are commonplace. The bank have re-creditted the money.
I've become paranoid now. I keep checking my account every few hours!

I don't have any cash on me, my replacement card is arriving in 5 - 7 working days and I have no time to go into my local bank branch to withdraw money.
It sucks really