Dear God,
                Christianity is seen as rigid, orthodox, and plain snobby. The ideals, and the doctrines themselves, are really not so, but that does seem to be the general facade being put up by the people. Pope Francis is the antithesis of this facade (though you'd expect him to be the facade), and I'm really glad that he's leading the church in this time of questioning norms. But even with a strong, flexible leader, the church is losing fans fast.
           Christians drag your name into everything..
"We live by good Christian values, I stay at home and do all the work while he [my husband] goes out and makes a living," says (something like that) one housewife on Wife Swap.

"God doesn't approve of, or love, gay people," say the protesters outside San Francisco's city hall. 

"It is more important to be Christian than love," a comment on a Youtube video reads.

They bring You to shame.
It is not "good Christian values" to oppress women; You love everyone regardless of their sexual inclination, and being Christian is all about loving!!

Christianity is anything but orthodox and snobby. It's about loving everyone regardless of society's ridiculous standards. We, as Christians, must learn to accept and understand and love. Compassion is the core of our ideals.

I don't like the way Christians behave in society: rising to every taunt of the atheists (who are probably just disillusioned), posting hate comments of the internet, and protesting against minute details like birth control, abortion, and gay marriage.
       I cannot say that I am innocent of any of these "Christian Crimes," but I will try to be a better Christian, and a better human, in the future.

Cheers. 

Dear God,
                 I honestly really like church; it's a stimulating atmosphere. I suppose I should thank our parish priest for that: he's amazing :)

Anyway, this is my interpretation of the Walking on Water scene (This is strange because I'm always standing at the doors of the religion and defending it, and questioning any insults or misconceptions; I never really come inside it to question it).

The water is supposed to represent all that is a slippery slope: all the thoughts that can lead you to question things you really don't want to question (or else you'll find yourself dangling from the edge of the cliff that is your faith - one just has to accept that one doesn't have all the answers).

Outside the water is all that is right and good. All the comfort of being a Christian.

When Jesus told Peter to come out into the waters, He was really telling him to come and live in the world with so many different opinions, skeptics, and self-confident non-believers.
Jesus told Peter that if he kept his eye on the prize (Jesus), he would be able to walk on that water without falling into doubts and existential crises...

The world is like the water; not drowning is a challenge in itself, but walking on water?
If you want to survive in this world, you'll learn how to swim; if you think that this is too much ado, and you just trust in the Lord, then you can make it: just keep your eye on the Prize (Jesus).

How was that? I even made a pictorial representation (this is probably because my father rejected my conjecture completely while favoring our -admittedly awesome- priest's version (which I have forgotten)

The world is like water you can sink into, but keeping your eyes on Jesus will help you like it helped Peter

Cheers.

Dear God,
                This is regarding the poor little girl with cancer I dissed today. I suppose the only reason I was a bit mad about her was because my mother mentioned her to me, and I have trained myself to reject any of my mother's religious advances: they don't seem genuine to me (which is crazy because she is so sin conscious- she's NOT a bad person, but I don't think her type of religion is the same as mine- which is also crazy because we are both Catholics, and she brought me up: we're supposed to have the same faith system).
          Anyway, I shouldn't have been so angry that the little girl prayed for her hair to stay on even after chemo, and got her wish granted. It's just that I was jealous, and also that I needed to prove myself to be a wicked person to my mother (why do I do that?). I ask for things, but I don't ask for things that seems so trivial...I mean hair? really? (but then again, she was a little girl, and she was a brave one. Cancer at an age when the only consequence of the disease you can think of is your impending hair loss? That's a harsh one..)I shouldn't have judged what she asked for, and I shouldn't have been bitter that she got it.
I shouldn't have said that there were people who suffered far more, and deserved this help. It wasn't my place, and I understand that. This is a full apology: I shouldn't have judged whose wishes You grant, and whose wishes You don't. I'm sorry.
        I just think it's unfair that not a hair on that little girl's head fell off (though her health did deteriorate, I heard), when there are homeless veterans, and women in the middle east who can't leave their houses. I just think that suffering and happiness is imbalanced in this world; I wish everyone had the same amount of suffering as they had happiness. I suppose the homeless, and the imprisoned could ask You for help, but they're just so disillusioned by the world; they can't believe in a higher power of goodness because they can't believe in anything. It's always the comfortable and the happy that can believe in God. I mean, I was born a Christian (luckily), and brought up comfortably- only good things happened to me, and that's why I'm so very Christian. I don't know what I would be if I weren't brought up Christian, and good things didn't happen to me. Maybe, I wouldn't believe. I don't really know.
        I want to pray for all those who can't believe, who won't. Life has been tough on them, and I feel guilty leading a better one, and judging them for not calling out to You. I pray for them instead of them. I pray for all of them- can You please make them feel like someone is praying for them? You have a way with those kind of things :)
       
I can't judge people who won't pray, because I know that they deserve miracles too. I'm not angry that that little Christian girl got what she wanted, but I want a little non-Christian girl who has lost her ability to believe to be able to get her miracle too.

I'm a selfish girl myself, but I'd really love for a miracle to happen to a random faithless stranger because I endorsed it. I'm sending my vibes.

Cheers.

Dear God, 

                I just realized how funny I sound, like one of those exclamations mothers (okay older women) make when they're distressed..."Dear God! That child has wet himself again!" Well what else can I say? Anything I write would be just as tacky...

       Anyway. I'm just here to talk about an annoying, piece of interpretation that I read this morning that just won't leave me alone. Here it is, that one passage from Slaughterhouse five by Kurt Vonnegut:

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy—they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

I don't think this is a flaw in the Christ stories. This is a reiteration of how awesome they actually are. That Christ, who "didn't look like much" (though, personally, I believe that Jesus was that magnetic type, hypnotizing people when he was high, and freaking them when he was low. All evidence shows that Jesus was a bit bipolar...and I mean that in the best possible way! I admire bipolar people- they're the idealistic ones, the ones who believe in their dreams, the ones who fall when they see the real world), was the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe (I prefer calling You God..). Jesus was sent down on Earth as a mere missionary: a wayward, young prophet. You let Your partner be reduced to that (I, for one, am proud of what Jesus is. He felt. He had that fire in Him.
There were so many things about Jesus, so many types of him:
A. The miracle-worker: Tirelessly performed miracles on the ailing because He could, and He really loved them too much to say nothing in the sidelines when he knew of them.
B. The Chosen One: Seeking out the crowds, going from town to town, and showing us the way to eternal life.
C. The Contemplative Quiet One: Who's that sneaking off to the Mount of Olives to pray again?
D. The Brave Young Prophet: Starting fights in the temple in a rage (Religion becoming a profession, and not a philosophy really irked Him), coolly answering the Pharisees, and then preaching His way (a way so contradictory to the leaders of the umm temple?) to the impressed, and awed, bystanders.
E. The Very Very Human One:
"Father, if it is your will, take this cup [of suffering] away from me. However, your will must be done, not mine." Luke 22:42
That was a moment of breaking down...a moment showing just how human Jesus really was.
F. The Loving One: Jesus always preached love- He loved intensely, and passionately. Rebuking Peter when he tried to talk (worldly) sense into Him.

If I'd seen Jesus' eyes, I would be able to say that there was something in them; He was a beautiful disaster waiting to happen; a flower waiting for the right moment to burst into flames....but I haven't seen him, soo nevermind me haha).

I kinda went on a tangent, but in short I want to that Kurt Vonnegut was wrong when he said the problem with the Christ stories is that Jesus was the Son of God. That's the highlight, that the Son of Gd would come down on Earth and show us how to really live. If He was anyone else, it wouldn't have been as authentic..
What people thought when they read that Jesus had been "lynched" is how even the best people cannot survive in the world. This is because the most important detail about Jesus was not that He was the Son of God, but that He was an incredible man. Sometimes it was easy to forget that He was supposed to be the Christ!

Cheers.

Dear God,
                Darkness is the absence of light. There is no such thing as a force of evil; I think it's something we blame our faults, our sins, on (when in fact, we were probably well aware of them while actually committing them). I hate the idea of Satan, and I hate the idea of evil spirits. I don't even know what to think of them.
              Satan most definitely cannot make us do anything, can he? He's just a symbol, a metaphor right? It's just the evil inside of us that we personify as Satan right? He can't possibly be real. People can't possible be under the illusion that they are all good, and someone just drags them to do what is wrong.
              I refuse to believe in the fallen angel, and I don't really know what to think about the convulsing people they bring onto missionaries' stages- what are evil spirits? Why do they pick particular people?
I can't believe them; there has to be scientific explanation for all of this. Good and evil cannot take physical forms, they are concepts!

There's so much I cannot understand.

Cheers.

Dear God,
                I like it when prayer is conversation, a completely open conversation with all walls broken, and no ulterior motives. Sometimes (or, in my case, every prayer for the past 16 years) prayer is a petition, but sometimes it's just a nice tea-time-esque chat.
                My mother has lately been praying with a group of other people (I was already judging her) for the country. They would assign each other a number of states, and then they would start. This is all very noble of course, this caring for all states of the country. But I hate it so much. This kind of prayer is not conversation. This kind of prayer is fake. My mother researches prayer points, jots them down in a little notebook, and prays according to these points. I'm ashamed of this kind of forced righteous behavior. I don't think it is right to force something as pure as prayer. If you care about someone, or something, you would automatically pray for them/it, you can't force yourself to pray!!
               So there is that problem with forced self-righteousness...

Cheers.

Dear God,
                I don't think blaming is a good idea. I don't.Every single time someone needs strength, they ask You to give it to them. They ask for Your guidance, and Your help. All of this is fine, I know, but then they start believing that You will make everything better; that they can just sit back, and relax while You do all the work. I know Jesus said bring me your yoke, and I will give you rest, but I think He meant that in a more "I will help a soldier carrying a 100 pound pack uphill by giving him encouragement, the mental strength necessary" way than, "I will carry that 100 pound sack for you, soldier!" I wish people would understand that You love us, and You have given us the biggest freedom, and probably best present of all - the freedom of choice. We are all allowed to do what we want; we can choose the route of our lives, You are there when we need You, but You would never just do parts of our lives for us.
               People blame You when things are good in their lives. They say that You made it better, but I know for fact that their choices made them have a good life (You may have put in your divine oar, bbut ultimately they brought about their happiness. However, if they blame happiness on You, they must blame sadness too! They must say things like, "Oh! God is so cruel to me! He made my life so terrible!" but they don't! (and when they do say things like that, they do not blame You for their happiness). People are so inconsistent. I believe You have given us free choice, all the happiness, and the sadness in the world is caused by us, and us only. I do not think a murderer was driven to this sin because of You.

I agree.
From: meetville.com

Cheers.