Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them
Deuteronomy 11:16

This is right after it says that God will give rains for your lands, and you'll have plenty to eat. But, of course, the rains don't always happen in the way we'd like. Just last week poor Texas was flooded. Oh, they needed the rain. But not like that. It seems to be feast or famine with this God. Or, maybe the psalmist didn't know about floods and droughts in other places. There was no internet in those days, after all. Here's what I do know. And it's precious little, I admit. But I know that when there's a drought on, it is easy to think about turning away. And I know something else about it too. It's seducing. You start to think that your life would be better, or easier if you just didn't believe. That is how I stopped believing in the Eucharist. And I was right too. My life has been at least less painful since I recognized it as nothing more than a way for the clergy to manipulate the laity. The seven sacraments are about the most horrible thing I've ever seen. For one thing having just the seven often keeps people from living actual sacramental lives. When God speaks to you in seven ways, you miss the other seven billion ways. And it makes one class of people dependent on another class for something they consider life-giving, and nobody should have that kind of power. The words of consecration should be uttered by a child, or a leper, or a whore. Or, if none of those are available maybe it could just be a stranger of some kind. But, never a priest. But, I digress. The thing is not to get seduced into not believing because once you stop believing you can't go back. I wish I could believe again in the efficacy of the Eucharist. I think there are times it would have been at least comforting if not helpful for me. But, I don't believe and I have been unable to make myself go back to believing. So, for today, I am going to believe that droughts end, that rains come, and that my barns will be full one day. I am going to keep believing, because once you have been seduced, once you turn away... I don't know if there's a way back from that.