My Concepts of Religeous Institutions

I must confess to all that I really love this forum, this site. In the past few days that I have tapped into here I have found it so positive, healing, a place of release with an abundant flow of positive energy. I have always been leery or apprehensive to express myself, share my knowledge or confess my 'sins' because so often do those things get twisted or misconstrued or simple be turned around as a resource t injure my soul. As much as I love humanity it is difficult at times to be open and honest and trust others. Aww the great contridiction about me is that for the things I fear are the things I expose in myself so that I may conquer them. I always manifest my fears into a phisical reality so that I may rid my mind, body and very soul of those things that inhibit me from wholly loving. My natural inclination is to hold back, be apprehensive or avoid those thing I am fearful of. I find it ironic too, after being raised phisically as a christian that those that judge, ridicule or hold me in contempt the most are my fellow chriatians which is a toltal contridiction to a faith that is supposed to me founded on unconditional love. I often find that my confessions expose the total hypocrisy of many organized institutions of religeons. An example of that would be like the time I walked into the largest Baptist church of Northern California at the time which held a crowd of 4500 people ...barefoot. I wa afraid to go because I was afraid of the condemnation of such a large group of people. Truth was I had no shoes but I had a desire to worship my God, who is Love, and the fact that fear was holdng me back, again, was the very reason I went. And as you can well imagine I was judged and ridiculed and accused of having no respect to enter a Holy Sancuary of God looking no more then like a diry hippy. I was not dirty! hee hee..nor a hippy! Just a poor barefoot flower child hee hee! But I had not gone there to impress any of the high society snobs. One person who came up to me with an 'how dare you come into the house of God like that!' I replied..I'm sorry, should I be bowing to you? I didn't realize you were God and please forgive me for my ignorance for I was led to understand that church was a place for sinners to go to be cleansed and strengthened through the unity of Spirit. I had no idea this was a meeting place for the most holy and those who had already achieved perfection in this life having no sin in them. If you are perfect and without sin, you must be God. I did too, feel rather indignant for I had been raised in that church in the orphanage and at that time my foster Mother was still the Pastors secratary. I came again to a deeper understanding of the scripure that says God looks inthe heart of man and man sees the outward appearance. This person obviously could not see my heart and at that moment, the very confrontation that I had feared to come there for, I felt so blessed and warm inside. I suddenly felt sorry for this lady who had obviously dedicated her life to the rituals of serving a God she had never met or knew anything about. It was also the begining of me breaking away from the institutions of organized religeons. this person had rituals, dedication and servatude down to an art but was hallow. I saw no reward for her religeous conditioning. She was going through motions because it was right and proper behaviour of the 'chosen' of God and she had no idea who God was...I felt. Love whispered in my ear 'don't worry about her, I am working on her heart. It is enough that I know why you are here.".so I appolgized and said I had no intent of being irreverant or disrespectful in the 'house of God' I didn't man to offend anyone by the fact that I had no shoes and the Lord told me that people always had excuses for not coming to church. I was a single mother at the time and had taken my 4 and 2 year old with me that day, and they had no shoes either. Needless to say an hour after church we were taken to JC Penny's and fitted with the finest brand new shoes and then to the fanciest resteraunt in Redding and dined on the finest meal we had ever had. But I still don't attend church anymore and I have long since disclaimed many of the thologies in in most organied religeons. I find that too many people g fo allthe wrong reasons and the disappoinment took away from me growing spiritually. It also effected my compassion for humanity. Some of the most blessed and tenderhearted people I know ar 'the greatest sinners of all' if you will lol! I just couldn't find those precious heart in churches and being exposed to to many self righteous people made me want to self distruct. It was just too hard to try to live up to the expectations of so many righteous people all the time. When church quit being about God...I quit being about church. Anyway...this isn't what I had intented to share ..but that's ok. I have so many things inside me that I want to get out nd I think I have finially found a place where I can. A place of healing, spiritual growth and where I can get these things out enabling me to examine myself. I have been a hermit for 40 years and have had little or no feedback in my life. The love I have already felt from you guys, and the exceptance....now the tears just stream down my face..well I think you know wha I am trying to say. Thank you.