shak'em all down

pt 2

so i made it to belmont and i left the intellectual informatory that was nwc. a friend asked me if i wanted to go to church with her, and because i had only been in nashville for a couple of months i said sure. as we were driving there, she said, "it's different. you might not understand everything that goes on, but that's okay" so i was like, cool, something different. which was exactly what i wanted. i wanted to rebel from my old institution. i went to grace center. it was pentecostal as tents and manna.

i went there for over a year. in that time, i saw jewels show up in people's hands, i saw healing miracles of cancer, and arthritis, deafness and such and further on. i saw the spirit move among a people, and i was moved. i worshiped without abandon, with out care of outside eyes. i grew in my knowledge of the spirit, tongues, and prophesy. i learned how to soak in the spirit. yet the ways of my youth came back to haunt me. i looked for biblical rigor, and found little, i looked for confirmation of the traditions, and found none. i looked for submission to leaders, and found none, i looked for discipleship. again, nada. i began to see a ritual in the worship service, i began to see the same people over and over having the same 'revelations'. i heard the same vague words. and i was just a tall face in a large crowd.

again, i became disenfranchised with the system. now i was burnt out on both ends of the candle. both on the logos and the spirit. i can't say that this story has a happy ending, in fact, it has a rather crappy ending. it doesn't end well. i have doubts on both sides of the tracks. i am skeptical of the spirit, and doubt the word. i am most often discounting the signs or wonders i see. i push away a lot of the radical religiosity. i am cold, calculating and spiteful towards most of the religious institution. i have wrestled with calling myself a christian. i would lean towards more of a theist. i believe there is a god somewhere, and he is probably good, but i don't know which one it is. and i really haven't found/read anything that convinces me that i should change my position. most of the stuff i read, i understand that these things are written with a specific purpose in mind; to change my mind. so i don't put any stock in them. i am open to faith, and i would love for something/somebody to convince me of something.

who is he? and what is he to do?