What I Hear

I am speaking at the 8:00 am church service this Sunday. This is what I propose to say. I would love your thoughts.

I remember when my journey started. I was 9 years old and sitting in the front row of a packed United Methodist Church of Kirkwood, MO on Easter. The extremely traditional service in a very traditional church was trudging along. Men and young boys like me were fidgeting in their suits and ties. Women were sitting daintily in their Sunday best. I looked out over the crowd through the spaces in the balcony railing, and I thought to myself, “What hypocrites we all are.”

This is when I realized that most people are what I now refer to as “Check the Box” religious.

Attended Church on Easter                         Check

Attended Church on Christmas                   Check

Sent in some money                                     Check

SAVED, Halleluiah!!

I decided that was not the religion for me. So I began to ask questions. Some were asked of adults, but perhaps as many were asked of whatever God is. To my surprise, I got answers.

My father left our family, which was devastating. I did not like that answer.

My mother was depressed and we were suddenly poor, forced to drink powdered milk and eat Underwood Chicken Spread. I did not like that answer very much either.

I decided I did not like this thing they called God very much.

We found the Reverend Larry Watson and the Kirkwood United Church of Christ, KUCC, and things changed, not really for the better but I began to see a tad more clearly and started to get my feet back under me a bit. He was a good man and he led our Youth Group to great summer trips to Indian reservations across the west to build fences, dig drainage ditches, clear trails, etc, probably a lot like our ASP project. These were eventful. I nearly had my leg cut off at the knee by an axe in the Montana Mountains and was flown by helicopter to the hospital at Yellowstone for over 100 stitches to put me back together. I was bucked off a wild horse after a 4 second ride in front of several laughing Hopi Indians in Arizona. Just a few cactus spines to be removed from my shoulder and I was fine, with a newly earned respect from my peers and the Indians. Great fun. Not really terribly spiritual though.

High School was hell. College was bacchanalian. My first wife left me for a 6’4” gun-toting FBI agent less than one year into our marriage. So this God fellow was not yet a best friend, by any stretch of the imagination. 

Since then I secured a law degree, was married, had two wonderful children. I hated law and left it in 1999. My wife eventually divorced me as well. To say that God was not with me was an understatement.

My oldest daughter, Jessica, found a church during High School. Probably something she needed as I did after my parents’ divorce. The pastor was wonderful. We had our disagreements, (we had a humdinger of an argument about homosexuality once, and another about whether the Bible is true) but he got me to begin to read the Bible and most of all care about who and what God is. 

For the last 8 years I have been studying the Bible, other books, asking questions and listening. In a nutshell, here is what I have learned:

The Old Testament God cannot possibly be reconciled with the God of Jesus. Jesus’ God would never have a “Chosen People,” kill the first born of an entire population, destroy an entire army of human beings, order His people to enter a city and kill every living person and thing in that town, throw temper tantrums, etc. Jesus God is a turn the other cheek God. He is a passive resistance God. He is the God of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. So to me the Old Testament is a nice story of old myths and fairy tales, with some bits of inspirational thought, but it is not, to me, the Word of God.

Paul was a man. Paul was a dedicated man, but just a man. Paul met Jesus on the road six years after the crucifixion. Paul had a theology. An inclusive theology. But as we read what he wrote, we have to remember there were many competing theologies of men, some of whom actually knew Jesus, that were not chosen by the Romans when the New Testament was compiled some 300 years after the crucifixion. Paul’s letters should not, in my opinion only, be read as the Word of God. They are the word of Paul, a great man to be true, but not Jesus. We should equally revere the words of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John Wesley, and many other great men and women, many of whom also died for the cause of peaceful change. They are no different than Paul.

So, for me, that leaves us with the four Gospels to wrestle with. The inaccurate and conflicting accounts of what Jesus actually said. I believe he has several core messages, revolutionary messages indeed.

1. Personal Relationship: You have a personal relationship with God. One on one. You do not need to pray through anyone or anything. Also, there is no right or wrong. Jesus implored us not to judge others. He did not say, Do unto others according to this rule I command of you. No, he said, do unto others AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU. The Lord ’s Prayer points out that you will be forgiven your sins TO THE EXTENT YOU HAVE FORGIVEN OTHERS. What is right under God, is what is right for YOU and YOUR personal relationship and path with God. What is right for you is not necessarily right for me.

2. What is this God? First, I want you to know that I can prove there is a God, or at least a spirit. It is provable through the basic laws and theories of physics and biology. It is too much to cover here, but if you are interested, I can provide it to you. As I spoke to physicists and scientists and others to prove God, I learned many things about WHAT God really must be.

To me, God is the connection of the souls of all those living and past, whether human or otherwise, who have souls. I call it the spiritual internet. It strives naturally and without thinking or judging or compassion or hatred, like all things in nature, to achieve balance and harmony among all beings. If we disrupt the Harmony with negativity, God, the harmony, the Spirit of Truth, will fill that rift with exactly what you are looking for, more negativity. The balance in the universe is restored. When we break the balance with positive energy, a deep positive desire for something, the Spirit fills that rift with more positivity. If we are tapped into this power, we are guided in a way that keeps us in positive harmony with all other souls and can provide us with gifts and strength we never knew we could muster. 

3. Ask. Ask for what you want out of life. Determine what you truly, deeply want. What are you most deeply passionate about? What would you love your life to be like? What do you want most in the whole world, down deep in your heart?

If you focus on the negative, God will give you exactly what you are asking for, more negative things. If you focus on the positive, God will give you exactly what you are asking for, more positive things. God does not decide for you. Ask and you shall receive. Barbara gave me a great metaphor. When you focus on the negative you create a whirlpool in the Harmony that draws negativity to you. When you focus on the positive, you create an equally strong whirlpool that draws positive things to you. When you are deeply focused on what you want in particular, and do it in a positive way, you will create a whirlpool that will draw that to you. 

When you do this, it is very cool how often it works, even in the littlest examples.

When we all pray as a group for something we all deeply want and care about, we can create a maelstrom of positivity toward the result we all are driving for. That is perhaps as cool a part of this as anything.

This is the Power of Positive thinking and it has been around for centuries. Jesus taught us this.

4. Believe. Have faith that what you want will come to you. You have to truly believe that you will get what you are asking for. 

Jesus did not really heal anyone. Read the stories. The faith of the person who came to Jesus healed them. They healed themselves or their friends by asking for it, believing deeply that it would happen and then acting upon that faith, even if it would get them into trouble or it seemed impossible.

5. Act. The final step is the act. For many years the following was the sole part of my belief system

Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do and you will find yourself in harmony with all of God’s souls.

I still deeply believe this is the key, and it serves me well every day. I know that you know in your hearts what the right thing to do is, pretty much every minute of every day. You are often afraid to act on that because it is scary, embarrassing or your mother would not approve, or that chocolate chocolate chip cookie just looks too good to pass up. Can I get an AMEN on that one!!

The story of the rich man who came to Jesus and wanted to follow him is not a condemnation of the rich. The man knew what he wanted. He had faith he could achieve it. He even stepped out of his comfort zone and met Jesus where Jesus was. Jesus offered to accept him into his fold. BUT when Jesus explained what that entailed, the rich man was not willing to do what was required to secure what he knew in his heart was the right thing for him. Giving up his fortunes was too difficult. He failed to have the faith to act on what the Holy Spirit guided him to do. That was the failure of the rich man.

On the other hand, the story of the friends of the paralytic knew what they wanted, believed with the deepest of faiths that it could be achieved, and they climbed onto the building and broke a hole in it to achieve their results. Despite the difficulties, a nearly certain arrest and the near impossibility of their actions, they acted with faith that they were doing the right thing. They were doing what the Holy Spirit was driving them to do. 

How many of us would give up all our wealth to follow Jesus? 

How many of us would haul our paralyzed friend up onto a building, break a hole in the roof and drop him in to cure him?

This is the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, guiding you through the harmony of all the souls in the world, living and dead. If all you do is do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, you will live in God’s way. You will follow the path that is right for you.

But your life can be more than that. Ask for what you truly want. Create your own positive whirlpool. No matter what happens along the way, keep the faith that it will come to you and most of all, ACT.

Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, do it with deepest faith that what you want will come to you, do it with positive energy, and act on what you know the Holy Spirit is guiding you to do, and you will receive what you have asked for.

That is what I hear.

Doing Good

A good friend of mine read my last blog post and had this to say:

"When I read your blog, I was struck with the overwhelming impression that you place the responsibility of a person's well being in each person's hands.  If you really want it, go for it.  If you have questions, think about it and you will come up with the right decision.  When I think about myself, I totally agree that I have the means (God willing, I suppose) to take care of my own destiny.  But this is due to the background I was born into, the money and resources that my parents and grandparents provided, the educational opportunities that I received, and sheer luck that I am physically and mentally in reasonably good shape.  If I complain with all that I have, shame on me.  Totally agree!

What bothers me is that you also seem to imply that if you are not doing well, that is your fault.  Having traveled to many disadvantaged regions in the world, having learned first hand about discrimination and stereo-typing, knowing from my work with people with [certain] disorders, I know that there are people who are not able to overcome their situation without the help of others.  My understanding of Jesus is that he wanted his disciples to take care of the marginalized.  "Tend my sheep" is what he said to Peter.  Sure, he told the beggars to "pick yourself up and live with faith", but he balanced it with a strong plea that we must take care of the disadvantaged.  This is the message I am missing from your blog."

I certainly did not intend that helping others was not part of the bargain or that we are "at fault" for our own situation. I am a huge believer in helping others. It is part of who I am. We all know that the greatest pleasure one can enjoy is giving to others and seeing them joyfully receive the gift. 

What I needed to learn, however, is that I do it for myself. I do it because it makes me feel good. It is the right thing for me to do at the time. When you do things for the others, you guide your universe in that manner, whether that is good for you or not. You have intentionally created a Harmony that sacrificed your world for theirs, whether they give a rat's buttocks about you and your help or not.

Now, I do what I know is right for me to do for others. I hope that the things I do help the people intended, but I realize now that is entirely outside of my control. That is entirely within their control. If what I bring to the table for others ends up helping to change their world in a positive way, it is because they took it and changed their world in a positive way. I, other than being a provider, had zero to do with whether their life was changed or not. Of course, the benefit may be small or large, and again, that is up to the recipient, not the provider. Either way, if I did it because it felt good to me, it is good for me and my Harmony with my universe and all other souls. 

Just as often, of course, a person in need of help refuses to benefit from the gifts of others. This can be for many reasons. Perhaps to improve is frightening. Perhaps to feel good seems wrong. Perhaps to find a better way may mean risking stability they have in their current situation. Perhaps they are strong while the supporter is there to do it for them, but fall into their old ways as soon as they are on their own again. Who knows why a person chooses not to benefit from gifts, but we all know it happens. In the end, though, it is the decision of the recipient whether to benefit from or fall away from the gifts of others. Who are we to judge how they fit in the Harmony of the universe? Their world, however wretched in our minds, might be perfect for them or at least makes them feel in Harmony. I could never live like the Masai on the high plains of Kenya, but they seem to love it. We don't like it so we build stuff for them and bring them things we are sure they will like. We try to help. We feel good. All is good. 

Or, perhaps they are stranded in a negative world they cannot seem to get out of. 

Perhaps the greatest gift we can provide one another is the power to believe that each of us is in control of our own world. We each have the power to make our world better, to ask for the things we need, to have the faith to believe that it can happen, and most of all the strength to do what is required, to do what each of us knows in our heart is right, to do what the Holy Spirit guides us to do, immediately and without hesitation. 

I believe that there are two parts of the universe:

• Nature that is completely bound by the laws of physics, unable to adjust or change from them. This allows us to build things, send things into space, throw a strike with a baseball, etc. Our physical bodies are part of Nature. They break down. They have issues. Like any machine, they do not always run the way they should. We are bound to occupy our bodies for better or worse. Why not do so for the better. The examples of those who simply refused to succumb to the limitations of their bodies, to look at the positives and strive for the maximum their lives could be, are myriad. They made that happen for themselves. Perhaps others helped them? Perhaps someone lent a hand or provided guidance? In the end, it was they who accomplished the feat, not the counselor, not the coach, not the friend. They created their harmony within their universe around the bodies they were stuck in.
• The Harmony, the spiritual connection of all souls to all other souls, God, the Holy Spirit, the spiritual internet, is the power that allows us to drive the machine. For more, consider reading my post on Proof of God. This is the part of us to which the Law of Attraction applies. No matter the condition of our body, the political system around us, our wealth or poverty, the country we live in, or the differences, strengths or weaknesses we were born with, our spirit is who we are and is what allows us to control our place in the Harmony of all souls. The Harmony is what allows us to change our spiritual world either to the positive or negative.

Being positive is not limited by our situation. It is limited only by our faith.

I believe that the connection of all of our souls matters. AA, NA, GA, OA and all of the other "__A" members meet in small groups that support one another. These group members pull for one another, but a core understanding is that each member is responsible only for him or herself. He or she is not responsible for anyone else in the group. Each member has a more veteran sponsor who helps to guide his or her charge through the process, through stresses, threats and temptations. But this idea that the successes or failures of the charge are not the responsibility of the sponsor applies equally to this more direct relationship. Success or failure rests solely on the shoulders of the member. Sometimes they fail. Often it is the strength they find in the group that gets them back on track. They reconnect with the part of the Harmony that helps them. But in the end, the individual is responsible for his or her own success and failure.

Is our situation our fault? Fault is a difficult concept and I do not like it much. It implies blame where often there is none. Our situation is frequently just that - our situation. It could be due to many factors outside of our control, as listed above, entirely within our control, but most often it is a combination and mash up of many responsibilities. I know that the majority of my situation I brought upon myself, but there were many co-conspirators and participants, and there are aspects of my situation, such as arthritis in my knees and ankles, spreading to my hips and hands, that are genetic and part of the frailties of my body machine. For awhile last Fall I succumbed to "my situation," gained a bunch of weight and felt worse. I could have kept going but I chose to change. Am I without pain? Far from it, but I decided to be positive, change my world and it has worked. I am not out of the woods, but I am on the way.

I am not special. If I can do it anyone can. Perhaps with a little help from our friends, we all can.

The Law of Attraction

Well blow me down and shiver me timbers. There is a LAW that essentially states all the things I believe. It has been around for a long time. Check out this website.

• http://applying-the-law-of-attraction.com/ 

So basically the Law of Attraction says that you control your universe and attract to you what you "ask" for. Like any law, it is impersonal and does not care what you actually want or mean or who you are. If you complain about being poor and in debt and lonely, the universe will make sure you get your wish. You will become poorer, more in debt and lonelier. If you wish to be happy, wealthy and full of friends, and that is what you think about, have faith you deserve and work toward, you will be happy, wealthy and full of friends.

One of the components is to do in life what you are deeply passionate about. Anyone who knows me knows that passion is the key to everything. I have long professed that to be successful you have to become best in your world at what you do. Your world is described by you, and can be limiting or broadening. Up to you.

Being best in the world is difficult. It takes time and commitment. It requires you to become an expert. The only thing you will spend the required amount of time doing the things required for you to become best in the world is that about which you are deeply passionate. As it turns out, focusing on your passions, what you want most in life, what you love most in life, and following through, essentially bends the universe so that you can achieve it. The universe bends to make it easier for you to reach. You want it so badly that to maintain harmony and balance in the universe, what I call the Harmony, brings it to you.

This applies to everything. This is the Harmony. When you do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, you are tapping into this.

My concept of God as the connection of all souls makes perfect sense within the Law of Attraction. That force wants balance, harmony and for everyone to be happy. Harmony, grace and balance is found in happiness, not in sorrow, misery, fear and hatred. But, if you want to be poor, to maintain harmony, the Harmony/God/Connection of all Souls, will give you what you want.

I think back over the time during which I have become aware of the Harmony and I realize I have gotten EVERYTHING I have asked for. I have the job I chased down and got and love. I have Barbara, the love of my life. I have two great kids. I have a great family and even a great ex-family. I have friends, a great church, a nice place to live and all that stuff.

BUT, I am poor and in debt financially, BECAUSE I asked for it!  I never asked or tried to have wealth. I am working on that. I have realized I am too nice and cannot effectively manage people. They were more important to me than money, so I let them get away with stuff. That actually made me happy. If Paul was feeling good about himself, I felt good, even if it was costing me money.

Ursula asked if I have always made the "right" decisions. I told her I have always made the decision I believed was right in my heart at the time, based on what I wanted out of the deal. For the period I knew him, Paul was off drugs, productive and happy. Once I moved away and our business ended, he went back to his old problems and is back in jail. I am sad for that, but I know HE asked for it! He bent the universe so that he would end up back in jail.

Did I learn from those decisions? Of course. I learned that I get exactly what I ask for. I can only control MY universe. Not Paul's. Not any of yours. I gained a greater understanding of the Harmony, of being poor, of who I am as a person, my strengths and weaknesses, and the importance of recognizing that you cannot have as YOUR main objective the universe of another person. You have no control over that universe. That is not your Harmony to deal with.

God is not a weird scary vengeful being in the sky. God is, in essence, YOU. God is the connection of all spirits and you control YOUR part of that universe. To stay in Harmony, God will adjust to what YOU ask for, so ask for things you really want.

There are even the same basic 3 steps in the Law of Attraction:

• Know what you want. Tell everyone. Write it down. Ask for it. Pray for it. 
• Have unwavering faith that you will achieve it. Believe, no matter the obstacles and no matter the challenges along the way, that it will come to you. This is how you begin to let the connection of souls/God/the Harmony know how your universe needs to bend in order for it to stay in harmony.
• Finally, do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. You will become aware of the steps you need to take, the processes required, the people you need to meet, the things you need to say, etc, in order for you to achieve your objectives and restore balance to the universe. Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do IMMEDIATELY!  Do it without hesitation. Do it on faith. I have and it has landed me in precisely the place I asked for over and over again. 

This applies to huge things and little things. Barbara and I were attending the Strawberry Festival a few weekends ago. We had worked out and were tired. I asked for a spot close to the fair. Barbara agreed we would find one. We found a pretty good one, but we both knew there would be a better one and passed it up. Sure enough the car in the very first spot next to the entrance pulled out as we arrived and we got the best spot in the place. We got it because we were in the Harmony and did not second guess what we knew would be true. I would say this is just a coincidence, but I do not believe in luck and we do this all the time and it always works!

For this to work, you really have to believe in it. You have to know what you want and go for it. You have to have faith when you know you are supposed to, like Indiana Jones, walk on the invisible walkway over the chasm to the chamber where the chalice, your goal, is located.

Find your passions, little and big. Find your loves, momentary and permanent. Find your dreams, short and long term. Make them happen. They are yours for the 

asking.