Coming out to truth

       Did you ever have a gut feeling or know something is wrong but are too afraid or unwilling to make the changes necessary? Perhaps you could not find the inner strength to speak up or speak out. Perhaps you thought you'd be a minority and had no wishes to make yourself an instant outcast among powerful adversaries or popular opinion. 

       I could be speaking about any host of aspects of modern life. Would you speak vehemently against the atrocities that the Roman church has perpetrated and tried to cover up? Or are you silent, shaking your head in private, perhaps rolling your eyes when a bishop says 'I didn't know it was illegal to have sex with a 14 year old'.  Perhaps you see how disastrous that crossing the line between church and state is and yet, you don't speak up or can't even get up to vote for a solution. There are simply too many silences. We rarely speak out unless it affects us directly.

         Why does a gay person have such difficulty coming out?  Fear of being ostracized? Fear of Mom and Dad, religion, society?  What forces a gay person to come out eventually is that the silence and self denial is intimately damaging to one's psyche, to deny such a fine aspect of one's life.  You know you are a decent person, you know it in your soul and in every fiber of your being but if you come out? Most people do make the transition. To not come out is sadness beyond measure, a denial of the gift God has graced you with. Denial of self on such an intimate level is the real abomination.

        Paul is a Jew, good, practicing and fervent in his beliefs. Enough so that when he sees a threat (as promoted by some religious elite), he seeks out the people of The Way and persecutes them violently.  On some level he knows the truth and God's intervention helps him along even if it means he will now gain hordes of religious enemies in the Jewish community. 

         More often than we might think, those that summon up the courage to speak truth and acknowledge the elephant in the room or the emperor with no clothes (Trump?), or the human decency of equality and liberty, they find kindred spirits and start a movement. There is such an essence of truth that it touches so many others that also know the truth but also have difficulty 'coming out' in whatever the issue at hand is.

           We need more people like Paul today, willing to be converted to the truth. Willing to take a stand for our country perhaps, willing to acknowledge the difference between church and state and acknowledge the godlessness of the pseudo-Christians that seem to be engulfing our society.

            As the bolt of white light presaged Paul's blindness but ultimate  redemption, so we must seek the light of truth for our own conversions. In God's name we pray. 

Acts 21:37-22:16

conversion Just as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, ‘May I say something to you?’ The tribune replied, ‘Do you know Greek? Then you are not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand assassins out into the wilderness?’ Paul replied, ‘I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city; I beg you, let me speak to the people.’ When he had given him permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the people for silence; and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying:

‘Brothers and fathers, listen to the defence that I now make before you.’

 When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then he said:

 ‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. From them I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.

 ‘While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I answered, “Who are you, Lord?” Then he said to me, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.” Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I asked, “What am I to do, Lord?” The Lord said to me, “Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.” Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took my hand and led me to Damascus.

 ‘A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there, came to me; and standing beside me, he said, “Brother Saul, regain your sight!” In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.”