We loved the letter, but not the spirit. ( Circa 10 May 2007 )

As humans, whether we like to believe it or not we like order, clear rules, like a list of do's and don'ts because in a way it makes things easier for us. If you know what you can, and can not do it makes it easier for you to judge how well you are doing, when you don't do anything wrong according to this list, then you can pat yourself on the back and feel as if you have accomplished something, and if you do break a rule on this list then you know you have done something wrong and you can beat yourself up about it, or, as a lot of people do, just no care either way.

Well, there were this people back in Jesus' day called Pharisees, and these guys are highly criticized for pretty much being so deeply in love with the law. The law is the rules and regulations that were laid out before Jesus came. The Jews were supposed to follow all of these, pretty much in order to be cool with God. They had toearn their way to God by following all of these laws. The craziest part was that even when Jesus came, and they were literally in the presence of God ... these rules and regulations were more important to them than being with Him.

Now when I first looked back at the accounts of the pharisees, I really had this mentality of "What was their problem?!", I mean there they were with God in the flesh and all they cared about was whether or not these rules were being followed. See, in reality, the purpose of all those rules and regulations were to show that we can't do it on our own ... that it is impossible to live the perfect life required by God, which is one thing that made Christ so much more beautiful, that He paid the price, and we have been saved from the "curse of the law" ( Galatians 3:13 ).

What I came to realize is that I am no better than them, the pharisees that is. Like I said earlier, it's so much easier to try to follow these rules and regulations, and judge myself based on how well i'm doing with these, rather than simply having a relationship with the God that created time and space. See, that is what God wants, He simply wants to have a relationship with us, that is why He sent His only begotten Son to die for us. He didn't want us to have to worry about following a bunch of rules and regulations, so He sent Christ to be the perfect sacrifice so we could simply have a relationship with Him. How amazing is that? God just wants to BE WITH US ... no strings attached. I love it, but too often I find myself wanting to prove myself worthy by doing things, and He doesn't want that ... He just wants to BE WITH US.

Second Corinthians 3:6 tells us that "... the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life", the letter being the law, and how true that is? There is such freedom in giving up those rules, and simply having a relationship with God. It's amazing, and it's beautiful ... and I feel so amazingly blessed to have a relationship with a God that loves me, and cares deeply about me.

How about today we stop doing things to earn Gods love, and start simply basking, and enjoying His love ... and have a relationship with Him.

God

( Borrowed from GREG GUTIERREZ )

God

The minister was the holiest of men. He would not let you forget this. The small island was blessed by his visit. All of his entourage said so. He warned the islanders about the dangers of lust and greed. The minister told them that even thoughts of lust (oh yes, even thoughts) made them no better than dogs. He was the holiest of men. His gold watch, gold necklace and rings sparkled in the South Pacific sunlight. His styled hair held fast, even against the strong trade winds.

His wish was to see the island and to meet as many people as he could. He wished to save as many souls as he might from Satan, who lurked everywhere (yes, even in this room). Times were dangerous and people were disappearing because of Satan’s followers. Nobody actually knew anyone who had disappeared but since the minister had said it, it certainly must be true. The minister, along with his large support staff, toured the island and they were given nice meals and gifts wherever they went. The minister had heard stories of the hermit surfer who lived in a cave on the far side of the island. The surfer led a simple life. He fished using the ancient techniques and rode a long wooden board. Though the people tried to talk him out of it, the minister felt that he must bring this surfer into his fold.
The minister asked a fisherman in his flock to motor him to the far side of the island in his Skip Jack 28. They arrived at the bay where the hermit surfer lived in his cave. The minister rowed himself to the cave in the dinghy of the fishing boat. When the minister told the surfer that he was a man of God, the surfer welcomed him, for the surfer loved God with all his being and wished to live alone so that he could spend his days in quiet prayer and meditation. The minister asked how the surfer prayed. The surfer answered that he surfed waves cleanly and got as deep in the pit as he could. The minister grew quite concerned and told the hermit he must read the Bible or forever burn in Hell.

The surfer was frightened and quickly agreed to begin reading at once. The minister personally signed a shiny new bible and left it with him. The minister felt wonderful, for certainly he had saved another soul. Oh, how he loved to sign and give away shiny new Bibles. The minister was tired, so he lay down for a nap while the surfer pored over the Bible. Shortly, the minister awoke and smiled as he saw the surfer reading with rapt intent. The minister bid the surfer farewell and rowed himself back to the waiting fisherman. They loaded up the dinghy and began their trip back to the other side of the island. After they had motored at 20 knots for about a half an hour they heard a voice behind them, coming from the sea. Swimming as fast as a dolphin, the surfer was catching up with the fishing boat. They stopped the boat, cut the engine, and the surfer swam alongside. He then churned up the ocean with his paddling feet until it seemed he was walking on the water itself.

The surfer said, “I have questions about the dreams and visions of Amos. Can you help me understand?”
The minister answered, “Come into the boat and let’s talk.” The surfer came over the rail. The minister continued speaking, “There are endless mysteries in the Bible. You could spend one thousand lives trying to understand it. I think you already know a peace I’ll never know. Go. Just read it and know it’s not to be completely understood by mortals.” “Thanks.” The surfer replied. “Now I’d like to do something for you. Please remove your rings and put them on the seat.” The minister did as he was asked. Then the surfer leaned towards him and removed his necklace and gently took off the minister’s watch. He picked up the rings and held all the jewelry up in his right hand. He smiled and said, “This is illusion,” and threw the jewelry into the sea. The minister’s eyes opened wide, then he started laughing from deep inside his chest. The surfer laughed too. Then he dove over the side and started swimming back to his cave.

Amongst the glitter, Remember You are of the ocean.

Religion Kills ( Circa 26 February 2006 )

What is religion? It is the noun of the word "religious" which is a verb. What does that mean? Religion is what a "religious" person has. So what does it mean to be "religious".

To be religious about something means to be extremely focused upon doing a certain thing, the actual word "religion" has nothing to do with God, it can be used in reference to God, but it can be used in reference to anything. You can be religious about brushing your teeth, taking showers, putting your left shoe on first or being in bed by 10 ( obviously I'm not in bed by 10 .. haha )

So why is religion associated with God and the following of spiritual leaders? Cause "religions", ie, Buddhism, Mormornism, JW, Scientology, Islam, they all have a set of "things" you need to do in order to follow that "god". Henceforth, you need to be "religious" to follow them. Like, you need to pray in a certain position so many times a day, or you need to talk to a certain amount of people, and give out a certain amount of pamphlets or a week, or give this much money to the "church" ... so on a so forth.

THAT IS WHY RELIGION KILLS

God does not want, or need you to do anything for Him ... He wants to have a relationship with you. If you read my blog from a few days ago "what the heck is up with Christianity", you'll remember that pretty much Adam and Eve were chillin with God in that sweet pad He hooked em up with, they blew it, He had to kick em out, but He loves us and He is working to bring us back. He wants to have that relationship with us, He wants to chill with us ... That's what matters, not the things you do, not the "religious" tendencies.

This is where us as humans jack it up ... we always think we need to work to get something, when really ... once we've got that relationship we don't need to to jack. People get sooooo focused on "having to do things", being "religious" that they lose sight of that "relationship".

What if you were married, and you spent all your time doing stuff for your spouse ... but never spent anytime with that spouse? That relationship would be dead, I would much prefer to just spend time with someone I love, rather than have them constantly doing stuff for me. Now, because I love them so much, I will do stuff for them ... but my focus is still that relationship ... It's the same way with God.

RELIGION KILLS

Because it takes the focus off of the relationship and back on you, and what you have to do.

Stop complicating it
Don't worry about "rules" and stuff like that in a relationship with God ... the true relationship just works out perfectly, without being constantly concerned about what you are doing.

Thanks for reading

until next time ... rock it with a smile

much love
buddy xxx

The decay of our metaphysical world.

There are two worlds that we live in, the physical and the metaphysical. The physical world being everything that we can see, feel, smell, hear and taste and the metaphysical being pretty much everything else i.e. our consciousness and our soul. It's pretty easy for us to sit back and evaluate our physical world with tests, and examinations, and research and find that while things aren't perfect, we're not on the verge of some cataclysmic end to all that we know. But how do we do this same kind of evaluation of our metaphysical world? How can we peer into this elusive world and see what it's health is like?

The other day in class my professor was describing the sense of smell that a hound has, specifically he was talking about Beagles. He proceeded to tell us that a Beagle could easily find out ten times more information about a room in ten seconds than we could find in ten hours, even if that Beagle were to be blind. The sense of smell that a dog has could easily sense ten times more information that our eyes can in a fraction of a second. If that Beagle could talk, he could tell you everyone that's been in your room in the past month, that the shirt you've been looking for is under your bed, and that your friend John was the one that left that empty soda can on the table. Now what does that have to do with the health of our metaphysical world? I'm glad you asked.

I believe that we have a direct connection to our metaphysical world through our heart, no ... not the physical one that vigorously pumps oxygen rich blood throughout your body, but the metaphysical one that we could probably be more accurately called our soul. Whatever you want to call it, it's a connection. I believe that we have the potential to develop this organ that we have and get in touch with the metaphysical world, but all too often we are more concerned with the physical world.

The other night I was watching the movie "Evan Almighty", and there is a scene in that movie that has one of my favorite fake God quotes ever. It comes at a scene where Evan's family is abandoning him because they think he has gone crazy, his wife and children are all out at some diner eating when one of the waiters named "Al Mighty" ( Yah, corny right? ) starts talking to Evan's wife. This is when "Al Mighty" aka God aka Morgan Freeman says,

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

I think this quote shows quite eloquently how connected God is to our heart, to our soul, to our metaphysical world. ( I really like using that word as you can see, it makes me feel smart ). See, God here sees that there is something broken, and while it is having consequences in the physical world, its something deeper and more metaphysical that needs to be fixed. It would be easy for someone to provide a million possible solutions to the problems their family was having including counseling, and vacations and new cars, but God here sees that in that we are curing the symptom and not the disease. This is our problem when we start dealing with problems like this, we truly want to make things seem good on the outside, without even thinking about what's going on inside.

So how do we evaluate the health of our metaphysical world? We need to take a look at the health of our soul, we need to see what's going on in there, and if you're anything like me you will see that there is a lot of work that needs to be done, and I've always believed that when something needs to be done, there's no better time than now ... Unless you need to do the yard and it's raining.

Until next time ... rock it with a smile.

buddy xxx