Religious emails

What bothers me most about you not reading my emails on God is that it seems as if you are pushing God (and by default, the religious part of me) away, choosing to shut him (us) out like you did as a child in church all those years ago, sticking your fingers in your ears and going "La-la-la-la-la" for fear that what you hear might have some sort of effect on you.

I can understand you not reading the Search for Significance emails. The main principles are sound, but it has some fundamentalist viewpoints that cloud the message a bit. I always felt uncomfortable with those viewpoints but didn't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Besides, I didn't know how to explain the things of God to you in any other manner.

The Marcus Borg email, the most recent one I sent you, has a totally different feel to it. There's none of this "You are inherently evil so Jesus had to come to save your wretched ass so you can avoid the wrath of God" overtone. His focus is on God's unconditional love. Period.

I wanted to share that info with you. I felt you deserved a different perspective on what the spiritual life is like. And I wanted to discuss that perspective with you, but you haven't read the email yet. I have to be honest and say it hurts a little. I don't fully understand why it hurts, I just know that it does. I know in my head that ultimately it has nothing to do with me. But head knowledge doesn't always translate to heart knowledge.

One of my concerns is that my spiritual side will always be the part of me that you never truly get. And as a result, I will never be able to connect with you in any significant way on matters of religion. And it will be my cross to bear as if it were some sort of punishment for marrying a man that didn't share my spiritual perspective. But that says more about me and my lingering warped views about God than it does about you.

I'm hoping that patience, tolerance and mutual respect will help us to conquer such obstacles. I must admit that those characteristics are not fully developed in me yet, so the road may be bumpy for us in this area for quite some time. But if you're willing to hang in there with me, I'm certainly committed to making it work. Maybe I'll even get to the point where I don't care so much about those emails.