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Empiress
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 363
| Posted 1/18/2002 1:33 PM (GMT -6) |   | First I want to note that faithfullservant found me on Live Journal and invited me to join this forum and I am very thankful to him for that!
Also, I already sorta like a lot of you people and I've only been here a few days. This board seem much friendlier and more intelligent and open than most I've been apart of.
As for me:
I'm a twenty-something (and pushing!) female from LA, but living in Seattle. My undergraduate degree is in religion and philosophy and I went to seminary at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Almost all of my training is in ministry with youth, college age young adults, and homeless youth and adults.
I feel I'm recently "recovering" from a lot of abuse in the church after leaving my position as the Youth and Young Adult Minister at a local Episcopal parish due to major ideological clashes I have with the Church in general. I don't plan on returning to organized religion or any denomination although I desire a supportive and life-giving community very much.
Let me add a disclaimer: I realize I am very emotional about the church because I have been extremely hurt and rejected by the church, so if I come across too emotional at times against the church, it is likely for this reason. Please read here for more on this.
I was raised in a legalistic, fundamentalist, Baptist home. My father attened and taught at Bob Jones University. I have extreme revulsion for this brand of Christianity. My apologies to anyone fitting this description, but it has spiritually scarred me for life. From there I went into Presbyterian/Calvinist evangelical branch of the Church but after discovering liturgy became an Episcopalian.
If I had to choose a denomination I resonate with, it would be Anglicanism.
I am, notably a goth because I love the people in that community and find myself most comfortable in their no-nonsense presence and incessant ability to see reality, including the pain and suffering and the Problem of Evil, rather than pretend it doesn't exist (as much of pop culture does today). I love to dance and I love the music of the goth community, a majority of which is very spiritually oriented.
I am a Franciscan and find St. Francis to be a figure of my continual inspiration in his desire to serve the marginalized, live simply, and love all people. I also dig the mystics in general. 
I am a Universalist. I believe in some form of divine retribution and purgatory after death, but I believe that: "For in him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20), and that all people will be wooed by the persuasive love of God and will eventually freely choose God, who is our deepest heart's desire.
I am a Panentheist. This is a NOT Pantheist! What I mean by this term is that I believe God is both imminent and transcendent in God's creation: God is in creation, but also distinct from it. This allows us room to have separate -wills- from God's. I believe Jesus is the Incarnation of God and the most definitive embodiment of God's will and nature. I also believe there is truth in all religions.
My "name" Empiress is a slight "jab" at pretentious goth names. It's mispelled on purpose and I just happen to like the sound of it!
Oh, and by the way, I find the Open View to be the best thing since sliced bread and I only learned of it a few weeks ago! I'm wanting to "test it out" here in this forum.
Edited by - Empiress on 01/18/2002 7:10:52 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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