Peter’s Trance

Often times I wonder what mainstream Christians would think of someone in a trance.. like Peter.

I know what I would have thought, because I once did. I never considered that Peter, the guy with the keys, was apparently spaced out on a rooftop.

I would have thought: occult stuff, witchcraft, New Age, something un-“Godly”, all negative connotations. Because that’s what I was told.

It’s something that’s not talked about much, and less often, if at all, practiced. It’s taboo in the Church: Meditation, quieting the mind, trance like practices.

And it is another example as to how far mainstream Christianity has lost its spiritual connection and become overly centered on the mind. Occupied predominantly with concepts and thoughts, which are of a more physical and material(carnal) nature, than spiritual. You see people doing(singing, dancing, going) and thinking(reading, listening, studying), but where are the God trips if I may? The visions, the encounters with the “third kind”?

And how many other encounters and transformative experiences are people missing due to the fact we’ve labeled so many things as wrong? And to be feared?

Is it just the need for control? Do we fear losing control of ourselves? Our beliefs being changed? And are we afraid to step out into the unknown? So much fear, in such a supposedly fearless environment..

And why are so many things that we can’t be certain of, even though they be liberating, transforming and life changing be deemed evil? How does that makes sense? Again, we fear being wrong, we fear not having control and losing hold of the answers we’ve been given..

Many have been told not to question. But, to believe everything they’ve been told, even if they’ve never tasted it for themselves.

We pray, which are words worked through the mind, we worship which are acts worked through the mind and body; but we dare not sit in silence and free ourselves from thinking. We dare not hear voices or see visions that we cannot comprehend.

We are extremely mind oriented and dominated by the need to know. To be certain. To have rules and regulations. How does that sound anything like the nature of something we call Spirit? I argue, that our minds are fed, more often than our spirits.

And we dare not believe that people of different backgrounds or beliefs are experiencing miracles: Healings, victories, being raised from the dead, cured of the incurable..we will not have it. Yet, it’s happening!

Why is this?

It reminds me a lot of the religious leaders telling Jesus he was working through the power of the devil or demons.

How can we not see with Spiritual eyes and discern light from dark?

We love our doctrines, and we judge Peters trances.