freedom?

 the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion

-albert camus

what is the deal with claiming to be free, yet continuing to be in bondage to institutions, other people's opinions, substances, fashion, culture, gadgets, programs, vulgarity, and mediocrity? i cannot. i refuse to be subjugated to a system that is predicated upon the enslavement of the soul. it is an institution that was perverted and contaminated from the moment it began to propagate. something that was meant to be so simple, that a child's innocence would be the model to properly understand it and capture it. we were given parameters, visual examples, life lessons on what to do and what not to do, and yet we failed, and continue to fail, to follow it.

i have walked so many miles and visited so many places looking for that one community of faith where His truth is being taught and followed, to no avail. i am not a "church jumper". i am highly sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and i can discern spirits. so, i can usually tell the posture and manner of a community just by breathing the air around it. i can also hear the dissonance when the people sing and speak to each other. my spirit bristles when there is a presence that is not attuned to God. i grieve when i sense sadness and mourning, and i hurt when there is pain. my hands tingle and i am moved when there is a need for prayer and intercession. i also know when it is time to leave a place because my mission there is finished or has been cut short because of unbelief or pride.

lately, i just sense pride and a troubling shift toward cultural encapsulation. i see group dynamics manifesting in very negative ways, judging and giving in to preconceived notions, bias and prejudice.

i don't know how to finish this post today. i am so discouraged and finding it difficult to want to move or even breathe. this might be interpreted as depression, opression, something attached to me, or whatever flavor of spirituality is in vogue these days, but i can tell you that it goes beyond some simplistic assumption. i am in mourning...

Thus says the Lord of hosts:  Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
    send for the skilled women to come; let them quickly raise a dirge over us,
    so that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids flow with water. For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion: “How we are ruined! We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.” 

Hear, O women, the word of the Lord, and let your ears receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a dirge, and each to her neighbor a lament. “Death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, to cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.” Speak! Thus says the Lord: “Human corpses shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves behind the reaper,     and no one shall gather them.” Thus says the Lord:

 Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord (Jeremiah 9: 17-24)