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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
