With the Faith that moves mountains,

it is time to get Grizzly about Religion!

 

In my 41 years of walking my faith journey, I have come to know the lay of the land when it comes to religion in my backyard.  Let me tell you a little about this faith walk and what I have come to know. 

I was born in Valley City, North Dakota in 1969.  My father came from Walum, North Dakota, the American Norwegian Lutheran Church which is where I was gifted with my Norwegian piety.  My mother was from Pillsbury, North Dakota, the Presbyterian, faith healing tent revival faith.  I was brought up in a cluster feck of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, confirmed in First Lutheran church of Valley City.  I loved my home congregation, but the church was never healthy.  There was a long line of pastors running off with organists, and other such scandals that told the tale of denominations rapid decline after selling itself out to be consolidated and watering down of the scripture and teachings.

My story is one of growing up in a faith denomination that had turned its back on Christ and was instead more fond of worldly possessions.  Some idiot had the idea of consolidating all the vibrant and creative Lutheran denominations into one over arching failure that we have now come to know as the ELCA. 

I have had the opportunity to read bishops papers as the ELCA crumbled around those that envisioned this denominations Utopia.  The music hymnals and Scripture teachings were all watered down and mixed together so to be palatable to no one, and all went hungry for spiritual thirst and hunger.  I have had the opportunity to witness Sunday school material written in the 30's that had spiritual meat hanging off the bone, succulent and inviting be bastardized into the touchy feeling Socialist Squirrel and Nazi socialist ideal in the denominations vanity. 

I studied Art getting my BFA in visual arts from the University of North Dakota.  I had settled on a degree in the arts when a Seminary preperation course of study was just too expensive to even consider.  I had always known I was going to be a pastor from a very early age.  I have that ability to draw out those big questions, those life changing God questions from strangers I meet on the street.  It is a very interesting and at times uncomfortable gift.  It took me a long time to learn to let go of others anxieties and angst they poured out to me in confidence as I assisted them on a firming footing on Christ's path that I could see for them, yet they had just lost their way.  I have come to embrace the gift and ability to be a vessel that Christ's healing grace pours out to my neighbor in need.  It is really an amazing gift.  I always say I am the kid at the grown up table, but with this gift that is a great perception.  It is not my wisdom or kind words that flood out, convicting and consoling those that seek my council.  I am there as a witness to God's grace and amazing healing that just flows through me and wins the heart and mind of the lost lamb that has sought me out.  I am blessed because I have a front row seat as lives are changed and miracles happen before both our eyes. 

In my last year of my B.F.A in Visual Arts at UND I was given an opportunity to attend Luther Seminary, in St. Paul, MN.  I was ready to go on and attain my MFA in Ceramics and Sculpture so I could teach and inspire artists like myself who are cast into this socialist squirrel controlled art market.  Yet, feeling called to follow the path I had always known I would walk, I chose to take my home congregations gift and attend Seminary.  My home congregation had promised to pay tuition.  I did not foresee the hardship I would be burdened with in student loans totalling over $45,000 or I would of thought twice about this offer and kindly kept on the MFA path where I could of taught as a TA and paid my way through the program free and clear.  Yet, it was meant to be.  You see I had visited the Seminary earlier on in my life and just felt called that I would one day return.  

I did, return to Luther Seminary, passing up a wiser choice to attend the Seminary in Iowa to follow the calling I felt called to attend in St. Paul.  I attended Luther Seminary and after the first year I knew I could not win this spiritual battle.  I had run headlong into the Nazi Socialist evil that had destroyed my denomination.  How do you wage a war when I was out numbered and all the rules of the game were being re-written to assure my failure?  Well, you simply don't. 

I soon fell into one of the darkest depressions I have ever known.  A guinea pig for whatever hanious Nazi plots that dwelt upon that campus I turned to the pastor of my home congregation only to get the award winning council of "endure" and "just keep your head down and get through it".  My family was just as helpful, with the same advice yet, going out of their way falling into every sedduction Satan could throw at them.  I understood what was happening and Satan was kicking my ass.  I had ran into a course of study that was so far removed from my own faith and from what God had revealed to me through scripture and life experience that I had no plan other to endure inorder that I could try to save my denomination. 

Through it all though, I was so blessed.  I lived the life of Job and Psalm 23.  My table was set before my enemies and they just gnashed their teeth.  I not only met some really great people, but I fell in love and married my lovely wife Michelle who we have been married for over 12 years now.  This was the reward for waging this futile war.  I had seen the lair and den of the Socialist Squirrel beast and witnessed its destructive blood lust. Out of the twenty some incoming Seminary students from my state of North Dakota that I had come in with, I was the only one standing besides another who had sold her soul to the socialist squirrel machine.

I had watched good friends of mine destroyed, witnessed my own destruction and watched candidates that I would not trust with even my enemies kid breeze through.  Brilliant, Conservative men and woman who responded to Christ's call were beat to ribbons against the rocks of insane Nazi socialist ideals and immoral values.  Professors were banging students, and there was financial scandal after financial scandal.  I had found myself in Sodom and Gomorrah.

I had endured so long, that I grew weary.  I fell and stumbled.  They wanted to break my faith, and it only grew stronger despite my human frailty of mind and body.  For over a year I cried out to God to release me from this fight.  I did not honestly know how long I could endure giving witness to this place.  I wanted to shake off my sandals and get the hell out of there.  They had been trying to work me out of the program ever since it was apparent that my fellow classmates, like and followed my Conservative lead.  They did not want leaders, especially Conservative leaders among their docile flock of followers.  That would not serve their purpose.  I was not a slave.  They could not brow beat me with the typical weapons of shame and scandal.  They tried and they destroyed my name in my own hometown.  Yet, scripture tells us that is what we should come to expect. 

Finally it came.  The sign I had been waiting to hear.  The sign that God had released me from this battle.  It came in a meeting with my "advisor".  He told me that if I wanted to stay at Luther Seminary I would have to break off my engagement to the woman I have now been married to for 12 years!  I laughed because it was so ridiculous!  Yet, then all the weight I had been bearing for these 4 years fell off my shoulder!  God had released me from this battle.  I kindly told my "advisor" to go to hell and broke into laughter!  Thanking him repeatedly for the great news he had given me.  Only Satan could try to break asunder a proposal for marriage!  I knew I was closing this chapter in my life and turning the page as I walked out of that Kiln and into the light of day. 

Michelle and I were married and she nursed me back to myself.  It took 7 years to purge and heal.  All along the way Satan kept kicking my ass.  Michelle and I lost two children and my father in one year.  The Seminary hit job they did on my family and home town led coupled with the mania my mother suffers turning sibling upon sibling led me to make a decision that I do not regret even to this day.  My siblings and my mother soon turned on my bride.  Satan knew that I could not be broken only bent, but they could bend me beyond repair by attacking my new bride who just lost two children, one to miscarriage and the other almost taking her life with an emergency surgery to end the heart beat of our unborn child in a life saving and our child ending tubal pregnancy.  I had to make the tough decision to cut off my immediate family so that Michelle and I could heal.  It was as I imagined our grandparents leaving Norway for America.  You just don't look back. 

It became apparent that I could not even stay in contact with extended family as one way or another my siblings and my mother would put them in the middle.  Out of love of my family and extended family, I had to wish them well and cast off.

This was a real life change for me.  I had defined myself as a North Dakotan and my family was my great strength. Now, it was my Achilles heal.  Without that connection I was lost and had to try to figure out why my parents were so different from their parents who I adored and try to be each and every day.

This led me deep into deep waters.  I researched everything I could get my hands on about where I came from.  This is when God led me to E.W.'s story.  It came in a handwritten life story that I had a xerox copy of.  The scales on my eyes had fallen off and I could see evil as the socialism that has infested every level of government and every institution including my ELCA denomination and yours as well.  E.W. Everson's story after I researched it, instructed me not only how to deal with this evil, but also how to defeat it as he did in his day. 

This is not a political battle, it is a spiritual battle that you and I are in whether you admit it or not.

So I am still Grizzly about my religion and working hard to inspire a Grizzly Groundswell to take back our government and all our institutions.  Our Faith Institutions are the saddest of these that are devastated today by the Socialist Squirrel infestation.  We must take back our Churches, even if we have to walk away from them to build anew. 

However, I must remind you that we can not kill evil.  It will always win.  I made that mistake at Luther Seminary.  I taunted evil and called it out on the carpet.  It honestly kicked my ass!  I can imagine Christ was laughing at me as I pushed him aside to take off Satan's ear.  The victory is ours but only through Christ.  Christ will deliver the death blow to evil.  Or will he finally win his heart and mind?  I am betting on the later honestly.  But through Scripture, I can not back that up, only through faith.  I can only be a witness to Christ's Amazing Grace when the end times come and he returns for the final battle.

Get Grizzly about your Religion!  Remember you can not box Christ into a mortgaged Church structure.  Yet, Christ if found where ever two or three are gathered in His name, Amen.