I googled an old aquaintance recently. Awhile back she had attended Julliard on scholarship. The last I had heard of her, she was breaking in and getting parts with a prestigious Theatre Company. Haven't heard anything more for years and I had just wondered what she was up to...thought maybe I'd find her on facespace or something. As it turns out, I did see her pic. Her features had gone from stunning to haggard and now she is a preacher! What a waste.
I watched one of her sermons and it just seemed like she was talking to herself. There was so much drama and no real message in anything she was saying. I could sense that even with the attending audience, she was in an empty room---her own little world. She exhibited the same demented mannerisms so inherent in "preachers"----the fist shaking, the toe rolling, the voice inflections from boom to whispers. I suppose the theatre did influence her somewhat. But what a let down because I had expected so much more of her...that she would use her talents and her extrordinary gift of voice to uplift mankind and bring some beauty to an ugly world.
Why does anyone really preach? As I listened and watched her, I wondered if she was really trying to convince her own self of the validity of religion. Does this need to preach come from a personal search for meaning in life? Does it come from the idea that it's a lucrative income? Does it come from a need to be superior to others? Why does one think they are called out special and appointed by an invisible Puppet Master to talk down to others like they believe they are more spiritually endowed? What makes them think their ideas and interpretations are right? Why do these preachers think that everyone else is an imbecile that needs them to explain things, especially when the "explaining" is only their concept and not anything factual? Why do they delude themselves that they are "serving" their fellow man when the pulpit seems to be a pedestal only for self edification?
To see religion twist a life from what once sparkled as enjoyment and pleasure to what now appears as pious sacrifice and duty seems like a mental illness.
I am just so disappointed. Not everyone has her kind of talent, and to not make the most of it by sharing her true gift...well, it seems like a Creator would take it as a slap in the face. Why would someone not appreciate what they have and instead be overly concerned with a bulldozing agenda that everyone else must believe exactly what they do.