photo by Dave Herring via Unsplash
Next Stop, Happiness
With each colourful step she takes away from that church, chaining stress and caging expectations unshackled.
She turns back only for a briefest moment to look at the conservative culture managing every aspect of her life, before she turns around for good to continue her journey.
Religion doesn’t bind; it frees.
If there is one thing I cannot understand, it is why people like to enact their expectations on others under the facade of religious rules. I’m a Buddhist, but there are no cardinal rules on diet, or women, or sexual orientation. Only a series of karmic causes and effects, as well as philosophical scriptures which requires guidance or risk mis-interpretation.
But when I was younger, I have been approached by many Christian missionaries, with the opening lines of “Do you believe in Jesus?” and rapidly spiralled into “Only do you believe in Jesus can you be saved” rhetoric. I was impressionable then and my takeaway from those interactions was “Christianity seems very enthusiastic about Hell and condemnation.”
Until some of my Christian friends raised their eyebrows at me when I candidly asked them about Christianity years later. That’s when I realised, Christianity never asked to convert anyone by fear; those “missionaries” I met were going out to convert people because they wanted money for their church.
Hence the story.
If you are interested, the prompt is linked below.
You’ll find full guidelines on the TLT page – here’s the tl;dr:
- Write three lines inspired by the photo prompt (& give them a title if possible).
- Link back to this post (& check the link shows up under the weekly post).
- Tag your post with 3LineTales (so everyone can find you in the Reader).
- Read and comment on other TLT participants’ lines.
- Have fun.
Prompt: Three Line Tales, Week 184
From the Window Seat 