This is http://www.essayz.com/a9404261.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
 %CONFORM MEANS SAVE SALVATION DOCTRINE RITUAL NEWS+940426
    %SCRIPTURE LIFE STYLE DRESS WORK SEX AVOID LOVE 940426

    Our  collusive  games  of  mutual  self  deception and
addictions (and codependent support of them) often lead us
to pervert our  healthy evangelistic desires.   We attempt
to  control  other  people---to get them  to  conform  (or
dishonestly  appear to conform)  to to our expectations of
them.   We see their  conformity (or dishonest appearances
of conformity) to our expectations as the means to our own
salvation.    To save ourselves we must save others. Other
people become the means to our salvation,   and  we  abuse
other people in our efforts to save ourselves.

    We may begin by being possessed by the good news. Then
we  become possessive of  the good news which has come  to
us.  We regard the good news as our own news to be used by
us.    We  try to  manipulate the good  news  to  our  own
advantage  as  we  manipulate  other  people  to  our  own
advantage.   Other people become objects to be manipulated
until  they conform  to our evangelistic  expectations  of
them.    We  want  others be become like us so  they  will
affirm our beliefs,  rituals,  life styles,  expectations,
and  fears.    As collusive addicts,   and  as codependent
supporters  of addicts,  we fear those who  are  different
from us; and so seek to make everybody be like us.

    We  are  often motivated and driven by  our  fears  of
other's  loveless judgments,  condemnations,   rejections,
excommunications,   exclusions,   and banishments.    Such
loveless   fears  lead  us  to  into  loveless  judgments,
condemnations,  rejections,  excommunications,  exclusions
and  banishments of others  who  refuse  to conform to our
expectations of them.

    When what we believe are the means to salvation become
our  tools of  manipulation---then  personal  and communal
disintegration  are   the   fruits   of   our evangelistic
manipulations.

    We  do  not  own  and  cannot  control  the  means  to
salvation.    Our  salvation  does  not  follow  from  our
skillful manipulation of the means to salvation.

    Our salvation follows from our acceptance of the  fact
that  we cannot manipulate the tools  of salvation to save
ourselves  or  others.   Our salvation  follows  from  our
accepting ourselves and each other as expressions of God's
creative  Love---and  in Love setting each other  free  to
enjoy  true  security known as the  freedom to  be  safely
vulnerable in each other's loving presence.   Our personal
and  communal  integrity depend upon our being free to  be
safely   vulnerable   in being true to ourselves  and   to
each other.

    Only when we give ourselves and each other the freedom
to safely own  and  share  our  own personal: experiences,
hopes,    aspirations,   desires,   fears,    perceptions,
attitudes, assumptions,  beliefs, convictions, visions and
dreams---only then can we know what heaven  truly  is; and
transcend the hell of our devilish  alienative  efforts to
achieve  our  own   salvation  by  dishonestly  qualifying
ourselves  for entrance into heaven as we conceive it  and
try to create it.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================