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My friend Stephen has been blogging about his journey through Christendom, and I thought what he shares below might be helpful for others.

A few years ago, I was burned out spiritually: Christianity as I understood it was not working for me and I was in so much despair from trying to get it to work, that I seriously thought about abandoning the faith altogether. Yes, on the surface, the casual observer may have said, “well, Stephen, your problems are probably as a result of you not being dedicated enough to God, you need to follow the spiritual disciplines, apply your faith and give thanks in all things, this is only a test!” And early in my Christian walk, I probably would have agreed with this sentiment, but after years of trying my best to be the good Christian, and slaving at the alter of spiritual disciplines and professed love for God in the attempt to get what I called the Christian life to work for me, I had not only gotten weary, but was also at the point where I was almost beginning to resent ‘God’. I would soon realize that it was not God or Jesus that I really resented– the truth is that my faith in Jesus is stronger now than it was over 20 years ago when I accepted Him into my life – my problem was with the god of religion and this religious brand that has been made out of being a follower of Jesus. This religion, which we disguise as Christianity is as addictive and enslaving as any habit forming substance that you can inject or smoke. Unfortunately, this religion that disguises itself as Christianity is very enticing and appealing because it follows the essential principles of our world, which imply that we live in a pure meritocracy based on the Law of Linearity which we apply in almost every facet of our lives (more on this law later on).

During this rare moment of serious reflection and introspection, while I contemplated what direction my life would go spiritually, I had to ask myself one very serious question “what does it really mean to be a Christian or a follower of Jesus?” I discovered that what I was calling Christianity was nothing more than a pseudo-form of the faith based on popular religious and legalistic practices. It is my humble belief that much of what we call Christianity is nothing more than a legalistic practice where we compare “performance score cards” (and demonize those who we feel are not getting it right) as opposed to being a haven of authentic spirituality and God’s love. It is for this reason that I believe that we have perverted the Gospel of God’s love and grace and are known more for our legalistic stance on the issues, instead of the love that is supposed to be our trademark. By embracing self-righteousness, which religion inevitably forces you to do, we are too busy comparing ourselves with each other, seeing who is obeying the right rules under the right belief system (and the belief system or doctrine changes based he specific brand of religion and denomination). By so doing, we end up deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are actually impressing God with our good deeds, while we simultaneously criticize the “world” or others who are not in our fold for not getting their act together. I know what it is like to be so infected with this kind of insidious pride, so much so that I couldn’t even see it, as you cannot see the forest from the trees. What broke me down however, was the sudden realization that the formulaic brand of “Christianity” which most of us professed Christ-followers ascribe to just does not work. You know, the brand that says the Bible is simply an instruction book for life, which if properly followed will give you guarantees results. We have even cleverly come up with an acronym for the Bible to back this claim: B.I.B.L.E translated to mean, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Sounds cute, but is it spiritually accurate? This brand of “Christianity” basically goes by the following rule: if you obey God, you get blessed and inherit heaven; if you disobey God, you get cursed and eventually go to hell. Dr. Larry Crabb, an acclaimed Christian author and psychologist calls this the “Law of Linearity”, and the sad part is that most of us really think that this is what the Christian life is all about; Yes, you will find Scriptures scattered throughout the Bible which seem to support this law and purport that this is all that the “Christian life” is all about, but this is a law based on an agreement that has been deemed null and void after the cross. Reading the Gospels and teachings of Jesus and the New agreement that we have with God, I am now convinced that we have often misunderstood what being a follower of Jesus really means. What ends up happening with this popular brand of “Christianity”, however, is that in order to foster the illusion of obedience to Biblical Law, we lower the standards of the Law by cherry-picking laws out of the Bible to suit our own agenda. In doing so, we not only minimize the seriousness of Biblical Law, but we also negate the message of God’s grace. Oh, we talk a good game when it comes to God’s grace and we all have our arsenal of Scriptures to say that we are saved by grace and not by works, but when it comes to the practical reality of our lives, you will generally find out that we refute our claims. We think that grace applies to becoming a child of God alone, as opposed to the reality of our everyday lives.

When we talk about “obeying God”, what we mostly are referring to is really using God as a means to an end. So we adhere to what Dr. Larry Crabb calls the Law of Linearity where we obey the appropriate law for whatever blessing we want. The crux of this law is simple, it is the message of the Old Covenant which basically states that if you want a certain blessing (we’ll call the blessing “B”) follow the appropriate law to get this blessing (call the law “A”): Want obedient and responsible kids? Then discipline them appropriately and give them the appropriate dosage of “tough love” without smothering them; don’t spare the rod. Want financial success in you life? Then follow all the principles of tithing and become good steward that God wants you to be. Want success in your marriage? Then follow the laws of communication, listening, being a loving spouse and success is guaranteed; Wives, don’t forget to submit to your husbands. You get the drift, follow the necessary laws, and success is guaranteed in that area of your life. There is nothing inherently wrong with these laws, but there is much wrong with the illusion that we can keep them or that “success” in those ares of our lives is guaranteed if we follow them. What happens when we don’t get the results that we hope for from our attempts to obey these laws? What happens to the God-loving family who ends up with an addicted son? The dynamic and respected preacher who ends up with a pregnant daughter? The God-fearing family who loses a two year old child to a terminal illness? The astute and servant-leadership businessman who loses his life’s savings in a corporate embezzlement scandal that he had no idea was going on? The bottom line is that life does not always turn out the way we went it to, even when we follow all the right principles. Following the Law of Linearity, a modern form of the Old Covenant will always lead to frustration and self-deception. But in our obsession to get positive results and to “prove to the world that having Jesus in our lives really works”, we often lie about the reality of our lives because we are trying to market God to win converts. God becomes no more than a catalyst for the “successful lives” that we desire, and if we are to be totally honest with ourselves, most of us idolize this notion of “success” much more than we do God. When we follow this path, this Law of Linearity, we don’t end up really end up worshipping God, but adoring what He can do for us.

We will never fully accept the message of God’s grace as long as we believe that we can really obey Biblical law. Unfortunately, we often have put the cart before the horse when it comes to “law” and “grace”. We often preach grace and love to get people to accept Jesus, and then once they have done that, we preach law and legalism to get them to obey God. But the Law can only do one thing – Biblical law can only show you your inability to keep it and the infinitely large gap between our performance and God’s standard. In today’s politically charged society we use terms like “liberal”, “secular-progressive”, “heathens”, “atheists”, and the like to label people as those who don’t measure up or believe as we do. It makes us feel better about ourselves as if God is fooled by our shenanigans since we have found people who are not as “obedient as we are”. And while most of us would agree that we still have a long way to go compared to some examples of altruism like Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa, they are not the standard either. From a Biblical standpoint, the “worst of sinners” and the “most righteous” of human beings are still light years away from coming close to God’s Holy standard. This is what the Bible means when it says we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

The difference between religion and true spirituality in-Jesus is so glaring once you get down to it, but this is often very difficult to see on the surface because we live in a world that is conducive to the promotion of religious agendas. Religion is more concerned with image; spirituality is concerned with the soul and touching hearts with love. Religion elevates self-righteousness, spirituality keeps us humble; religion perpetuates the illusion that it is possible to obey Biblical law, while spirituality makes you realize that we are all products of God’s grace; religion is the ultimate tool for manipulation and control, spirituality is about true freedom and love; religion is focused primarily on rules, spirituality is focused on relationships; religion places self and its accomplishments as god, spirituality focuses on Jesus. I once read a very poignant quote from an anonymous writer which said that “religion if for people who are scared of going to hell, spirituality is for people who have already been there.” Only a person who has been ravaged by the tyranny of addiction or the futility of trying to get life to work by Law could exude that kind of authenticity.

If I had not gotten to the point of utter desperation, I will not have started to learn how to genuinely grasp to the message of Gods grace and live from a paradigm of love instead of fear. Like many Christians, I had been professing this message of “grace” for years, but deep down inside, I negated and rejected this message, because like most of us, I realized that we live in a worldly of assumed meritocracy, where people get what they deserve, nothing more and nothing less. But God’s grace blows this myth up into pieces and that is why it is easy to accept in principle, but putting it into practice is something else altogether. When someone else hurts us, we want them to receive justice (code for “punishment”) but when we hurt someone else, we want to receive grace and forgiveness. Grace is only appealing to us as long as we alone are the recipients. For everyone else, we want them to earn their due through blood sweat and tears. We naturally assume that God blesses “good” people and curses “bad” people, but when you realize that no one is really good (at least not based on the Bible’s standards) you start to understand why we need grace as much as we do. Remember when a gentleman came up to Jesus calling Him “Good teacher” and Jesus made it clear to the man that no one is good except God, the point being that God’s definition of good is totally different from ours (see Matthew 19:16 & 17). This is not to say that there are no good people by our human standards, but let us not confuse this “goodness” with being righteous in-Christ, these are two totally different things and understanding this makes the difference between being self-righteous and being humble.

(photo by zoo gal)

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so, i’m in the process of writing the next book. the next couple months i invited a few nobodies to contribute some of their journey on the blog. i’ll also be jumping in to share from my own life, how the book is coming along, and stories others share with me like the last few posts i’ve done.

i spent a lot of years of my life seeking God. well, so i thought. what i really desired was love, peace, freedom, and well-being. not the fleeting kind that comes and goes depending on all kinds of situations and circumstances, but the kind that abides deep within and travels with you. there are all kinds of routes people take to find this. mine was religion, and i assumed i would arrive at these through God. eventually i discovered that the reality i was seeking was God, and the other thing i called “God” was just a delusion. this makes me simultaneously an Atheist and a devout believer. an Atheist, because i no longer invest belief in the “God” i was once seeking; and a devout believer because i have partaken of the reality of another God i discovered. honestly, i think i might have missed the whole thing if i hadn’t opened myself to the message of Jesus. strangely, i knew of Jesus as a scholarly academic and professional minister, but still missed it for a long time. i guess love and grace trumped my blindness.

so, i’m writing about it in the upcoming book. i think it is all so simple (not always easy, but simple) that we miss it. we go out and add layers of stuff to it that only serves to conceal it further. sometimes the truth is hidden in a web of lies.

last night i walked down to a nearby pond by myself. it was unseasonably warm here in nashville. i sat under a tree in the dark while a gentle breeze blew across my face. i was fully present sitting there. the truth was there and plain to see and feel…not hidden or obscured or distorted…it wasn’t something i knew in my head. it was an eternal “knowing” that flowed up from deep within me.

(photo by zoo gal)

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I (Anne Goodrich) probably wouldn’t know Mary if it wasn’t for her lawnmower. A couple of summers ago I noticed that my neighbor was mowing her grass with an old manual push mower. I walked over and introduced myself and told Mary she could borrow my lawnmower anytime. That’s what neighbors are for. Besides, I had already been the recipient of lawnmower kindness myself, when a friend from church scouted around and found a refurbished one for me to buy at a price I could afford. The occasional loaning of my mower was pretty much the extent of my interaction with Mary until last month.

On a freezing December day I had just walked out the door to get in my car when I heard yelling across the street. I looked up just as I saw Mary get pushed and almost fall backwards out of the open passenger side of her car. As she scrambled out of the car in just a t-shirt and jeans, I asked her if she was all right. She said no, and ran into her mobile home while the man from the car quickly followed. I called the police, but Mary and her boyfriend took off before they arrived, and we hadn’t thought to get a license plate number. I prayed for her safety.

The next day was busy and honestly I didn’t think about Mary overly much. I assumed that she was arguing with her boyfriend, and hoped they’d made up. But then came a knock on our door at dinner time that evening, and Mary stood there in the frigid cold without a coat, asking to borrow a phone. After my son ushered her in and she limped over to a chair, she told us that she had just escaped from her boyfriend. He’d been beating her and holding her captive throughout the weekend, and shooting up heroin all day, trying to kill himself. Mary finally saw a small window of opportunity and ran to our house, and when he saw her get away, the boyfriend took off in her car. She kept saying that I must think she was so stupid to be with a man who would treat her that way, and I kept reassuring her that we all have messy lives sometimes, and I didn’t think she was stupid, or that she had deliberately made the choice to get a boyfriend who would be a heroin addict and abuse her. I tried to be as kind and gentle and loving as possible with her.

The paramedics came to treat the large gash in Mary’s knee that she’d gotten when her boyfriend threw a ceramic bowl at her. The police soon followed and interviewed her before she left in an ambulance. I keep checking across the street, but I haven’t seen Mary around since that night.

I heard someone say recently that when she was young and very ill a teacher sent her a note telling her to keep her chin up and keep on going. She said that she’d never forgotten those words and the kindness of her teacher taking the time to write to her.

I’m trying to be more attentive to the words I speak, more mindful of opportunities to offer kindness, with a perennial awareness of God’s presence within me. He shows himself in sometimes the most mundane ways. I’m thankful that one summer day he simply nudged me to loan my lawnmower, knowing one day Mary would need to know someone she could run to for safe haven.

(photo by brookenovak)

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words, words, words, God this, God that, blah, blah, blah…

Jesus said, “I have come to give abundant life.”

(photo by imapix)

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Hello everyone. My name is Tammy Schoch, and I’m Jim’s friend. He has trusted me to write on his blog. Scary stuff indeed.

I live in Defiance, Ohio, and I’m a mental health nurse. My work influences the other things that I love, so if you get a mental health vibe from me, it’s understandable.

My sister recently loaned me five books. She had been cleaning through some things, and she randomly chose these books based on conversations we’ve had over the last few weeks. One was about a nonviolent view of the atonement. Another was about creation spirituality. Another was about freeing oneself from shame and guilt. I read portions of these three, and gained an understanding of some things I had not known about. I enjoy theology and philosophy, but only to a point. Once I get the main idea, that’s good enough for me. I’m too pragmatic to read the whole thing.

Two of the books caught me, and I read them completely. The first is A Churchless Faith, by Alan Jamieson. It was written a few years ago, and although I had heard about it and even discussed its ideas with others, I only took the time to read it with my sister’s prompting.

I had a similar encounter with this book, as I had with the enneagram about 10 years ago. It was as though someone were telling me what was in my own soul, in a way that even I could not express.

And I realize even more than before, that those of us who are questioning the institution of church are not unusual, hanging out on the fringes of Christianity. There are many of us.

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox faiths have known these things for centuries. Remember all those writings about the mystics, the desert experience, and the dark night of the soul? I’m thinking that there’s a lot of Protestants who are just starting to grasp these concepts, and in order to do so effectively, sometimes it means a departure from the institutional church. Leaving organized religion is not a sign of waning spirituality. It often is a sign of a divine struggle, a step in the right direction, and the beginning of a period of spiritual growth.

(I’ll tell you about the other book next time. It’s not because I think this post is too long already. It’s because I can’t remember the title, and I’ll need to call my sister about it …)

(photo by zoo gal)

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speaking of books, my friend Krystin over at ESA send me her picks this morning.

(photo by zoo gal)

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i received an email from a guy named don. don is 62, and he’s been in southern baptist church life for 59 of those years. so, i went to his site, and found what i have posted below. it’s never too late.

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve changed the name of my blog. In Search of Life implies that I somehow lost or never had in the first place, LIFE. I now see that that is not the case. LIFE is a unified expression of the only thing there is: LIFE ITSELF; which I believe may also be called GOD. GOD is LIFE is GOD….etc: GOD is the essence we call LIFE. He/She/It is in everything, is everything; therefore is LIFE. Our constant yearning for union with GOD (the Search for Life) is the outward, worldly expression of the innermost knowing of our soul: that we are one with all things and with life itself; with GOD itself; and we seek always to experience that, the union with Life/God. That’s what we’re doing day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. We are doing this through the living of our lives and the expression of the life within us and all the celebrations of that life, that bring joy.

Whenever we do something unexpectedly magnanimous, whenever we rise to an occasion, love more than we thought possible, we feel JOY! This is what we’re looking for , this is what we’re seeking always, because JOY is LOVE is LIFE is GOD, and we sense this at the deepest level of our being.

I was searching for LIFE; that is GOD, and GOD was right on top of me. I hadn’t, until now, realized that. If one doesn’t come to realize this, one’s search will be in vain. The search might never end.

Sooner or later all of us will find the fullest measure of what we are looking for; only by looking in the mirror.  LIFE is GOD. I am LIFE. GOD, therefore,  is in me. My search for GOD is over. My search to understand MYSELF, who I really am, has just begun. I invite you to look into the mirror. What reflection do you see?

(photo by elaine faith)

We are in Billings, Mt visiting my wife's home town and her brother's sixyth birthday. I love this part of the country and want to just find a space in the middle of no where and sit until I get bored. And just think.  And write, and take pictures, and dream of a simple cabin where  I would have many guests, one or two at a time, and share our lives, and share stories of how we have actually seen the gospel at work flavoured with a hint of rustic survival and the smell of leather.Throw in a touch of horse manure and wet dog fur and you have a dream.

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Hey, I’m headed up to the Abbey of Gethesmani next week to make some headway on the next book. So, hang with me and i’ll be back. Jim Shok has the below thoughts as a follow up to his first post.

Thoughts on the transition …

Once I started on this journey of waking up to living and love, I never could be claimed back to the old patterns of plodding through the motions of “being spiritual for all the world to see.” It began as a process of realizing just how short life is, and how soon it all passes by. I became more and more unwilling to use my “time, talents, and treasure” (so to speak) on anything that did not feel natural and true to whom I was inside. I no longer had the desire to argue beliefs with those I loved. It all seemed like a dead end of only liking those who believed like I did. Although to be honest, I wondered if I still believed in anything any more.

While I had patience for learning to experience life in new ways, I had no patience at all for engaging in dead and tired expressions of religion that I had once embraced. I once thought that being a church leader was the highest calling I could live out. Now I believe that the highest and most fulfilling use of my life is just letting it unfold one conversation at a time. Where will it lead and what will I become as I spend my days away from what I was told was a “life calling?” I have no clue. But I’m excited to wake up each day and find out. As I have said as of late: “If God is Love, then I’m into that”. Let life begin.

Thanks for listening again. And remember, if you need to talk, you can call me anytime at 419-783-9593. Or shoot me an email at shokthegerman@gmail.com. If you ever get to Defiance, Ohio, we need to have a meal together. Seriously, I have the time now. 

Jim Schoch … err … Shok … err … Shok the German

http://shokthegerman.blogspot.com/

(photo by zoo gal)

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I sometimes get asked in interviews if I think all “organized churches” are “bad.” The answer is, no. there are many different forms or expressions of the essence of “church.” Anne describes below her experience in organized church. Honestly, it sometimes feels like people obsess over the “right or wrong way” to do church. Maybe it’s time to get on with it.

Me, A Church Lady? How the Hell Did That Happen?

I’ve done things a little backwards compared to others. I became a Christian in my 30s, converted to Catholicism, then wandered away, explored Buddhism, and spent two years studying in a new age center, where I eventually realized I missed Jesus. I didn’t truly become part of a church community until I was 50 years old, so my experience and opinion of church might differ a bit than others. This is what I’ve discovered:

There are churches with strange names. Like Threads.

People in church dress in shorts and blue jeans and have tattoos and piercings.

Rock bands play worship music, which sometimes includes tunes by Pink Floyd or The Who. Church music also includes Gregorian Chant and Native American flute compositions. Sometimes you sit in silent meditation or practice Lectio Divina.

You break into small groups during the spiritual talk and discuss things with people you met just seconds ago.

Multisensory elements are part of the worship gathering and could include chair races, Let’s Make a Deal game shows, tying strings around each others’ wrists, journaling on a prayer wall, or having someone tattooed during the spiritual talk. An art gallery is part of the sanctuary.

Lee, the pastor, makes a point each week of welcoming visitors who might not believe in God but are just there to ask questions. Church is for asking questions.

Lee, the pastor, likes people to just call him Lee.

In church there are middle-class married professionals with families. In church there are ex-heroin addicts, former alcoholics, ex-porn addicts, former abusers, those formerly abused, and physically and mentally impaired people.

There are no programs, no men’s ministry, no women’s ministry, no youth services, no single’s groups. Your pastor believes in people saying no to doing too much so they don’t burn out in church ministry.

There are people who meet in community groups all thrown together regardless of age, gender or marital status. Not all the people leading groups or in groups are Christ followers. Some are skeptics with lots of questions. (Church and community groups are for asking questions.)

You don’t know who your pastor votes for because you don’t talk about politics in church. In church there are very conservative Republicans and very liberal Democrats.

You don’t use Christianese words because you exist for the unchurched and some words might make others feel excluded.

The pastor is humble and full of love for God and people, and with his words draws people into a deeper encounter with the love of Christ. The elders ask who would miss our church if it disappeared tomorrow, and that leads them to meet with the mayor to find out where we are needed in our community.

There are no church gatherings one Sunday so you can take busses to one of the rougher parts of town to do energy audits so people can receive new insulated windows through a grant.

No offerings are taken, there’s just a giving box at the back of church.

Church friends don’t think it’s odd if you have friends that are atheists, Buddhists or gay.

You learn that the heart of a church is serving others instead of coming to be served.

At Christmas you decide to “worship more, spend less, give more and love all” and raise enough money to build several wells for villages in Africa.

You find out church is not a building, but people with a deep love for God who want to live life in community with each other and love and serve others.

You discover (I discover) that this spiritual community is family, and you are home.

(photo by zoo gal)

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in my own evolution with God, it seems things have evolved from complexity to simplicity. it was always simple to  begin with, i complicated it. make sense. why would God want to make the truth complicated?

here’s an example of the simplicity. there is only love or fear. the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. hate is just an expression of fear. anger, bitterness, judgment, anxiety are all expressions of fear. perfect love leaves no room for fear. love and fear can’t occupy the same space at the same time. love sets me free because it spawns the realization that nothing that is truly real (Life, Peace, Joy) can ever be threatened. on the other hand, fear almost always is a fear of lack…i’m not smart enough (lack of knowledge)…i’m not good enough (lack of worth)…i’m not spiritual or religious enough (lack of union with God).

love seems so full of abundance, and offers itself unconditionally in every moment for my choosing. sometimes it seem like both religion and society wants to control and regulate Life; dispense Life one little drop at a time with all sorts of rules for laying hold of it. would love do that? or would love just let Life flow, keeping the spigot in the “On” position, and place it inside us for our choosing. didn’t Jesus tell the woman at the well that this Life would rise up like a wellspring within her?

(photo by zoo gal)

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I was invited to hang out with a group of folks down in Franklin, TN last week. Some of them have read Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces. They just sort of bumped into each other along the paths of life, and became friends. They all hang out together from time to time for conversation. They’ve been going through that religion de-tox thing, and learning to let God (and “church”) just be life. My friend Jim Schoch in Defiance, Ohio send me the below comment he recently received as he shared some of his journey about this.

“Very interesting read! Our family has not been to an organized (recognized) church in about 5 years. It has been my observation that Jesus had 12 dear friends around him, whom he sheparded carefully. During that time he also spent a good deal of time developing relationships with people. In fact if Jesus came to us to help us establish “the church” with all of its buildings, doctrines, lists, etc, then He did a horrible job! He gave us absolutely no guidance: none like God gave to Moses in how to build His temple.

It is about being loved by Him so much that it flows from us to those near to us. We build close, deep relationships - like Jesus did with His 12. We recognize one another as being specially created by Him.

We have “church” in our home on Thursday nights. Basically what it consists of is dinner and visiting. We share with each other how we saw God act/bless/move in our family that week. We share which versus God has laid on our heart and how we think He is using it to help us grow.

I have not discussed doctrine or a theological point (outside of seminary) in years. It’s just not important. The Pharisees knew all the doctrine and theology, yet missed Him. I have no desire to repeat them.”

Anyway, I’m trying to get this next book written. It’s about the spiritual evolution that’s been taking place within me (and many others) these past few years. Let me ask you, does it make sense that God would make the Truth complicated and difficult so that only a few highly knowledgeable or enlightened people can get it? Mostly, my evolution has been moving from complexity to simplicity. Geez, it was simple from the start until I muddled it up so royally. I’m trying to write this book without any shred of religious and theological verbiage, so the plain and simple and beautiful truth can shine.

(photo by digihuman)

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i have a question…

Jesus said, “Repent for the kingdom of God has come.” he word “repent” (metanoia) means a new mind or a totally new way of thinking. so, a translation of Jesus’ words might be, “Everything you truly desire is available right now in every moment, but to access and experience it is going to require a complete overhaul of how you think and process reality.”

with that in mind, if you strip everything away to the true core or essence of things, what do you think is the “metanoia” that would most alter our present reality. in other words, fill in the blank of this statement: “If i and others bought into _________________, everything would change.” try not to give a religious answer, or at least not one without explanation. for example, saying something like if everyone “believed in Jesus.” the fact of the matter is that a lot of people “believe in Jesus” and it doesn’t change anything. try instead perhaps to identify a truth you discovered in Jesus if that applies. also, don’t concern yourself with the idea of giving a “correct” or “right” answer. just answer the question straight up. what change of mind would most influence what we experience as our reality. if you give a pat answer or a Christianese, i might press you a little bit in a comment to flesh it out.

here’s one a friend and i came up with…

if i changed my mind about lack, understanding there is no lack, and that everything i need or desire is abundantly and unconditionally supplied in every moment…that would radically alter my reality and how i live.

(photo be elaine faith)

http://www.divinenobodies.com/blog/?p=371

in a way i hate to throw up another post because i’ve really been benefiting from what people have been sharing on the previous one. so, please add your thoughts to that post if you’re inclined. the last couple days i’ve been interacting with a few folks on a forum called the ooze. here’s the link if you’re interested.

lately it seems like i’ve become more aware of people’s hands. like i’m prone to study a them if i’m with them for a while in a conversation or something. it’s like i see something of their lives expressed in their hands. yesterday, i was in a conversation with someone and was almost brought to tears looking at their hands. there was both a certain beauty and an evidence of wear in them. for a moment i wanted to reach out and take this person’s hands. it would have been strange based on the world’s rules because this was the first time ever meeting this person, and it was one of those spontaneous encounters. and yet i wanted to take and hold those hands, look this person in the eyes, and just silently send them my love and compassion.

which made me wonder, are the world’s rules really getting us anywhere? maybe it would be better to follow my own deep gut feelings.

i like the pic above…look at those hands…those long fingers…there’s a certain elegance to them…and yet they have a certain sweet maturity to them from living life.

(photo by zoo gal)

[You do not have permission to access this file]I am going through something I wonder if anyone else feels this way. I finally got out of General Motors of 30 years of service. I hated the last 20 years and tried several things to get out, But alas, I retired about a year ago and have worked a few jobs since and even got fired for the first time! I have working at Lowes for the past year and found the corporate America is pretty much the same everywhere. I put too much energy into actually helping customers and trying to be a phone solicitor since I was a salesman. After nine months I sort of quit (long story) and came back as a part timer. That was cool for a while until they cut my hours to ten hours a week. Now it is hardly worth going in for that little of income. 

The dilemma  is that I really need more hours of work to survive since my retirement pension covers the mortgage and household bills but lacks in gas money and food. So now I am experiencing what poverty was like when we first got married. I am not at a point where I could do what I want to do but have no funds. 

Somehow I feel that this "crunch" may be good for us, but it hurts! I have trust issues. I have cried out to God, " I am here, ready for the next thing! Why can't you use me? And make it clear to me?" I have to live on less or make more money. Keep in mind that I am only 55 years old after my 30 with GM. I just feel like I have too many talents to just give up and walk away from a dream. Simply put, I want to travel and tell peoples' stories. Does that sound dumb?

Don't get me wrong. I believe I have at least one book to write and I have these web skills.

So what do you think reader? What has your experience been trying to find your way in a new directive? Please comment below.[You do not have permission to access this file]

 

 

 

Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

What words of encouragement! Put on the after-shave of life. 

http://www.divinenobodies.com/blog/?p=372

a friend and i hooked up last night. we talked about how we are still sometimes guilty of using religious language, which frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense once you start thinking about it. for example, we go on this thing of talking about “being consciously aware of the presence of God.” what the heck does that really mean!? yesterday, i got an email from someone who was sharing how they struggle to really feel or experience God inside them other than a mental or cerebral thing.

so, we put these two things together.

have you ever experienced peace, love, kindness, comfort, joy or well-being? all of those characteristics or attributes are expressions of God. there is no other source for them. you experience them through interactions with others, nature, music, writings, art, etc…and that is knowing and experiencing God. To be “consciously aware of the presence of God” is connecting the dots of those deep feelings within you to God. it’s not the music or nature welling up those wonderful characteristics inside, those expressions of God “as” nature or music are touching the expressions of Life or God within you.

i’m continuing to write the next book. i’ve got a ways to go still. please send me your prayers, or love, or a bag of Cheetos, or something to keep me going

(photo by zoo gal)