This will be a long post. I would like to tell you a couple stories, recollections of events that took place years ago.
The first took place in Sierra Leone, West Africa. The year was 1971. I had been living in a remote village in that country for a couple years, and as the time went by, was becoming more and more a native than a foreigner. I had a good friend who was a member of the Bee clan. He had only one arm, the result of an accident with a truck somewhere. One day, he invited me to go with him to harvest honey from a tree. We went out into the forest, and found the tree. It was located not far from a footpath often frequented by people. Dressed only in shorts, we began hacking at the tree with machetes and a small ax. Immediately everyone in the vicinity began screaming and running away as bees attacked them. Everyone but us. We continued hacking, and after awhile the tree fell. My friend then asked me to reach into the hive entrance and pull out any honey. I did so, scooping out handfuls of bees in the process, feeling around for combs. There was not much honey. After that, we went home. Neither one of us had been stung once.
These were African bees, Apis Mellifera Adansonii, noted for being vicious.I don’t know if you believe this story, but it is true even in the details. If you can believe this story, I want to go on, because you obviously can accept that inexplicable things do happen.
Now, another story. One day in that same village I was feeling pretty depressed. It had been a tough day, I had fought with a friend of mine, and it just seemed everything was pointless. I went to the local medicine man/herbalist and told him how badly I felt. I ended up actually breaking down in tears in front of him. He did some sort of ritual. It was incredible what happened next. Suddenly I understood everything about his belief. I felt my heart had completely changed. It honestly felt like I was a different person in my basic nature! He had summoned a spirit, and it had entered into my heart, and somehow replaced it. I wasn’t frightened. Rather, it felt as if I had woken up after a very long sleep, a sleep that had lasted all my life. And the things that I knew, that were somehow put into my heart and mind, were so true to me that I believed them with a knowledge so strong that it could not be doubted, because I was those truths, my heart had actually become them.
Now, tell me. Can you believe this story?
Some of you can, perhaps.
As I said, the first story is true in all the details.
But the second one is not. I lied about the details. I did so for a reason. I am hoping that those of you who find the second story believable will run a reality check on yourselves if you find the story NOT believable when I correct the errors. Because if you are one of those people, who cannot believe the following corrected version and yet belief the first one, you are in a box, a mental prison constructed by the hypocrisy of others, and you should set yourselves free at all costs.
Here is the true story. It happened in America, in my parent’s home. There was no medicine man. There was only me, with tears streaming down my face as I saw the shallowness and emptiness of the world. I did kneel down, and in despair asked for help from God, whoever that might be. And I was changed, and I was filled with knowledge that I had never had, and my heart desired truth rather than lie, love rather than hate, mercy over cruelty; in short the animal I had been was gone, and I was left a new person. And yes, suddenly everything Jesus said, which had always been totally unintelligible to me, made perfect sense. Maybe that is what they call being “saved”. I don’t know. I only know what happened to me.
And that is why I am writing this. Try and be free of the mental prison constructed from your experiences with “Christian” hypocracy and lies. Surely if the first version could be true, the second could be also. I meet people who can believe the first, but not the second. If you are one of these people, please, ask yourself: Why not?
