THE BEAST

Living in the belly of the beast has just taken on such a different feel for myself over the past few years. Experiencing new freedom from it everyday is a wonderful thing indeed. Some of those freedoms are tangible in the sense that they have become reality. It's changing the way I live. Some of those freedoms are still in the phase of just being a freeing on my mind and they have not yet made the move into the realm of on-the-ground-reality. But even that is a new place of freedom because it is producing great hope and I am certain that the day will come when those transitions happens also.

I hate the lie of the Beast. I hate what it does to people. I was with one such person last night and the pain and confusion that I saw in the eyes of the beast's prey just broke my heart. Now granted this person has been a willing participant (even if an unknowing one), which I had been most of my life also, but damage is damage and bondage is bondage and pain is pain. I am not at all promoting here the mindset that creates a scapegoat to blame everything on, but I am bringing attention to something that is so insidious and deceptive and so enticing all at the same time. My emotions last night vacillated between compassion and disgust. Compassion for this precious person who at this moment is trapped and disgust towards the beast and the lies the beast uses to control people.

Here's another painful reality about this particular situation that just makes this even more problematic. This person served the religious system her entire life. At the beginning of her life as a preacher's kid and then as an adult as a preacher's wife. I used to be left wondering why so many of us that had spent so much of our lives in the religious system seemed to be trapped in the same things as most everybody else was that were living out side it. I'm not left wondering about that anymore these days. And this reality I speak of is going to be a most difficult transition in thinking and living for anyone that desires to live in freedom outside the controlling influences of the beast and all it's manifestations.