View Single Post
Old 01-11-2001, 01:15 PM   #32
Anne
Dojo: Kiel University/VfL Fosite Helgoland
Location: Helgoland, Germany
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 113
Offline
Thumbs down

Anne
Posts: 13
July 10, 2000 03:14pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience?" 1. Corinthians 10, 29

Being a Christian, I too had a many discussions regarding things like akupuncture, reiki, homeopathy and, of course, aikido with members of my congregation. I'm kind of "suspicious" anyway because I study natural siences and therefore insist on rational discussions without dogmas.
I don't believe in religion, I believe in Jesus. Being created as an individual, my faith and my relationship with God are individual. Something everyone agreed with when our minister talked about individuality. But if it comes to "practical exercises", many people reject everything outside the accepted, traditional system of thoughts of a congregation as bad and / or even satanic. This means that nobody wants to find out about new things and tries to hide behind dogmas and tradition.
I really prayed a lot when I took up aikido and I was confirmed that aikido was all right for me. I tried to point out to my congregation that I'm not seeking enlightment or salvation by doing aikido-I've got salvation already.

Dear Johannes,
this quote above is from my post on the "Aikido and being Christian" topic (July 2000). When I was a kid, I had to go to church and was kinda fed up, too at the age of 15/16. I became a Christian six years ago on a summer camp by my best friend's congregation. As you may see in my post above, I'm in a congregation that is rather fundamentalist. But that doesn't matter! What I did learn in my own development as a Christian is that I'M FREE. I'm not religious, I'm a Christian. And I can tell you, aikido helped my a lot to get there because I learned to dare discuss things like that with my concregation (quite successfully, my favor), to really think about things like aikido the way of "what would Jesus do" rather than "what's the opinion and /or law of my congregation". As I said before, the most important thing I learned is that I'm free. There is a very good book by Gerald Coates called "Non-Religious Christianity" (Revival Press) which helped me a lot.

And I've found that aikido fits nicely with my faith.

love,
Anne


"You have to do difficult things to grow." (Shoji Nishio Sensei)
  Reply With Quote