Spiritual Journey

I'm thinking a lot about my spiritual journey lately. I think about how I've chosen it and made many choices but in many ways have been casual and not disciplined. I think about how what I remember about our parents sending us to church without going themselves. I remember my mom saying what a positive experience she had with a Lutheran pastor and she was having difficulties and so that's why they sent us to the local Lutheran Church. I remember being inspired and going down for prayer at a Billy Graham rally. It was a group trip with the church and I remember people wondered where I was and I thought it should have been so obvious. I remember being at camp and waiting for God to speak to me. I think about my involvement in the Jesus Movement and how now I feel like I'm capturing some of the original teachings of Jesus but I remember how that's what they thought also. During my college years, I found scholars (in person and through books) strengthening my faith. Unlike now, I still thought that there was "Truth" out there that some folks had and I wanted to find or understand. Now I've come to understand as Bishop Spong says, "The Bishop of Rome turned the power of his location in that capital city of the known world into the ability to define Christianity and to limit the understanding of the past to his particular interpretation of the past." Since Christianity passed through that narrow funnel, I feel I can still call myself Christian without agreeing with the bishop of Rome's particular understanding and interpretation.