We are all God's Children.

I hope you all comment on this. I have also included a funny store at the end (at least I think it is funny, my husband does not - no sense of humor sometimes).

I am truly blessed by my dialog with this community. I am a very sexual being and I enjoy my liberated sex life and I enjoy even more, my very personal and meaningful private sex life [which I define as in my bedroom with my husband].

This post is not about sex in so much it is about being a Christian. I learn a lot from the dialog and the exchange of posts I have with all of you. There are those of you who feel deeply committed in Christ. There are those of you who do not believe at all. There are those of you who believe, but do not believe in the institution of the Church. For a small percentage of you, if there was a orgy in the Church basement after the service, that would be your Church.

When it comes to the Christian religion, Christ provided THE blueprint. The apostles (who often did not agree on how or what the Church was to be manifested) laid the foundations (note plural). The Church built the building. The Great Schism got the ball rolling for the Church toward the creation of thousands of denominations. And Luther pushed the ball back up the hill and got the ball rolling again this time setting the stage for even more Church doctrines and denominations to emerge.

Even within a denomination, for example Lutheran, there are different doctrines. The ECLA believe everyone can have communion, the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church believes only their denomination can have communion in their Churches.

At each step along the way, modification crept in. And as the Church evolved, different doctrines emerged. Depending which source you are quoting, there are between 40,000 and 45,000 different denominations globally. If one person from each denomination went on a camping trip together it was exceed the population of the town I grew up in.

There is little that Christianity seems to agree on. If you ask what are the main groups within Christianity, some will quote the standard 3, Catholic, Protestant and (Eastern) Orthodox. If this is your answer, then the Oriental Orthodox Church, and Church of the East, the Anglican Church, Reformed Church, Anabaptists, the Evangelical, and the Nontrinitarians would all object (to name a few).

The Lutherans would simply throw a Church picnic and make sure someone was assigned to bring the burgers and dogs, and someone is assigned to bring the beer. (I can say this because I attend a Lutheran Church - Catholic Light... all the ritual (as it pertains to Catholic Churches) with half the guilt.

In spite of this, if you ask a someone how they identify in the Church, they will answer, I am a Christian. Because they all are. Each has interpreted the Bible differently. In some cases, the Bibles ARE different.

As for the very frequently quoted... "that's not what the Bible says...". Well remember, Christianity cannot agree on which books are in and which are out. In Western Christianity we think the 66 book version is the Bomb Diggity, while there is a popular 73 book version and there are Churches that use a 80 page version. Why? What is important in all of this?

The Old Testament is where most things vary. The origins of the teachings of Judaism. The Bible is translated into 724 languages. The New Testament is translated into 1,617 languages. Smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,248 other languages. My "first" Bible was a New Testament and Psalms. With the 10 Commandments on a page at the beginning. All of my early training was based on the Gospels. So think for a moment, from this we are all supposed to pattern ourselves into what a Christian is?

So to get to my point. We are Christians not because of the Bible, or the New Testament, or even the Gospels. We are Christians because we believe in Christ. We believe that he was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died and was buried, and He descended into hell, on the third day he rose from the dead, made himself know to His disciples, and after 40 days, ascended into heaven where He said that He would prepare a place for us.

We are all Christians solely because we believe in Him! So don't tell me I am damned because of my sexual behavior, I am not. And if we who feel that way have to, we will create our own doctrine and our own Church, hopefully a doctrine that is focused, limited, and is true to Christ's message delivered with His voice in the form of the many parables that He taught us. And our Christ granted right to create a new Church? Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three are fathered in my name, I am there".

I hear from a lot of you that you are sexually repressed because to be otherwise is not Christian. How you feel about sex does not define you as a Christian - you are still Christian. Its a simple act of faith. And while some of you may disapprove of my sexual choices and behaviors, you are not going to convince me that Christ does not love me.

Thank you for reading!

Now a quick story... we recently got a Aussie (Australian Sheppard), 7 months old, and the puppy developed a new behavior last night. I was trying to get my hubby in the mood, rubbing him, and I started to go down on him when the Aussie with a wild look on his Aussie face, came flying in and landed between us. Well this killed the mood, but did offer some entertainment. So a bit later I snuggled in next to my husband, and the Aussie was there to jump in and wedge himself in between us. I tested this theory again this morning (with my husband still sleeping) and it was a rude awakening when the Aussie did a piledrive in between us.