Primal Happiness

Different levels of communication effect communities in ways that people don't consider when they make decisions without specifically discussing all of the information necessary in board meetings and council sessions.  Recently, I was the topic of discussion at a senior center where I live. In employment contracts in NM, sometimes the clause, "mode of living" will be in the contractual agreement.  The phrase "mode of living" means completely different things based on the community a person is from, class level, perceived class level, education, and basically everything in a person's life.  

People are generally driven by primal needs when they don't even ask another person what that person has to say about anything.  For example, the group of people who sat around to discuss me.  Never actually spoke with me, personally -- the group.  They accepted one person's interpretation of what I said, but that person never told me that she was reporting what I said to someone else.  She never said anything about telling other people that she was discussing my home or anything that I was doing.  She obviously thought that she was already entitled to a certain role in my life.  No.  She is not.  Then, they sat around discussing where I needed to go and where I was allowed to live.  Then, what happened, a man named Brian, who is usually inebriated showed up to tell me that I needed to go to the Community of Hope to get help and beg for money because he prayed about it.  I'm not supposed to worry about anything because "you'll get a girl."  The amount of social control via the verbally stated Christianity in the city I live in is tremendous.  

It is a game to claim Christianity and live anyway people want more than anything else.  The problem with it here is that I am Biblically literate.  I don't know every single word in the text; however, I do know that an actively using alcoholic's advice, even while claiming prayer and a belief in Jesus, is not sound advice.  Even God communicates with individual people about their lives.  The reason people don't communicate with others about situations and events is directly because of the risk of being wrong or for the need for personal change.  Having a stand point and expecting everyone to fit the mold devalues divine creative design.  

Everyone has a "fix" for that person's community.  Some people think that it is hiding the homeless.  Some people think it is imprisoning the poor or incriminating transgender people.  Some people think that it is alcohol and others think that it is their own personal quest for happiness.  Lots of people think it is their enforced Gospel stance, yet they don't understand that they are persecuting the same people who are working with them and helping to support them.  Why?  Sameness.  

Sameness is primal.  All too often someone will say to me, "but you have more ______ than me.  I only have 2."  This happened last night.  Ownership is about choice.  The person who said it to me is constantly drunk or looking for the next drink.  I don't spend any money on alcohol.  I don't spend any money on drugs.  I am constantly accused of being active drunk or a drug addict all of the time.  Why?  People need others to be just as depraved as they feel.  They don't have anything, so they don't think other people should have anything.  The same person was surprised that I owned plates.  Why?  He claims he doesn't have any and claims that it makes him more poor than me.  

The U.S. Mexico border to include parts of New Mexico have a poverty arrogance.  People are proud to be poor.  It's an odd game of who can live on less money.  Who can own less?  Why?  Personal pride is the means through which most communities have striven to find their identities.  Poverty is a game.  Poverty is primal. 

In poverty, people literally work to marry people still to have children to attain wealth.  Why?  People aren't valued as human beings as they need to be.  In most families, the leader's happiness is what attains group cohesion.  

For example, in my family of origin, most of us bonded together because we wanted my grandmother to be happy.  After she died, most of us didn't talk anymore.  Why?  We were together for her to be happy.  Her happiness was more important than our conflicts.  Without her, the family would actually have to contend with the relationships that we never really built as we were bonded around one person.  That person wanted us to be happy and make our own decisions.  After she died, so did our family freedom.  All of a sudden, no one was allowed to choose anything.  Everything was about someone else's religion.   

I earned a degree in religion because it was something that wasn't ever forced on me as a child and was a means to explore something new at the university.  We were never forced to go to church or believe in anything when I was underage.  It has only been since I have been over 30 that belief has been forced at me from other adults who mainly don't 1) know anything about me, 2) have any real training what they believe, or 3) accept difference of any kind. 

When the final answer is "Just say Jesus.  It makes them happy," belief is dead.  If my faith is a matter of someone else's happiness, then a personal relationship with a deity is dead.  When everything is about emotion, then it is doesn't matter that we can also think and believe.  Every feeling is real.  Not everything is a feeling.  Causing poverty to convert people to your point of view because it is good for that person's soul is religious oppression and immaturity.  Belief isn't an emotion.  Entitlement in a belief system is arrogance.  Choice is freedom.  Working to make another person's life more difficult is the role of the Devil in the book of Job.  Specifically working against another person because of an emotional state is, therefore, evil.  

The Evil One works against people following God.  I find it to be interesting that my kippah means that I don't have any kind of relationship with the Abrahamic God people find in the very scriptures that they quote to tell me that I 1) need to repent, 2) have turned away from Jesus, or 3) am wrong for worshipping with those Jews.  Praying in a Jewish temple meant to some people that there is no Jesus there.  My mode of living was recently questioned at a bus stop by someone who wanted to know if I was still worshipping with the Jews.  Instead of religious discrimination clauses being able to be defended, people can now just claim that they need to approve of another person's "mode of living."  Really?  

I know a lot of devout Christians from temple.  An omnipresent deity is not confined by brick and mortar.  Primal instincts can be captured and imprisoned.  God bless all of Remnant Israel.          

      
  

If: I Have One

Scene:  While on the bus, people literally looked through the top of my shopping bag to see what I had in order to decide if I was allowed to have it.  I had just been to Walmart and had gotten a shower caddy to organize art supplies as they worked really well in the classrooms in which I have been serving.  I was asked, "how much were those markers at Hobby Lobby?" by someone probably half my age.  I did not get them there as even with the 40% off coupon they would be more expensive that at Walmart.  These two women literally had a conversation about my belongings because they have decided that unless they have something, then it isn't okay for anyone else to have anything.  I know this because I had also purchased a small re-useable lunch bag and a re-useable ice block for it.  The mother literally said, "it's okay to one that since I have those in the freezer."  Then, the other said, "I moved those to the deep freezer."  Then, the mother said, "Things have piled up on my night stand.  Do you think I should get one of those?" She was talking about the shower caddy.  So, I said, "they are on clearance."     

They live in a house; I live in an apartment.  I don't have a deep freezer.  Nothing except a lamp and my glasses go on my night stand.  Keeping my bedroom very simple and nearly empty has caused me to be able to have dreams again.  The clock is under the main shelf on it as I have to maneuver my arm to get to it in an odd way.  I can't accidentally shut it off.  What these women are communicating is that they are striving to live on what they think is almost nothing.  They are living in scarcity when they have far more than I do.  They live with 8 people in the same house, and the daughter was jealous that her grandfather had bought her sister hygiene supplies when she didn't have a job.  There's more to the story as the sister, the "baby daddy," and the new boyfriend are all unemployed and living in the same house with two children.  

Without proper hygiene supplies, the woman can't possibly become employed.  They tried to say that she was hitting rock bottom, and everything was her fault.  Well, they are envious of shampoo, yet are upset that she has two kids, living with the grandfather, and had two live-in men with her while she's unemployed.  I'm just a person on the bus they don't know, and they needed to figure out if I was allowed to have an ice block while trying to figure out if I was choosing the correct parts for my lunch.  They need to be able to approve of what someone else is allowed to eat at work.  Why?  They need to control because they are controlled by objects and ideologies that have told them that they need to control others.   

Most of the time, answers people have in conversations don't matter.  I have learned in the city where I live that I have literally buy my way out of their constant evangelistic techniques because none of it is based on belief.  It's a constant demand for money.  People don't need what they think they need.  People who have enormous houses and are easily bought because they buy into the American philosophy that more is better.   I am growing some of my own vegetables, and their scruples are deciding whether or not I am allowed to choose to by an ice block.  They live in a house -- they have more than me.  People with five cars have said that I have too much.  I don't have one. 

I have simple keys.  There are no key chains.  There are no decorations.  They are simple.  I wouldn't trade my dreams for a TV in my room for my anything.  I am simplifying.  I dream.

I am blessed indeed.

 

 

       

                      

The Separation of Church and State

Working in the Education Industry, I hear the phrase Separation of Church and State thrown around a lot.  People are concerned about having the word or concept of God in the public schools.  With the holiday season quickly approaching, these issues are beginning to arise more in conversation.  I completely support the Separation of Church and State in education and completely support religious education in this country.  Any government funded school in the United States should be teaching about religion, the differences in practices, and how people are able to reconcile their differences to maintain a cohesive community.  Government funded schools should not in anyway be choosing one religious point of view over another through endorsing or prohibiting the practice of one person over another.  

It is important to know the difference between enforcing a person's religion and the steps to educate another person about religion while being open to communication and exploration.  The person who is chosen to education other people about religion or religions is given an incredible responsibility and gift.  This kind of education can be done in a lot of ways.  I haven't ever been a student enrolled at a school that was not funded in some way by the federal government.  I have always been educated by people who have been given the responsibility and opportunity to teach in multiple ways.  When religion is taught without an adherence to a specific belief, then it can be taught through the curriculum.  

Art projects are a main way that religion can be taught without enforcing one person's religion upon other people.  Art is often the precipice through which other forms of artistic expressions of religion are birthed.  Literature springs from art in a lot of ways.  Richard Crashaw's The Flaming Heart is a primary example of a work of literature being created from a sculpture combined with theology.  

 St. Therese had a vision of a cherub piercing her heart with an arrow in a mystic experience.  From her experience, artists, musicians, and lyricists created artwork from the point of her experience to our contemporary artisans.  Somehow, people think that the Separation of Church and State means that all religious experiences and mentioning of God has to be removed from education.  By removing God and religion, every part of the curriculum in every school, essentially, ceases to exist.  Literature, music, art, history, science, and even science is removed is there is a literal removal of religion and God from schools.  At some point, human beings, both accept and don't accept deities.  It is the responsibility of a civilized educational system to educate the students not only in what is accepted by the majority but what is accepted by the minority.  

Atheism also needs to be discussed in the educational environments as they are the locales intended for exploration.  Schools are not intended for indoctrination.  Having places where people are empowered to think about what they are interested in to include God and how people approach or do not approach a deity or deities is a means to provide for understanding and the acceptance of differences.  Misunderstanding the Separation of Church and State has caused more problems in educational environments than not.  The main way that this is misused is through contemporary evangelism.  

Evangelism is often as misunderstood as the Separation of Church and State.  To be an evangelist is to merely carry the Good News.  It doesn't presume a denominational or even a specific religious understanding.  Contemporary American understandings of evangelism are usually directly tied to specific fundamentalist denominations, even though the term fundamentalist is misunderstood as conservative, republican, and mainly, non-denominational or Southern Baptist.  Non-denominational is a actual denomination now, so I often find the attempt to say that it is okay to have a religious group in schools is okay because it is non-denominational to be a problem with the Separation of Church and State unto itself.  The problems with evangelism are not in the exposition of options.  The problems are inherent in enforcing one person's belief over another with the addition of negative consequences for not adhering to expressing belief through certain terms and conditions that are not mutually accepted.  

While people tend to think that it is a gamble to give people the right to talk about their religion or God in government funded facilities which causes them to want to ban the topic, it is a gamble.  The freedom of choice is often one of the most dangerous responsibilities that people have while taking ownership of their own humanity.  Often it is easier to hand over our freedom of choice to others instead of choosing to own of our decisions.  Perhaps, we understand our own choices as xenophobic because of the reaction of others around us.  Often, while wearing my kippah, people have found it necessary to ask about the difference between Jews and Christians or shout that the Jews killed Jesus at me.  I find the first one to be the most intrusive.  It usually ends with me saying that there isn't anything wrong with being Jewish after having said that it more than just a religion, but also a race, ethnicity, and culture.  This tends to bring the other person questioning me into a standpoint of wanting to know just about religion through which I say that the main difference is the accept of Jesus as the Messiah.  I almost had one person throw a fit when I said that it was personal choice that people made.  She couldn't handle it and when away in a huff because she was a churchian real believer in her model of Jesus.  Jesus fighting is not for believers.  Choice is! 

Maintaining the freedom of choice to choose Jesus or not is what actually makes Christianity Christian.  Without a choice, it isn't Christianity.  It is Churchianity.  If you a choice isn't inherent within a believer, then that person isn't a follower of Christ or an evangelist.  That person is a crusader for a firmly enforced cause.  There is no greater support from a nation for Christianity than the Separation of Church and State.  If the people are not free to choose, then Christianity is not an option.  

I hope to hear people singing about dreidels and Christmas trees.  I want to hear about Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and feel the tinkle of sleigh bells in the air during the upcoming holiday seasons.  Perhaps, this year, we will all try to remember that, in the midst of making presents ready, that deities are usually about bringing peace to all people.  I know that while I will be light candles at Hanukkah, Christmas, and the New Year to carry the light of God through the winter season, I will be remembering that it is through living in the light of God that we shine for one another. 

Let go in peace through the month of October.  May be embrace the Autumn season as the weather changes and the rains begin.  Let us walk in love as we choose to be beacons of light in the world.

  

      
       

Freedom of Choice

While waiting for the bus, I accidentally overheard someone on the phone.  It would have been impossible not to hear her as she was talking really loudly.  She was on the phone with her boyfriend trying to break up with him.  He had apparently been trying to get her to wear a hijab and live differently for him.  While on the phone I heard respond, "this isn't about being patient.  I'm just not that kind of girl."  At that point, I High 5'd her for sticking to her convictions and not giving in to what he wanted while disagreeing with her.  She is absolutely "that kind of girl."

Head-coverings, when they are chosen, are a form of freedom.  She is choosing not to wear a head-covering out of the same need for feel free as wearing one does for those who choose it.  When I chose to wear my kippah in public on a trial basis for two weeks, but the second day, I was okay with having made the lifelong decision that I have now committed myself to doing.  In some ways, it is difficult because, at the same time, I became an apostate to people by choosing to embrace this freedom that causes me to feel closer to God and freer than I ever had been before.  It changed the way that I understood the world and the way that the world understands me.  It is a decision that is definitely not accepted by a lot of people, and one that causes people to have to think about what think about it.  It wasn't an easy decision to make.  

What the young woman at the bus stop didn't understand was that she was choosing the same thing that other people choose: her freedom.  No!  She shouldn't be forced to wear a hijab for her boyfriend.  No one should be forced into a religious head-covering.  They have to be chosen.  I feel the same way towards a religious collar as she does about a hijab.  It's my freedom that would be taken away from me.  My freedom of choice has been expressed in another way and has brought my life in different directions.  

I am proud that she is choosing not to wear it.  I am proud that I chose my kippah.  I am proud of those who wear hijabs.  I am proud of those who don't wear kippah.  I am proud of those who find their religious freedom through choosing to follow how God shows them to live.              

Friendship and Community

Having taken the month of August off from blogging to focus on creating my collection for the YYP Competition, my creative energy surge to complete another collection has turned retrospective.  I started thinking of the poetry that I have written throughout my life.  I remembered when I thought that all good poetry rhymed as Shel Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout was brilliant to me.  I loved Silverstein and Seuss.  I set out to rhyme everything for a couple of years.  It was a great game to play.  

Gamesmanship is not a lost art in people's lives.  Unfortunately, some like to play with other people.  I have been honored these past weeks to observe a couple of people though.  

First, while I was on the bus, I saw and met a homeless man.  He was awesome.  He was encouraging all of the people around him to have good and productive days.  He wanted to buy a cup of coffee for another man on the bus who was having a difficult time finding work, but he was housed and fed.  He was sad that he didn't have work.  Yet, the homeless guy found work wherever it was to include encouraging the other man on the bus.  I understood him as a Christ figure.  He was there to encourage and care for those around him instead of asking for anything.  It was counter to what is normally experienced in that situation.  

Secondly, I met Jimmy.  Jimmy is a student who is working towards having a better future in his life.  He is studying to pass his courses and is working to leave a halfway house.  He is a white collar ex-con who is now choosing to live life differently.  I was honored to hear his story about consistently choosing freedom while experiencing his new space and options and share with him the information about being a university student.

While we were all on the bus, some people were opposed to the first guy far more than anyone was opposed to Jimmy.  Homelessness is game where I currently live.  It seems that it is more of an issue here than anywhere else I have lived, or at least, it seems to be so.  There are prisons here, a lot of missions to help people, and only about 100,000 people.  I have met some people who seem to try to make other people homeless here.  Perhaps, I am recognizing it more than before since there are far fewer people than I am used to being around.  I live in a city that is a tenth of the size than the one before I moved, and while it isn't necessarily a Cheers episode, people know people here.  

These were experiences that were living poetry in my life.  I found beauty in these people and what they had to say.  I found poetry in the acceptance of the other people around them.  It was community that appeared within the community.  No had to make a show of anything.  It just was -- community.  The key is knowing two things: when to Build an Ark and when to Dare to be a Daniel.  I have had some great experiences in the past few weeks that illustrate how community can sing in its own poetic forms as we just go about living our lives.  It was also incredible to me because it reminded me of the ways that we view other people.  

Too often society looks at something and thinks that it knows what it is.  Just like David and Goliath, the giants we fight fall, but we use our own ways to make sure that we are able to be safe in the fights.  It is in our best interest to do so.  People also seem to think of themselves as mighty warriors such that we even have giants to slay.  At some point, people don't need to create giants.  The giants we fight are generally of our own making.  We make giants of the unknown.  Because we don't know everything, we think our creative narratives are everyone's reality.  

The number one way that people do this is questioning everyone's motives.  I was given a recipe to make a cleaner out of bleach and Pine Sol.  When I told someone the story, the motive was questioned.  Why does someone give something to the other person?  Well, I was using Lysol and didn't like the results, so I was looking for something different.  I asked the neighbor who does maintenance in apartments about what they use (ya''ll know how people are), so he shared the information.  Why is his motive questioned for sharing?  It's a regular thing for neighbors to do.  It's called: "being neighborly."  

Paranoia is a huge problem for people.  It's normal to ask for help and beneficial.  Not everything is a personal attack or motivated to harm another person.  Paranoia is a huge giant as is greed.  Trust issues plague our society.  I was asked why I owned something that someone else didn't.  Why isn't it okay for one person to have thing and another not to?  Why would someone go into another person's house and say "where did you get that?" in an accusatory tone?  What is the real problem in those instances?  Envy.  

I met a person who wants everything done for him but doesn't share or reciprocate in anyway.  Instead, the person claims that he is being taken advantage of when he is actually more ahead of the game because others are sharing with him.  We have the adage that No Good Deed goes unpunished.  The problem with it is that not everyone is out to get everyone else.  The real issues is that there are people playing games trying to control other people within our society.  I try to remember that there was a time in my life before I knew most people in it now, and I'm still here which means I will probably be in my life after that person.  I am realistically the only person from whom I can't get away. 

People tend to forget that when they want to punish someone then it is because that person is acting as the judicial system instead of using the judicial system.  It leads to a pity party most of the time.  "The poor me's I helped someone" syndrome is a real problem.  Some people are incredibly toxic, but the ex-con and homeless man I met on the bus were healthier than some of the others around them.  Doing service work actually causes people to feel better and motivate those around them to do better. 

It seems that some are out to erase hope.  Some are out to make sure that they can trample everyone else.  At some point, it's only when people know that I have or intend to go to a Temple that they start getting upset and refusing to help me while presuming that I am there to serve them.  I know a lot of people on the margins of society while I know others in high positions who can't handle a simple conversation.

Those with nothing seem to be able to be hospitable while others talk sideways.  It's really simple.  Greed is a self-centered choice.  Sharing is not.  Friendship is okay.  For someone who has been accused of not knowing how to have and keep friends, it seems that when I have friends their involvement in my life is a problem for others I know.  It is a sign of a controlling and toxic relationship.                                 

Friendship is normal.  Isolation is not.  Some can make friends in any walk of life, and others seem not to be able to do so.  Genuine community isn't planned.  It just happens when people are hospitable to others and are able to trust other people.  It happens when people share with one another.  Sharing builds relationships.  Friends aren't mythical creatures.  Friends are awesome and in our lives to share in community, have experiences, and understand each other in only the way that continual choice can.  

May we befriend those on the margins of society and those within accepted society.         

Grace and the Law: Who's the Boss

While I continue to study and write about grace and the law, I find that the social experiences I have are tempered with, not only the information that I am learning and have been for about 18 years, but also the socioeconomic consequences within the world.  The main issue that I yearn for people to understand is that leadership is not management.  Leadership is not limited to title or position in an organization.  Leadership is founded in lived character traits.  Character traits don't understand rank, position, titles, paychecks, clothes, cars, or any other man made means by which people decide another person's  social status.  A character traits merely illumine the inner training of a human being to the outer world.  In short, they are the living results of a sacramental life.  

Second to what leadership actually is, considering what love is sieved  through a leadership colander is a better means through which to live with one another.  We are told that Jesus said, by St. John the Divine in John 13:35, that "By this they will know that you are My disciples, that you love one another."  This verse directly links leadership with love.  However, if a reader has been taught that love is people pleasing and putting on a strong face in order to please Jesus and show that Christians love one another, then love and oppression have been confused.  Lots of people confuse love and oppression just as they confuse leadership and management.  Management, often, turns into micromanagement.  The difference between guiding someone and oppressing someone is the retention of choice.  Leaders empower choice.    

Being a part of an English department creates a necessity to use words wisely as most people in the room are going to question that person's word choice or phrase regardless of what someone else says.  Higher education has a defined hierarchy and often those who work as adjuncts are used as bargaining chips or as superfluous.  This doesn't happen everywhere, but it does happen in some places.  The test for it is if someone reading this says to themselves, "we treat our adjuncts right" or "we don't do that at our _____________," then your school has a problem.  Nonetheless, Biblical leadership provides the measure through which to balance the mean colleagues and people in organizations intend upon finding was to micromanage another person's life.

Paul writes the Letter of Timothy primary about contending with false teachers.  He writes, "These are the things you are to teach and insist on.  If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, then they are conceited and understand nothing.  They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and think that godliness is a means to financial gain.  But godliness with contentment is great gain" (NIV Tim 6:2-6).

When I got to the point in my life when I could honestly say, "I am content," people thought I was going crazy.  I didn't want enormous house and all of the trappings that go with it.  What did it for me was not chasing money and not trying to find ways to please other people.  I know that when God looks at me; He sees ME.  All of me.  It seems to me that others are more bothered by my socioeconomic standing than I am.  I will state it plainly.  I know rich people, and I am poor.  I know a lot of middle class people who are more concerned with my socioeconomic standing than the rich people I know.  In another way of stating it, people with tenure are not worried about up and coming adjuncts.  

So, Who's the boss?       

People of faith do not have money because they are in God's favor.  Money is an object; it's not God.  Working to make decisions to decide what someone else should own is wrong.  Constantly deciding that another person is not good enough because you are not content with your own life is wrong.  

I am content. I play in dirt.  I walk my dog.  I color.  I sing.  I dance.  I work.  I write.  I study.  I sleep.  I breathe...  I belong.

I am content. 

Contentment is one of the most difficult things to find.  Busyness creeps in on our lives when we least expect it.  The constant chase is not good for us.  Looking at another person's life by examining what remains doesn't give the full value of the life or experience.

When I die, I want people to say that above anything else that I was content.  It is better to hear from the afterlife that did not seek the approval of the world, but that I was content.  That I was a man of godly character and love.  That I lead without distinguishing one person's worth over another's.  May people say that I was a leader with balanced scales and discernment.  Perhaps by the time I die, I will be able to say that I grew content with the responsibility and trust that God had in me.  May all of us.

I have been blessed with new work opportunities.  It's wonderful to have them.  I know want work and pay to become what I seek more than God.  I would rather seek the heart of a Loving God than His creation.  May I strive to lead in the work I have been given to do. 

A prayer for the middle of the week: 
God, give me contentment in my blessings.  Let my blessings not turn to curses as I grow into these new responsibilities.  Let these open doors bring joy, mercy, and above all, contentment in what has been bestowed on all in a similar situation.  Let us all be in Your presence throughout the rest of the week.  Hold us in your embrace to teach us contentment in Your Faith in us.  Amen.        

Leftovers: The American Remnant

It is necessary as a citizen of any country to consider the social constructions to maintain independent sustainability.  If I am born a freeman and desire to remain so, then striving to maintain the freedom of those around me helps maintain my own freedom.  Just as the legend tells us of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag from leftover remnants of material, the United States was founded on, not what we find as contemporary Protestant Christian ideals, but on the leftovers of wars, tyranny, conquests, and piracy propelled forward by what seemingly was a traditional government caring for the colonists.  It was the Founding Fathers, their wives, children, and slaves who were tired of subsiding on the leftovers from the ruling class, the troops that took over their homes, and distant religious authorities who chosen to embrace the reality that they were living, not fully, but on what was leftover.

Still today, as the United States has just celebrated Independence Day, American society is full of leftovers.  We continue to live lives that are leftover from the battles that each person has in his or her own life.  We still continue to live with leftovers from the ruling class, our troops, and distant religious authorities attempting to control the freedoms granted to every American citizen.  Fortunately, the remnant still rises in this country working to maintain independence and fight off the replacement of our rights with slavery, the replacement and removal of our wounded from society, and the replacement of our chosen theologies, disciplines, and religions with another's decision for us.    

Socio-economic challenges within American Society as people have "Occupied (wherever)" throughout the country during President Obama's tenure have brought the working poor into the media more than ever before in my lifetime.  I am the working poor and am not ashamed of my socioeconomic status, even when verbally attacked by others for being so.  I know that as I served others even less fortunate than me and as fortunate as me at The Kelly Memorial Food Pantry.  I served with the working poor, the rich, the retired, the young and underage, the fixed income person, the unemployed, and everyone else.  The beauty of a global mission is the attempt at the equalization of socioeconomic status for at least the moment that people are being cared for and served in community.  I haven't found a new place yet where I live now to give of my time, talents, and treasure.  I will choose to do so in time, but this time, I think I am going to look into another part of the realm to serve in.  Global missions provide for stewardship opportunities that people cry out for in their hearts without giving themselves permission to partake in.

Giving ourselves permission to live into the fullness of our freedom in this country, for some, means to served in the Armed Forces.  The servicemen and women of this country often give everything they have, including their lives, to protect, serve, and continue the freedoms that every citizens here and abroad enjoy.  The Wounded Warrior Project, Operation First Response, and Puppies Behind Bars help the soldiers who've returned from war zones changed by the reality of their service lives.  They have more options than they think from time to time.  Caring for our servicemen and not allowing their lives and homes to be controlled by their experiences gives Americans a chance to live the Third Amendment of the Constitution by not allowing intruding memory to "seize and control" the home of an American soldier.  Foreign armies and experiences should not maintain control of our active duty service people and veterans by replacing wholeness with injury.  The leftovers from war and crime working together training and using the same service dogs in Puppies Behind Bars gives leftovers, the remnants new life just as Betsy Ross, by at least legend, gave the country its flag.  What was leftover and harmed turned into a banner for each human being. 

Nothing is more harming to a human being, in my estimation, than a distant religious authority attempting to control and replace another person's theology with his or her own.  The Freedom of Religion is inherent and necessary within every person's life in order that the individual have the ultimate freedom embraced in the Love of that person's deity or lack thereof.  It is united in this freedom that replacement theology is un-American.  I don't think about another person's religion or religious practice when I meet another person.  I wasn't taught to do such a thing when I was younger and still don't now that I am more focused on what I think God has asked us to do: beyond walking mercifully and humbly with Him.  For this reason, World Faith and other interfaith groups like it serve to education and provide experiences for people to learn to break the habit of replacing what another person believes with a self-chosen and adhered to belief.  Working to force belief on another person is dangerous.  

When religious leaders chose to keep themselves away from their assemblies and chose that people need to modify their behaviors to be more in line with what a specific individual believes, then a combination of psychological and spiritual abuse exists.  What is leftover is remnant theology attempting to hold people who have been removed and targeted by religious leaders for any reason at all, usually: thinking and behaving from their own consciences.  Remnant theologians strive to accept difference without a need for dualistic construct.  People do not choose between one thing and another.  If behavioral adherence is being chosen above individual freedoms, then a religious leader is working at removing a person's freedom to relate with a deity freely.  One true faith and one true religion is an attempt and creating slaves and further oppression.  The remnants of those harmed by religious leaders and group eventually bond together to heal, harm (unfortunately), and kvetch about their experiences.  In time, people accept differences in the communities that they are in after trying to replace diversity with sameness.  It is better to chose to be a useful remnant than replace another's point of view and belief.  

Independence has been a theme for me in the past year. I am grateful that it has been.  I have far more stringent boundaries than I have ever had in my life.  I am a better person for it.  Embracing remnancy and living life as a leftover, being done with several organizations in my life, has caused me to move forward towards and complete several of the goals that I have.  Often, leftovers are better than the original when the original was trying to be contained inside of a stringent thought box.  I am pleased that I have become choosey... 

This past 4th of July, I didn't buy fireworks or roast hog dogs at a barbeque.  I didn't spend time at a lake or reminiscing about times past with people I've know forever.  I spent the day unpacking from my completely legal move, hung an American flag in my home, and watched the fireworks over the neighborhood with my schnauzer, Rumi.  He's never lived where people were allowed to have fireworks of their own before due to fire hazards.  He was brave and watched them for a little while.  Then, when the commotion picked up and they were being set off over several houses, he wanted to go back inside, so he did.  He gets to choose. 

I am happy to live with leftovers in a country where, even Rumi, can pick and choose where he wants to be.      

        

A New Way: A Response to Bp. Pierre Whalon's Reflection "Welcoming the Stranger"

On Facebook, I was given this reflection written by Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, D.D.  My response is based on my own experience and education as I agree and disagree with his statements.  Fortunately, Bp. Whalon has been gracious enough to write these reflections for bloggers like me to deconstruct and consider how the lessons within his text may be or may not be relevent to our lives.  While he has written on a global and national level, I tend to write on a more interpersonal level.  I start with the understanding that as individuals operate so will their nations.  Every individual is a global country and community unto themselves.  I have chosen to write this response specifically because I spent years focusing on the phrase "a stranger in a strange land" from Exodus 2:22; I had a cat named Gershom to help me focus on this concept.  

From the beginning of his reflection, Bp. Whalon exposed the problem.   He wrote, "As hundreds of migrants continue to drown in the Mediterranean, European leaders wring their hands and plan to 'do something.'"  People like to make plans.  When a person is a refugee, they don't really have plans or the means to follow through on plans that they may be given.  Being a refugee is a status that no one wants and far too many people have.  While teaching refugees, I sought out their understanding of where they were after being being separated so quickly from their native countries and families.  Interestingly enough, none of my students understood themselves to be foreign or strange to where they were.  They became a part of where they had been placed by whatever agency had moved them.  I had also just moved and didn't find myself to be a stranger where I had moved since I stayed within the United States.  To the others, we were strange indeed.  I found myself, without planning, identifying more with the Muslim refugees than with the American Christians around us.  The difference was not necessarily being the stranger; rather, we didn't have everything planned out.  Thank God!

Unfortunately, the local community that we had moved to did have it planned out.  They liked things the way that it used to be.  They were very busy trying to teach us how to live in this new place as though we had never seen snow, experienced a community of people before, or knew how to live at all.  We had, apparently, moved because we were either criminal or had an ulterior motive to seek out something we hadn't deserved.  We were certainly not a part of the way it used to be and that upset every strategically placed apple cart there was when entering into the new community as an equal.  Refugees and migrant people tend to move because of the way it used to be.  The good ole' days that were being referred to hadn't happened for those who were the strangers.

I disagree with Bp. Whalon's statement, "We are on a journey, pilgrims, wayfarers, and when we arrive, we will recognize our destination."  Yes, dear Bishop.  We are on a journey.  We are pilgrims and wayfarers.  We even attempt to keep from piracy; however, we don't ever really reach our destination.  Once we arrive, the journey has ended.  I believe that we are called to be wayfarers on our journeys without a specific destination.  I believe so because I want to be of earthly good.  I am not someone who is heavenly-minded, probably even to a fault.  I like multi-purposed practicality.

Our faith calls us to welcome the stranger.  When we do that, it is important to realize that some people don't want to be welcomed.  I greeted my new neighbor when she moved in.  She found it to be intrusive.  She took it as a contest.  She decided that I needed to be as she wanted because she didn't know me.  I do agree with Bp. Whalon that the home grown threat is greater than that which we understand to be the stranger.  She claims to be a townie.  A townie who has now tried to run me over with her car because she has decided to teach me how to live my life.  She's close to half my age, I have nearly completed two graduate degrees, I chose to welcome her at the beginning, and she has tried to control the whole environment since she showed up.  Yet, we are countrymen, apparently.  Unfortunately, she found what we had in common was a threat more than community.  She is planned.  

Economically, welcoming the stranger has been a good experience in my life.  I have been able to learn and grow a garden which was a beta prototype for mission urban farming in my future life.  The community taught me to do what I couldn't find in a text or on Youtube.  They gave to me what I didn't have to be able to build and thrive as we both welcomed the stranger.  In order to welcome the stranger, people have to actually trust what is new.  People who live out of their woundedness tend not to welcome new people as they have been harmed.  The unknown equaled lazy to some people.  Economically and socially, I have been blessed by those around me whom have wanted to share without needing to probe for motive.  Actual hospitality doesn't seek a motive.  It cares for the human being through dignity.  It doesn't even need to probe for poverty or wealth.

Sharing doesn't even require trust.  Sharing requires inclusion and a lack of dependency on material wealth.  Those whom need a caste system to live and promote their own greed, vanity, and fill a Godless voice within them can't share.  Welcoming the stranger doesn't require a specific protocol unless a title is necessary to people.  False piety requires more pomp and circumstance than anything else.  Trying to cover up the insecurities that we all face in our daily lives show that we are in need of being welcoming.

As I tear the garden I built apart, I have thought about the strangers whom I have welcomed in the past several months.  The problem we face in our faith and in our communities is that we welcome the stranger and even give gifts at the beginning.  At some point, giving me an object doesn't mean that I need to change my life to be what you want it to be.  If welcoming someone means that the person has to change to be someone else's expectation, it because it is inhospitable.  To give me something to build so my basic needs and the needs of others are fulfilled, but to look the other way when violence it taking place is unconscionable.  To only plan is neglect.  To turn away from the outcry of real problems is merciless.  To hand me a trinket and not care about my humanity or to hold presumed protocol above human life denigrates every person living on the planet.  

Presumption changes whether or not a person is welcomed in the long run.  If I am new and the result is that I owe my life story to a group of people, then it is because they presume that they know better than I about how to live my life.  My neighbor probably thinks that I owe her now.  Because she was welcomed, she thinks she owns life.  Bp. Whalon also wrote, "And good manners require not only these, but also to do everything in such a way the person does not feel ashamed to be so needy."  St. Vincent de Paul had the same point of view.  He said that people needed to love the needy so much that the didn't resent them for their help.  The neighbor resents me for including her as an equal and for understanding her as an adult from the second I met her.  Why?  I am beneath her in her estimation.

Children, whom haven't been taught to share, need everything their way.  Adults whom try to train other adults to be their definition of what this are still frightened of the stranger.  If I had to choose, the better way to love people as we are called to do is to care less about whether or not the person has good manners and more about whether or not the person is cared for.  If the person is rude, but is starving.  Cure the hunger.  Rudeness normally subsides.  Beyond the golden rule in Bp. Whalon's document is an ethical call for human dignity.      

Whalon's reflection brought this to my mind from Eucharistic Prayer C in the Book of Common Prayer:

At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of

interstellar space, galaxies, suns, planets in their courses,

and this fragile earth, our island home. 

By your will they were created and have their being.

Some people don't seem to understand that they have not created the world.  Most refugees know that they did not create the universe and cling to their faith.  My faith compels me to consider when I think of welcoming the stranger with God's help.  It causes me to reflect and question:

Who made me as I was knit together in my mother's womb?

Graceful Sunflowers

My interest in grace and the law began this blog.  I hope that it continues to drive it into the future.  While I have spent more of my life these past few months in a garden, I also spend time teaching my blended English courses and find that the balance of technology and nature is quite like the law and grace.

It seems that everything can be used against other people in every way possible.  Technology is meant to aid our lives.  It is meant to be assistive and not master.  It is meant to empower and not enslave.  The law is meant to do the same.  The law is meant to empower and not enslave as well; it is to be balanced with grace.

Grace is just given.  Whether we ask for it or not, grace is there.  God gives more to us than any of us will ever be able to say or understand whether or not be know it or care.  Grace is grace.  It is because of the contract that God has written on all of our hearts to belong as a part of creation in balance with creation that we know the law without even studying it.  It is through studying the law that we understand how much grace we have.

God Shine on Us.  It seems that we need the light of God more than anything else in the world that we live in.  It is such and because we need the light of God that I love Son-Flowers.  I think sunflowers are beautiful; they are a balance of masculine and feminine while unapologetic for being so.  They are as God intended.  Strong, beautiful, bountiful, and lovely in the sun.

Sunflowers grow quickly and slowly.  Mine have been growing for a few months now.  They are waist high.  I have noticed that my favorite sunflower in the garden follows the sun.  In the morning, the head of the sunflower in flat towards the sky.  By the end of the day, it nearly directly faces the sunset.  It follows the sun all day and begins again in the morning.

Sister Sunflower teaches us to follow the light; Brother Sunflower teaches us to praise upright towards the stars.  How graceful the sunflowers are as they look always to the light!  Even when they are not in bloom, they know to follow.  They are created to do so just as we are.  It is written inside of them as their own contract with God.  Their covenant is to teach us all to stand tall, take nourishment in the light, and feed God's creation in the harvest.

While it is forming a bloom, I may move.  I don't know how far away the bloom is from showing how God has created my sunflower to shine.  It is the sharp edge of the law to move before the harvest.  Grace will come to my garden and my life when I do again.  I will have peace once more.

When I think of the song, All Creatures of Our God and King, I think about plants.  Plants grow like animals, yet we don't think of them as necessarily a part of us.  Mine have become a part me just as much as my beloved schnauzer, Rumi, and cat, Lyric.

In a duet, both musicians accompany one another.  Rumi and Lyric, grace and the law, and technology and nature have to balance one another and have one another to fully thrive.  There is no real soloist except the light. 

Conversations: Building Community

As I have been reflecting on the past week, I have thought about the phrase "building community" because I don't allow people in my home.  The reason I don't allow people in my home is that I have been to too many churches whom won't allow people to be in the congregation or join one without a tour of that person's house.

Ultimately, they don't build community.  These tours are for shopping and class purposes.  Further, I currently have a home that requires a person to walk through my bedroom to get to the only bathroom.  I am a single adult; therefore, no one else should be in my bedroom.  The amount of privacy that is violated when someone else enters into another person's home to see what that person has, usually under the guise of building community and getting to know one another, is completely volatile to me.  Even trying to come into my house is volatile to me when I have known the person for a long time.   

If it is about including me in community, then it shouldn't be about what I own.  If placement in a community is about a person, then getting to know that person can be done by being around that person.  There's a reason why we all have different houses.  It would be for me to invite someone to my home and not a requirement to have someone in my home.  It's just like illegal search and seizure.

It follows under the same understanding that when I have a relationship with someone that I don't have any physical contact with that person.  I am at an age when I get to choose whom I would be with for the rest of my life.  I am the only person to choose that person.  I am also happy that I have decided that I don't want a member of the clergy to even be there should I get married.  I believe in the separation of church and state that much.  Clergy members shouldn't be signing for tax deductions.  Even then, I wouldn't necessarily want a marriage license since I believe that matrimony is about a prayerful commitment.  I think that people should have to get a license for marriage, and if the couple wants it, they can then have a blessing ceremony with a member of the clergy.  It's an individual's right in this country to have the separation of church and state in that person's life.

Building community can be done far better in conversations.  Having activities that people volunteer to be there are the best way to build community, especially when they are finding ways to serve others at the same time.  Being a person who doesn't have contact with a lot of my relatives, because I actively choose not to have toxic people in my life, I believe that community building has to be founded in honesty.

The number one thing I can think of that has happened in my life that is an immediate violation of honesty and trust to me is when I have an appointment to meet with someone, for example, at a coffee shop or an IHop and that person also makes an appointment with another person who sits at another table.  Usually, that person will chime in part of the way through the conversation that, from my point of view, isn't actually part of the conversation.  If I am not aware that other people are going to be a part of the conversation, then that person won't exist to me.  I will completely ignore that person.  It's a power game for people to play against other people to demand one person has to be in the same place with another one.  It happens because of ego.  It's a game to remove the unknowing person's freedom of choice to make it appear like everything is okay when it isn't.

One of the definitions of morality that Bishop Spong has given me, that I am very grateful for as it clarified the issue, is that morality builds up and immorality tears down.  A lack of honesty and the removal of another person's freedom of choice tears down the dignity, maturity, and humanity of that person.  When everyone has the choice to be a certain place, then the conversation can be holy and intimate.  Other than that it is a power game for appearance and political purposes.

It's the same thing that happens when a person adds criteria for outreach in certain ministries.  When people become hospital chaplains, the criterion is for education and internship experience in hospitals (CPEs).  The criteria for socializing at someone's home is made up.  Having to give gifts to a congregation is made up.  The criteria to go on a retreat without the about ability to choose whom would be in that person's bedroom is made up and completely unsafe.  Lots of churches even expect that person to sell half of what that person owns in order to give money away in the name of God.  Except, then it really isn't a donation.  It's a fee that ultimately causes more poverty.  People have all of these different self imposed criterion on other people in order to make sure that they are living an expectation that is not his or her own.

I just don't allow people in my house.  My place is mine.  It is my sanctuary.  So, I get to choose that.  It's about healthy boundaries.                 

Ownership

It has been a interesting few weeks.  It seems that the theme in my life really has been ownership.  Who owns what has become so important because I teach online.  I have the ability to be home a lot of it I want to be.    

For some things, it's simple.  Since I have the receipt, I own it.  Once money comes to me in the form of a paycheck, I own it.  It isn't an allowance; it's paycheck.  It's also MY paycheck and not the neighbor's paycheck.  If I pay to fix something or have it and the neighbor steals it so I can't use it, then I can take it back because I have the receipt and am the rightful owner.  I shouldn't have to explain that having my own belongings isn't theft since I can prove ownership of it. 

We all own our own time.  I can choose to use my time.  If I want to draw until my hands feel crippled or plant vegetables until my body is sunburned, then it's my choice.  I shouldn't have to explain to someone else that I want to be doing it because I like it.  It's fun.  I can choose to use my time as I want to in the United States.  Adults get to do that at 18.  My graduate degree empowers me to have teaching possibilities that free up my time in highly beneficial ways.   

We own our own objects.  If I sell, then it really should be assumed that it is because I don't want it and not because I am poor.  It's like I am waiting for the next person to decide that I have to tell them why I should have to get their permission to sell my own objects.  I sold some things from an old relationship that I didn't want to have around anymore, and it seems that it strictly because I'm poor to other people.  I don't actually have to sell any of my belongings; I chose to though.  I didn't want them.  As I continue to go through my belongings, I have been sorting more of what I want to sell.  I don't know one person not in a monastery who doesn't have extra things to get rid of. 

I'm not going without anything.  I'm not hungry or homeless and neither my pets.  They are vaccinated and well taken care of.  It's as though if other people don't know where I get every penny I spend, then it is because I am ripping them off.  I re-use almost everything. 

My kitty litter bottle now holds fertilizer for my garden that was graciously given to me.  I wouldn't have known what kind to purchase as it is done my numbers on the bag.  This is 16-8-8.  Had I known what kind to buy, then I could have gotten it myself.  I re-used vines that ivy grew on to help beans and peas grow to the permanent fence that I am also using as a trellis.  It seems that doing so also means that I am too poor for some people.  Being at home also meant that I was unemployed during the past few weeks.  It's been weird. 

Ultimately, it is about who owns whom.  We all own ourselves in this country.  It seems that people want me to have to explain to them why I am allowed to be outside but won't even tell me their names.  Demanding information from me while attempting to remain anonymous is really about trying to control and own another person because someone else would have an perceptual need to do so. 

People are odd when they think that they have the upper hand over someone else.  The mere idea of having the upper hand to scold another adult that I've never met is grotesque to me.  I don't understand why it isn't to other people except for a presumed ownership of other human beings. 

 

Lent: People with Disabilities

The older I get, the more I become aware of how judgmental demeaning people really are.  When I think of the ill or people will disabilities, I don't think of useless.  A lot of people are afraid of disabilities so much that they have a need to over exaggerate someone else's illness or disability.  For example, my nephew has Asperger's Syndrome, and I've recently heard a family member refer to him a toddler.  He is not a toddler.  He does a lot of things and isn't at the mental capacity of a toddler.  He has been referred to this way for most of his life.

My nephew is very a very high functioning autistic person.  It has been assumed by a lot of people that he would never be able to live on his own.  He could easily work a job, go to school, and live on his own.  The real problem in the situation is what everyone else would do to him.  He would easily be targeted by other people, and they would mess with him to mess with him.  It was during this conversation that I was told that he needed to learn to pay attention to what everyone around him would think of whatever he was doing first.  This is why in that person's estimation that he is a toddler.

The primary example is that during the Christmas season he wanted to get something for his mother for a surprise, so he put it under his jacket.  It was obvious that something was there, but there was a little concern in my sister's mind that someone would think he was shoplifting.  Well, people could have seen it that way or they could place the situation in context and ask questions.  The problem was not really with what he was doing as he wasn't stealing.  The problem is that is was over exaggerated and tied to his Asperger's and whittled him down to a toddler in someone's opinion.  

One of the main differences between how my parents raised my sisters and I and how my sister is raising my nephews is that they have a lot of freedom of choice.  I don't think what he did had anything to do with his Asperger's Syndrome.  The same family member is convinced that I would show up to teach in pajamas.  I wear a shirt and tie almost every time I show up to teach.  I wear professional attire.  She's convinced that I wouldn't know to put on a collared shirt and tie to teach.  It is the rare occasion that I wouldn't do such a thing.

I don't know one person whom doesn't have a lifelong illness.  Even hayfever is a lifelong illness.  Yet, I am not my hayfever.  It is not going to keep me from being a gardener either because it is something that I am learning to do.  Several years ago, I was seriously injured so much that I wasn't able to work for several years, regardless of what any naysaying highly judgmental social perfectionist says, I was unable to work at my profession.  It was during this time that the same family member said that I should just be committed to an institution.  I was the equivalent to a $.  More than that, my freedom was a $.  What's even worse to me is that the same person has disabilities.

To me, sister is teaching her son something that teenager's learn.  Realistically, he is more like a 12 year old and will not be able to move out of the house immediately when he turns 18.  My parents gave us the option of the military or college when we turned 18.  Even though those aren't the only two options in the world, it is what they thought we were allowed to do.  My sister probably has great hopes for her son and so do I.  I don't think he needs to be concerned about lookers on would have thought about a Christmas present under his coat so much.  She thought that she was going to have the other nephew for the day instead of the one with Asperger's.  When I'm there, I hang out with both of my nephews.  I don't choose between them.  I also know about a tremendous amount of assistive technologies for my nephews.  Both of them have medical concerns that change their communication.

My sister told one and didn't tell the other or the schools until her youngest son needed to know for himself.  He was mainstreamed through the public school system and his brother wasn't.  If the schools had known, he would have been in remedial classes and his education would have been completely different.  Instead, they just didn't tell him.  He also wasn't devastated when they did.

Like so many people, my oldest nephew is understood by his medical status as opposed to what he can actually do.  I am an English instructor at a university, and one of my sister's dyslexia is so bad that I can't read what she writes.  Yet, members in her family of origin understand her as too dumb or an irresponsible non-educated person.  She's really smart and runs restaurants.  She understands customer flow and the audiences of where she is really well.

One of my main concerns, and it has been for a long time, is that our society understands people very differently than how I think we should or how educated people should.  Recently, I turned a my phone's video recorder on as my neighbor was fighting with her girlfriend.  Why?  The light caused them to stop fighting in the yard which means that they know not to do it.  They are self-conscious enough that they care about what other people think, but only if it is shown to people they don't know.  She doesn't know me, but as soon as she moved in, she decided that it was her duty to demean me for being poor.  After fighting with her girlfriend, she yelled at me for having a light on in my house.  It could have been a flashlight, but she didn't like it.  This is not my problem.  It is her problem.  The same thing would happen to my nephew, so his parents are raising him to question and ask why people are doing things.

People live in multiple generation homes throughout the globe for longer than 18 years.  Most of my students live in community with others, dormitories, or with the families origin, and it has been that way my whole teaching career.  American society still thinks that people whom live at home past 18 are odd.  I think a 30 year old who has never lived anywhere but with parents is a little odd.  I suggest dorms for university students all of the time.  Even if the person moves home after graduation, then he or she has lived elsewhere.  It's a valuable experience.  Getting to know and live with a lot of other people causes human beings to have to be far more considerate and less judgmental usually.

It is impossible to please everyone around us.  This, however, is why people with disabilities have needed to have legal protections from others: fear.  Social services were created to control people.  Of course, others will just say that I am finally just now catching on to how the world works.  No.  I just stopped telling you because you think I need special education for your elitist narcissistic issues.  While I am not a counselor or therapist, I have enough of those hours to know what looks like someone else's problem being projected on others and myself.    

People miss out on changing the way they view the world in their educations.  I do mean people and not just ones I am related to.

Life is simple dear nephews.  Keep a song in your heart.  I don't have much, but you can always stay with me.  I know what's it's like for someone to decide that you are not capable of anything because of a medical difference; I'm transgendered.  Besides, I found a game design program for my nephew to enroll in if he wants to when he graduates.

Let's all think about the ways that we understand difference.  None of us owe anyone else an explanation of our lives.

  

    

Lent: Temple Mind is not Orthodox

"Temple mind" has several components in it that are antithetical to orthodox Christianity.  Orthodox Christianity is also called Biblical Christianity.  There are other kinds of Orthodox Christianity, but I am not writing about the Byzantine, Russian, or American Orthodoxy which are tremendously awesome traditions.  Those traditions have incredible depth and when lived correctly tend to be focused on joy, mercy, and love.

Orthodox Christianity is Biblical Christianity which should also not be confused with fundamentalism or literal evangelicism.  Orthodox Christianity looks to scripture, reason, traditions, history, archeology, hermeneutics, and experiences throughout time to find orthodoxy.  It highly relies upon the words of Christ in the Gospels and relies on what is not there just as much.

Temple mind was destroyed from the new covenant as seen in Matthew 27:50-51.  In the verses, Jesus is dying and the curtain of the temple is torn in two.  

"Temple mind" has several components that are not a part of the new covenant of Christ.  Temple mind has, at least, the following points of view or criterion.  Not all sections need to be valid for a person or mindset for a person to have temple mind.  They are:
1.  Understanding the law of the Old Testament as rules.
2.  Having to go a certain place to commune with God.
3.  Requiring a sacrifice for sin.
4.  Requires separate roles for men, women, and children while claiming scripture.
5.  "Spiritual" looks a certain way to someone.
6.  Requires a dress and speaking code.
7.  Often uses Christianese.
8.  Maintains an us and them false dichotomy lacking hospitality.
9.  Has an element of functional illiteracy.
10.  Does use Biblical languages to expound upon a text.  Often, the KJV is used without a historical context.

Christians do not require anything to commune with God.  We don't have to go anywhere and have follow Christ everywhere.  People who are stuck in temple mind wouldn't go into a Jewish Temple to pray.  Instead, they would claim that a different God is there while shirking the Abrahamic roots of Christianity.  They find a specific place where Jesus doesn't exist.  The problem with it is that Jesus dwells in the heart of the believer.  It is the Immanuel.  God is with us not over there.  the same people will say things like "It was okay for me to drop out of college because Jesus came into my heart."  The experience really propels people into education as we are to study as we are disciples.

In the song, Take My Life and Let it Be, we have the desires of Christians and it doesn't focus on the materialism within Temple Mind.  To live as a flawed offering instead of requiring a perfect one is the mark of orthodoxy.  Embracing humanity and finding holiness at a part of universal incarnation is where Christianity is found.  It is only by desiring holiness that we find holiness.  Rule counters and creators require offerings.  Christians live as an offering.  We don't need to be a show.  Our disciplines don't change our identities.  We are the flawed children of God professing praise, goodness, and joy in Our Creator.

Orthodoxy means that I confess and profess my flaws.  I accept me for me and God for God.  I don't try to be in a certain state for God.  It is different to use a discipline to become a spiritual leader.  Spiritual leaders become them.  Real ones don't need a cushion or a cloud.  Real spiritual leaders follow God by critically thinking about the world around them as creation.  They often use mops instead of speaking prayer.  They serve.

Spiritual leaders live a process on consecrating life to God.  May we all consecrate our lives to God's orthodoxy.        

 

May Light Perpetual Shine Upon Him

I have just been made aware that Dr. Ernie Roberts has gone home.  When I met him, he was the Vice President of Administration and Financial Operations.  It's a big fancy title.  He was a tremendous man.  He did more than I can write about right now.  Whatever we needed, he sought a way to provide for instead of shutting down projects.  He was gentle, kind, and loved people deeply.

What was important to me about Ernie Roberts was that I never experienced him in a negative way.  He always thought in possibilities.  More importantly to me, he was the first psychologist I ever told that I was a man.  I was terrified of him.  He was awesome.  He was one of the first people who could sign for that I needed to change who didn't freak out over it.  I never had a judged moment with Ernie Roberts.  His generosity and vigor for life was intoxicating.  Ernie was fun.  He sought God and humanity to the fullest.  Ernie's smile knew God.   I remember his happiness the most.

In the email I received, this is what he sent to everyone through his lovely wife, Laurel:

I  WISH YOU ENOUGH

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

-        Bob Perks

I didn't know him for very long, but it was enough to grieve in my life and feel joy for his Home Going.  

May God hold his faithful son, Ernie Roberts, and wrap light perpetual around him.  So, be at peace, our brother has gone home to Our Heavenly Father.  May he watch over us in the communion of saints to help bring us enough in our lives.  

Lent: Jews and Food/Cheese on Bread

Lent is usually the Christian season when people give up chocolate, beer cookies, and whiskey cake in order to do penance for their sins.  I've never given up chocolate for Lent.  I've given up frowning for Lent.  I've given up video games, extraneous driving, and believe it or not, extra pillows to sleep with to remind myself of those without a pillow.  When people think of fasting, they tend to think of food.  My Jewish friends have taught me a lot about food.  The number one thing they have taught me is: eat.

While it seems simple, we all have to eat.  Fasting from certain foods has been a part of my spiritual practice.  What is more dangerous that I have been encountering, in the past few years as I have been living differently in society, is the some people are completely obsessed with food and will control others with it in American society.  While it is not surprising to me that people would do such a thing, it is surprising to me that businesses wouldn't just refuse service to those that they didn't want in their restaurants.  The number one thing that people have challenged about my life since I started my kippah/skullcap/headcovering (a medieval multiple religion) discipline is where and what I eat.

Now, I am larger person.  I have never been skinny person.  I am not built to be a skinny person, I have highly documented medical conditions that don't allow me to be a skinny person, and I like food.  But, it is only really since I started wearing a recognizable head-covering that people in public wouldn't give me the same courtesy in restaurants and other places to choose my own food or even be there.  For example, I usually don't eat pork.  I love pizza and pretzels.  So, when Little Ceasars' menu showed up with a pretzel crust, I was in line and ready to order it.  When I got to the front of the line, I was immediately told that they couldn't make a pretzel crust pizza without pepperoni.  I know how to make a pizza.  Why?

Well, I know why.  In time, I was confronted about ordering only cheese pizzas.    

Let me point this out.  I do -- cheese on bread.  Cheese on bread is of God.  Every culture has a form of cheese on bread recipes.  It seemed over time that whenever I went into certain stores that I was either refused service in one way or that I needed to eat their understanding of what I should order -- air or pork.  I love cheese on bread.

The real reason was either: 1) No Jews allowed or 2) Lose weight.  The second experience I had was where I used to teach.  I actually had someone tell me from behind my back that if he had a gun he would shoot me immediately as I stood in line for lunch.  The real issue in that people are more concerned with their understanding of my weight and what I am eating rather than fasting from arrogance and disciplining their spiritual and emotional need to control the people around them.

Seriously, be calm.  There is really no reason to control the people around us by their food.  We live in America.  It is a privilege of the first world to control others by rice, beans, and dare I write it -- cheese on bread.  It is more spiritual and far more important to care that the person sitting next to us in our pews, bus stops, and classrooms have been fed rather than worrying about how it looks to our own egos.  People have to eat.  People with expendable incomes get to eat well.  I know people who pride themselves on living on oatmeal and Ramen noodles because it is cheap.  It is unhealthy not to allow people to eat.  Both body and soul require nourishment.

The saddest part of this is that human beings use scripture, God, and their own sexism not to allow people to be able to have nourishment in their lives.  Today, while talking about dogs, I heard a man say, he won't let her eat."  While I was walking home, I thought about the Garden of Eden.  God created everything and then placed a seemingly arbitrary rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  While Adam and Eve were there, the serpent encouraged them to eat.  So, they did.  The problem was not with the food they ate.  The problem was that God received lies from Adam and Eve about what they had been doing.  They had been in communion with another teacher.  They had followed another's teaching.

God is a jealous God.  Even so, he repented of His jealous anger by placing a rainbow in the sky.  He is still a jealous God, but He matured as His children did.  He learned not to banish out of anger.  Instead, He communes and breaks bread with his disciples.  I hope it was really cheesy bread.  :)