I was thinking about something related to the previous article, and I think it’s so important I can’t let it go.

You see, when I was talking about not speaking about spiritual experience in order to protect their sanctity and privacy, there’s an aspect of it that I’m sure everybody missed completely. I didn’t mean protecting my own privacy. I meant primarily protecting God’s privacy.

You see, to me God is not a resource, or a treasury, or a power source you exploit endlessly. God is family. God is not just someone you ask for things, or protection. God is also someone you protect.

When I was much younger, in my early 20s, I read a book by some American Christian, Billy Graham I think, and of course his instruction was to accept the redeeming sacrifice of Christ, to accept his payment for your sins in order to be washed clean. I felt a sudden fury at the idea, and I thought, “I refuse”. The idea of letting God suffer at your behalf was so offensive to me that I instantly felt a surge of defensive anger. “In fact, I offer to take His place at the cross, any time, to protect Him from people like you, who would crucify Him for their benefit”. It was probably the most clear and defined thought I ever had in my life at that point. I would absolutely protect God from any harm, at my own expense, without a second thought, any time it’s necessary. It must sound weird, that my most basic instinct was to shield God in my protective rage, and take any harm that would befall Him upon myself. However, this is my nature. God is family. You stand between family and harm.

That, first and foremost, is why I refuse to talk about some spiritual experiences. They are something private that happened within my family. What happens within family, stays there. God is a protected family member whose privacy is sacred to me. So yeah, I understand that there are malevolent assholes out there who interpret my silence about these things as their absence, and they then interpret that as a sign of my spiritual fall or apostasy. Feel free, as far as I’m concerned, because you don’t matter. I prefer evil people to think whatever evil shit about me, if it means that all their thoughts, as if bullets, darts and rotten vegetables, hit me as a shield forever standing between their malice and God. I swore to protect God from harm and I meant it.