I was admiring the hand-built ceramics made using Native American techniques and inspiration by the students at our museum yesterday (my day job is to direct the Bolduc House Museum in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri). One bowl was inspired by a Mississippi Mound Builder's sacrificial heart vessel. Its maker explained that the heart would be cut out of a sacrificial victim, placed in the bowl, the victim's corpse kicked away, and the heart lifted to the deity in the bowl.
The idea wounded my spirit.
Then I pondered it some more.
The essence of worship is just that: to offer one's whole heart up to the Lord.
The essence of spiritual abuse such as I portray coming from Pastor Ed towards his ex-wife, Terry Soldan, in the novel, Pastor's Ex-Wife, is to cut out and offer another person's heart up to God.
Terry's problem after she left her abusive pastor husband was to regain and reclaim her own heart. That accomplished, she may someday decide to yield it back without reservation to the Lord - perhaps the next story.....
You can read Pastor's Ex-Wife by Lesley Barker on the Kindle. If you don't own a kindle, you can download the kindle ap for free to your computer desktop or smart phone and then you can buy the book in the Amazon Kindle Store here.
About Me
- Lesley
- I have discovered that walking a very narrow path leads to broad places of peace, contentment, and provision. After an eclectic career of nonprofit leadership, museums, education and social services, Dr. Lesley Barker is transitioning to retirement devoted to full time writing. Expect surprises to come from her pen.
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