I was just thinking about a church service attended a few weeks ago. I'm not a regular goer by any means,
but this place I'll return to.
Folks talk a lot about true faith and the "real" path to God. These folks seem to truly be trying to get there.
It's a very small church. Maybe 30 folks or so in total.
In mid service one younger christian stated that we got to the path to God through work. It's that sort of congregation that impresses me. The congregation can and does ask questions, the the preachers/ priests/ whatever you choose to call them. Answer them. Pretty much a Q and A session each time.
I love that!
If you can't ask others questions about God in church or ask God in church then what use it is? Why bother? Taking someone else s view of God and just accepting it is rather silly to my mind. Need to find out for ourselves.
At any rate. This fellow had stated that we get to God via work. He was stopped immediately and advised that God comes to us through Grace and not work. So very true.
There is not one thing in the world we can do to bribe God with our works or our money or our promises to do this or that.
He gives, we receive and that's all there is to it. We tend not to like this one wee bit. We have that desire to give and get. Even the people in the lowest positions in life believe that all is give and take.
Yet...we are not God. The rules and different when dealing with God than with man.
We are not God, we are the children of God that are still in training to join him back home.
All that comes to us is a blessing of God. If we know it or not.
We live in grace and we end this world in grace. It's all his giving and none of what we do.
What we do have a need to learn is how to accept that grace. Blessings come and we tend to ignore them or discount them. Thus we place ourselves in our own mind further from God. We talk about coincidences, or things that "just happen". They don't. We create within God. And by his grace we create all that is in our lives.
It is never our work that brings us blessings. But God's love that does so constantly.
I don't need to work for God. He is water to me. My environment. My life. No need to seek him out, just accept that he is here with me always.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
A note of wisdom.
This is a note I received from my beloved sister Jen today. Words of wisdom and strength. She has much of both.
Everyday you are born anew!!!!!!
While cleaning out my email, I ran across this list of guidelines for 2010 that a friend emailed me. If we take the time to follow them, I think we'll all enjoy life just a little bit more this year.AnnHANDBOOK 2010
Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a beggar.
3.. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts on things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously - no one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner about his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...
Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything...
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your inner most is always happy. So, be happy.
Last but not the least:
40. Please forward this to everyone you care about, I just did._________________________________________________
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Snow Daze
The snow finally stopped about 3:30 today. We've got a lot extra if anyone would like some? That would definately be a come and get it yourself sort of thing. You can start at the front of my truck and keep taking it till we hit the plowed path in the parking lot. :)
This was about 12 noon today.
This was taken after dark. Note the way it's changed? That is from the heat from the building melting some of it off. Snow only comes in cold weather and is a cold substance. But oddly enough when there is enough of it. It acts like an insulator. Thus igloos are what they are.
The front walk.
Those lumps you see out there are cars.
This is our walk way that was already shoveled out once. :)
The left side of my truck. Umm...about 8 inches on the side there I think.
Stomping my way out to the door to get to the truck.
I do believe we may be snowed in for a day or two. Depends on how lazy I feel about going out there with a shovel to dig out.
I was able to get a shovel at least. It's this oddly small thing that's only about 3 feel long. But that's what I could find. Between that and the entrenching tool I have from the service it will have to do.
All of the stores are sold out of snow shovels Oddly enough they still have pleanty of garden shovels and the like.
Amazing what we create. I feel a bit like one of the characters in a book I read last year. "Who ordered this?" Was his line.
Please don't anyone think this is the way MD always is. Normally we get Maybe 3 to 4 inches of snow a year and it melts off the same day. This year the winter has been a bit much for snow. Minds me a bit of ND when I was stationed there. We've had 2 major storms and supposedly more to come before winter is done.
Well, what I consider major storms anyway.
I'd love to just sit here, take a leave day on Monday and let the sun melt it off. But....unless we get some sort of sun flare or global warming really kicks in I'll still be digging out 2 or 3 feet of snow to get my truck out. :)
On the up side. I'll have the chance to talk more with my neighbors. The last big storm we had a lot of fellows and even some of the ladies were out helping each other with the digging out. One fellow I spoke with was just a pleasure to meet an older black gent who simply said "this is our neighborhood". As he started in on the snow in front of my truck. It was no grand pronouncement. Just a simple statement on his part. I am truly and deeply blessed.
I hear they've called out the national guard for the state. Seems odd to me as it's really not what I'd consider all that bad. But I'm not an EMT who has to deal with someone with a heart attack or a house fire either. So I'll trust the folks who know to do what they do.
I'm sure my Dad would know a good bit about that as he's taken classes for emergency reaction and even wrote a book about the Jacksonville Fire Dept and the history there of.
Be well all.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
For we live and move....
King James Bible
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
And we are a part of him and he is part of us. We are not seperate beings but one being. One and whole in and of ourselves and himself.
No, we are not God. Nor is God us. But we are all a part of the same thing, and cannot be seperated but in our own minds. His mind is constant, ours tends to wander about.
We are the children of God. His creations. And we are a part of him, and he of us. But the knowledge, all the real knowledge is with him via Christ. Christ is not God, but our conduit to God. Our older brother. Our teacher, our confidont and friend.
Just thoughts.
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
And we are a part of him and he is part of us. We are not seperate beings but one being. One and whole in and of ourselves and himself.
No, we are not God. Nor is God us. But we are all a part of the same thing, and cannot be seperated but in our own minds. His mind is constant, ours tends to wander about.
We are the children of God. His creations. And we are a part of him, and he of us. But the knowledge, all the real knowledge is with him via Christ. Christ is not God, but our conduit to God. Our older brother. Our teacher, our confidont and friend.
Just thoughts.
Friday, January 22, 2010
The cat in the paper box
I was thinking about the cat in the paper box today. How I dreged up that memory I've no idea.
Year ago there were dot matrix printers and these arcaich machines used what was called fan folded paper and feed through the printer either via pressure rollers or by track feeders. If you've no idea what I'm talking about it's ok. Just read on.
Fred (brother) had a worry one day. His printer refused to print! It printed fine in the morning, but now, around 3 pm it wouldn't do anything. No error lights on the front panel, ink ribbon had recently been changed, the strangest thing was that the paper would move only slightly when told to print something.
We looked at it and thought about it for a bit. Replaced the drivers, replaced the ribbon, checked the feed path. Nothing! Everything was in order. No reason in the world this bloody damned thing shouldn't be printing. Yes, we'd got to cussing at that point.
We must have worked on that silly printer for over 3 hours trying to figure out what the problem could possibly be.
Then all became clear with a slight sound of movement and the appearance of a cat's head coming out of the the paper box yawning.
Apparently, we'd disturbed the beast in it's slumber with our tugging on the paper to see why it wouldn't feed up to the printer.
We were relieved, mortified, angry and feeling very, very foolish about the whole deal.
After thinking about this story from my distant past it occured to me that we do a lot of that in our lives.
Something that has worked for us before suddenly stops working. We of course want to fix it and know what happened! We look all over the place for the answers and get more and more frustrated with things the more we try.
This can throw us all out of whack with things. We look and look and then even start blaming others. What a piece of junk! Who sells this thing? There ought to be a law I tell ya! Damned corperations! Who can I shoot? And on and on.
All that anger is actually coming from our fears. Yet we look at those last of all. Did I connect that cable right? Maybe in the last 3 things we tried I forgot something. Did I get a virus? Did I download something bad? Is God punishing me?
There are times. Many times! We need to just relax, realize there is not one thing I can do about this just now. And leave it alone! Give it time and see what comes up. I know that's hard to do. When we see a problem or what we think is a problem it is common to want to fix it.
I'd guess a good bit of the time we need only ask for God and then do nothing and then leave it alone. Allow God to do his thing and fix it for us.
You may think that dealing with a cat in a paper box is something too small to concern God. Yet the more we tried to fix it ourselves the worse we made things for ourselves. More anger, more fustration, more angst over nothing.
But we are spiritual beings temporarily here in the physical world. We're just passing though and learning what we need to in order to grow up one day.
That being the case, why would God be too small or have anything beneath his mighty dignity to resolve for us? He sent his son to be degraded, mocked, tortured and killed. So...what's beneath God? A printer problem? I think not.
He helps us (when we let him) to deal with the real Lessons, not the world. We need to learn the real things from the false and let the world go with God and his will. Pick up the lesson and leave the rest. It doesn't matter.
Only the soul matters in the end.
And if you happen to be one of the few folks who still has a dot matrix printer and it suddenly stops working. Be sure to check the paper box for cats or the like. :)
Be well.
Year ago there were dot matrix printers and these arcaich machines used what was called fan folded paper and feed through the printer either via pressure rollers or by track feeders. If you've no idea what I'm talking about it's ok. Just read on.
Fred (brother) had a worry one day. His printer refused to print! It printed fine in the morning, but now, around 3 pm it wouldn't do anything. No error lights on the front panel, ink ribbon had recently been changed, the strangest thing was that the paper would move only slightly when told to print something.
We looked at it and thought about it for a bit. Replaced the drivers, replaced the ribbon, checked the feed path. Nothing! Everything was in order. No reason in the world this bloody damned thing shouldn't be printing. Yes, we'd got to cussing at that point.
We must have worked on that silly printer for over 3 hours trying to figure out what the problem could possibly be.
Then all became clear with a slight sound of movement and the appearance of a cat's head coming out of the the paper box yawning.
Apparently, we'd disturbed the beast in it's slumber with our tugging on the paper to see why it wouldn't feed up to the printer.
We were relieved, mortified, angry and feeling very, very foolish about the whole deal.
After thinking about this story from my distant past it occured to me that we do a lot of that in our lives.
Something that has worked for us before suddenly stops working. We of course want to fix it and know what happened! We look all over the place for the answers and get more and more frustrated with things the more we try.
This can throw us all out of whack with things. We look and look and then even start blaming others. What a piece of junk! Who sells this thing? There ought to be a law I tell ya! Damned corperations! Who can I shoot? And on and on.
All that anger is actually coming from our fears. Yet we look at those last of all. Did I connect that cable right? Maybe in the last 3 things we tried I forgot something. Did I get a virus? Did I download something bad? Is God punishing me?
There are times. Many times! We need to just relax, realize there is not one thing I can do about this just now. And leave it alone! Give it time and see what comes up. I know that's hard to do. When we see a problem or what we think is a problem it is common to want to fix it.
I'd guess a good bit of the time we need only ask for God and then do nothing and then leave it alone. Allow God to do his thing and fix it for us.
You may think that dealing with a cat in a paper box is something too small to concern God. Yet the more we tried to fix it ourselves the worse we made things for ourselves. More anger, more fustration, more angst over nothing.
But we are spiritual beings temporarily here in the physical world. We're just passing though and learning what we need to in order to grow up one day.
That being the case, why would God be too small or have anything beneath his mighty dignity to resolve for us? He sent his son to be degraded, mocked, tortured and killed. So...what's beneath God? A printer problem? I think not.
He helps us (when we let him) to deal with the real Lessons, not the world. We need to learn the real things from the false and let the world go with God and his will. Pick up the lesson and leave the rest. It doesn't matter.
Only the soul matters in the end.
And if you happen to be one of the few folks who still has a dot matrix printer and it suddenly stops working. Be sure to check the paper box for cats or the like. :)
Be well.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wow!
Sorry it's been a couple of days. I really wanted to make this a daily thing for myself. Today is not the last day of the week though I rather wish it were. Visited lots of sites this week, had to leave 3 of them at different times for good old VITA "emergencies". Well, that's what folks call them anyway. Mostly I think a lot of folks are just being a bit nervous from the extra pressure.
I'm not sure I understand it really. VITA comes about every year and there always seems to be the same reaction to it. Oh yes, VITA is a free to the public tax program that is government supported. Any one under a 49 thousand income limit can come and get their simple taxes done for free. All that means that I can tell is that folks with midlin income can get help but not folks with stocks, bonds etc.
I always use the EZ form myself and have no worries with it. But then, I don't tend to worry over a lot of things most of the time. Maybe I should, but I just don't seem to have the interest to do so. Lazy bugger I am. :)
All of this minds me of fears. Fear of the government, Fear of not doing the right thing, Fear of unknowingly doing the wrong thing, Fear of loss or disappointment Etc, etc.
Wow! We've got a lot of fears.
I can understand fear, I have a fear of heights. But these other fears seem different to me. They are mostly made up of illusions. We fear things that haven't happened, only that May happen. We borrow worries from nothing and make them important to us. We make a lot of drama for ourselves is the way I see it.
Yet we all know better. When we were kids and got one of our spankings at one point or another I'm sure we were all told "don't cry till you've been hit". And if you've never been spanked than you have my deepest sympathy and concern.
All the little things we learned as kids still apply. How could they not? If I needed to know it when I was 3 then I need to know it now. How can the basic wisdom's change?
It's not them that change, but us. We grow up learning how to fear, and often what to fear. But then, we seldom seem to learn when a fear is real and when it's just the Monster in the closet.
Seems to me most of our fears fall into the category of Monster in the closet. Not oh my God, I might fall off of this thing and break my fool neck!
Maybe this is why most men leads lives of quite desperation?
Just more of my rambling thoughts.
Be well.
I'm not sure I understand it really. VITA comes about every year and there always seems to be the same reaction to it. Oh yes, VITA is a free to the public tax program that is government supported. Any one under a 49 thousand income limit can come and get their simple taxes done for free. All that means that I can tell is that folks with midlin income can get help but not folks with stocks, bonds etc.
I always use the EZ form myself and have no worries with it. But then, I don't tend to worry over a lot of things most of the time. Maybe I should, but I just don't seem to have the interest to do so. Lazy bugger I am. :)
All of this minds me of fears. Fear of the government, Fear of not doing the right thing, Fear of unknowingly doing the wrong thing, Fear of loss or disappointment Etc, etc.
Wow! We've got a lot of fears.
I can understand fear, I have a fear of heights. But these other fears seem different to me. They are mostly made up of illusions. We fear things that haven't happened, only that May happen. We borrow worries from nothing and make them important to us. We make a lot of drama for ourselves is the way I see it.
Yet we all know better. When we were kids and got one of our spankings at one point or another I'm sure we were all told "don't cry till you've been hit". And if you've never been spanked than you have my deepest sympathy and concern.
All the little things we learned as kids still apply. How could they not? If I needed to know it when I was 3 then I need to know it now. How can the basic wisdom's change?
It's not them that change, but us. We grow up learning how to fear, and often what to fear. But then, we seldom seem to learn when a fear is real and when it's just the Monster in the closet.
Seems to me most of our fears fall into the category of Monster in the closet. Not oh my God, I might fall off of this thing and break my fool neck!
Maybe this is why most men leads lives of quite desperation?
Just more of my rambling thoughts.
Be well.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Well, it's not that tomorrow. But I still have some thoughts.
God is love I hear folks say. Yes, I think he is. We in our true form are just as he is when we drop away the sillyness we've created. Why do we create the silliness? Fear I think.
Someone famous once wrote that most men lead lives of quite desperation. That rings true to me. But we have no need to do so. If our God is a God of love, then why in the world would we be driven to anything like desperation?
God created us in his image...his image. A creative being that created us would have made us like himself...so...we create as he does. This makes sense to me.
Why did God create us? I thought for a long time that perhaps for all of her perfection that we were created/are created from a lonelness. That God created us to in time grow up and be with him so he could be with us.
Now I'm wondering...Maybe it's simply in the nature of God to create. If so, how could he not create? And if he creates then we must do so also.
I think that we must create just as God does. Though it seems rather obvious that we do not realize and seldom appreciate our creations. We make our lives, but many of us don't like our lives or at least aspects of them.
But if we create......no reason we can't change our creations either. So...how to use this?
Prayer. Meditation. Possibilities becoming probabilities and then actualities. This I learned from meditation. As the Bible tells us. Pray as if what you pray for already is and believe. That is paraphrased of course.
Leave the mind that is filled with the inner voices of fear and doubt and "I can't". When the few times I've moved beyond that I've found that I can find my Soul.
I was a glorified security garud. And moved into computers. Not what one would find a so called natural transition eh? How? Prayer and meditation. I wanted it, I thought about it (all the time). I also had to do a bit of study. But I'm not certified in anything with computers. And lots the world thought says you can't be in computers without either a degree or a certification.
Then I prayed about it, often! I meditated and visualized it (another subject). I prayed seeing my prayer already answered and with the salery I desired at the time. It became real for me in time...yes, it did take a bit, and I had more learning to do. But it did work!
As near as I can tell Prayer always does work. But we have to modify our thinking to allow what we wish in order for it to work. Or maybe not our thinking...our soul? Our mind? Not sure on that, but something changes in us.
Our life is a prayer. It's a way of being and living that creates our lives. And this we can always change.
For instance. We ask faithfully on Sunday for Ice Cream. But all week long we Want ice cream and do nothing about it. Now we blame God for not giving us Ice Cream? We say in our minds I don't deserve it, we say to ourselves we are not worthy of it, we say it's not possible.
So what is God thinking? "Ok! Ice Cream it is.....er...ok...not? You don't want it then? Ummm...you seem a bit confused my child. I'll wait till you make up your mind."
We, or at least I, was taught that prayer was just something you did on Sundays or when you were in seriously deep shit.
God was not someone you asked questions of or questioned at all. So you prayed only to thank him for...well...something. Even if life was sucking for you at the time your were still supposed to pray and thank him. Maybe that's one of the reason's I started getting pissed off. How can you thank someone who's done nothing for you? And then do so on a regular basis? Human nature does not allow for such an attitude.
Ok..back to prayer. I've found a few things that seem to work.
1) do it in faith! Believe that your prayer will be answered. (see the possibility)
2) Really BELIEVE it. See it as a possibility in your own mind. No matter how far off it seems, do it! (See the probability of it)
3) Thank God for it! Really! Since you've already created it in your mind and know it is a reality not seen yet, why would you not be thankful for it's fulfillment? (Be thankful.)
And do it again and again and again until it is in your life.
You can do it with small things as well. Finding a place to park for instance, (see it, know it's there awaiting you.) Do it. It will be waiting for you to be there.
I say "do it" a lot it seems. Maybe I'm thinking like the short green dude Yoda.
"Do not try, do, or do not, there is no try."
Be well.
Someone famous once wrote that most men lead lives of quite desperation. That rings true to me. But we have no need to do so. If our God is a God of love, then why in the world would we be driven to anything like desperation?
God created us in his image...his image. A creative being that created us would have made us like himself...so...we create as he does. This makes sense to me.
Why did God create us? I thought for a long time that perhaps for all of her perfection that we were created/are created from a lonelness. That God created us to in time grow up and be with him so he could be with us.
Now I'm wondering...Maybe it's simply in the nature of God to create. If so, how could he not create? And if he creates then we must do so also.
I think that we must create just as God does. Though it seems rather obvious that we do not realize and seldom appreciate our creations. We make our lives, but many of us don't like our lives or at least aspects of them.
But if we create......no reason we can't change our creations either. So...how to use this?
Prayer. Meditation. Possibilities becoming probabilities and then actualities. This I learned from meditation. As the Bible tells us. Pray as if what you pray for already is and believe. That is paraphrased of course.
Leave the mind that is filled with the inner voices of fear and doubt and "I can't". When the few times I've moved beyond that I've found that I can find my Soul.
I was a glorified security garud. And moved into computers. Not what one would find a so called natural transition eh? How? Prayer and meditation. I wanted it, I thought about it (all the time). I also had to do a bit of study. But I'm not certified in anything with computers. And lots the world thought says you can't be in computers without either a degree or a certification.
Then I prayed about it, often! I meditated and visualized it (another subject). I prayed seeing my prayer already answered and with the salery I desired at the time. It became real for me in time...yes, it did take a bit, and I had more learning to do. But it did work!
As near as I can tell Prayer always does work. But we have to modify our thinking to allow what we wish in order for it to work. Or maybe not our thinking...our soul? Our mind? Not sure on that, but something changes in us.
Our life is a prayer. It's a way of being and living that creates our lives. And this we can always change.
For instance. We ask faithfully on Sunday for Ice Cream. But all week long we Want ice cream and do nothing about it. Now we blame God for not giving us Ice Cream? We say in our minds I don't deserve it, we say to ourselves we are not worthy of it, we say it's not possible.
So what is God thinking? "Ok! Ice Cream it is.....er...ok...not? You don't want it then? Ummm...you seem a bit confused my child. I'll wait till you make up your mind."
We, or at least I, was taught that prayer was just something you did on Sundays or when you were in seriously deep shit.
God was not someone you asked questions of or questioned at all. So you prayed only to thank him for...well...something. Even if life was sucking for you at the time your were still supposed to pray and thank him. Maybe that's one of the reason's I started getting pissed off. How can you thank someone who's done nothing for you? And then do so on a regular basis? Human nature does not allow for such an attitude.
Ok..back to prayer. I've found a few things that seem to work.
1) do it in faith! Believe that your prayer will be answered. (see the possibility)
2) Really BELIEVE it. See it as a possibility in your own mind. No matter how far off it seems, do it! (See the probability of it)
3) Thank God for it! Really! Since you've already created it in your mind and know it is a reality not seen yet, why would you not be thankful for it's fulfillment? (Be thankful.)
And do it again and again and again until it is in your life.
You can do it with small things as well. Finding a place to park for instance, (see it, know it's there awaiting you.) Do it. It will be waiting for you to be there.
I say "do it" a lot it seems. Maybe I'm thinking like the short green dude Yoda.
"Do not try, do, or do not, there is no try."
Be well.
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