My True Realities

Imagine that all the love, affection, and resources (time, finances, emotional space, etc.) that each of us has is a pie. This pie may be larger or smaller depending on capacity and circumstances in a person’s life. Now, in order to be healthy and satisfied, each person must constantly be consuming an entire pie. But, after eating a single slice of our own pie, the rest of our pie cannot satisfy us or give us any nutritional value. What are we to do? We must give ourselves the first slice of our pie. This is self-love or self-care. That first slice imbues all of the other slices of our pie with nutritional value. But, after we have consumed the first slice of our own pie, the rest of our pie will give us nothing if we eat it ourselves. We must give the other slices of our pie to other people. Still, we must consume a whole pie to be satisfied, so others must give to us as well. In a healthy, functioning society and group, it would look like this: each of us eats our own first slice...

The fourth chapter of the book of Luke describes the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Since we are all Christ, we all endure this in various ways:  1 Then Jesus, remembering that He was Christ and fully Divine, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into a place of lack and hunger 2 so he could be tempted for this time. He had nothing that could fulfill his need, and afterward his need was great. 3 And the tempter said to Him, "You can't really be Christ if you feel so low and down and needy. If you were really Christ, you could provide everything for yourself easily!" 4 But Jesus answered him saying, "It is not what I do that makes Me Christ, but who I AM." 5 Then the tempter, seeing the great need and lack that Christ was walking in, took Him up to a high mountain and showed Him the answer and fulfillment to every one of his needs. 6 Then the tempter said to him, "I will give you everything you need. I will love and support you. I will ...

I am proud to be an American. I love my country, and I think it is the best place for me to live. I know that freedom is a fundamental element of our history and our present. I also know that freedom has not been given equally to everyone. I used to believe that I couldn't be proud of my country or a patriotic citizen if I acknowledged or decried any of the issues that existed throughout our history and still exist today. Yes, I acknowledged slavery, "but that was over a hundred years ago, let's get over it." Yes, I acknowledged racism, "but it's so rare and most people aren't racist today, let's get over it." Or so I thought. I was raised in the dichotomous mental concept of good and evil. Something and someone was either good or evil, never both. Or if they were both, "that was a while ago, let's get over it." And maybe they still had a few issues, but we could only acknowledge the small ones and maybe excuse them with "t...

Toxic positivity is a new term going around social media these days to describe what it's like when someone pushes down all negative emotions and experiences instead of processing them. Instead, they focus only on the positive. Some examples of this can include "fake it til you make it" or "speaking only beautiful words."  Before I get into why toxic positivity is so toxic, let me just say that I'm not saying positivity is toxic. It is important to have a healthy mindset which includes hope, the ability to see the good in life, and the ability to plan for future beautiful things. Affirmations and mantras can be wonderful, but they're not enough on their own. Unfortunately, toxic positivity doesn't allow for a brighter future because in order to have all of these things, one must heal from the negative experiences that have happened in the past. In order to heal, one must acknowledge what happened, talk freely about it, and process through to t...

There is this idea of a universal truth of right and wrong. In this idea, God makes a blanket statement and rule for all of humanity, and it is the duty of humanity to follow it without question or fail. The problem with this point of view is that it does not allow for individuality. There is almost no situation in which a blanket statement applies to everyone all of the time. I suppose there are some, all humans being worthy of Love for example, but even that appears different in application. (Each human needs different expressions of Love at different times). Thus I would say that any blanket statement of right and wrong is inherently legalistic, but perhaps that is a blanket statement, so I won't be a hypocrite. I will just say that I am learning that we don't have the omniscience that is needed to impose our view of right and wrong upon another person and that our sovereignty extends only to our own lives, never to another's. Some of the biggest religious rules, o...

Every religion has this idea that their theology is the best. Many have this mentality that they have to convert others to their religion because their way of life is the only really, truly good way of life and all others are secondary, are less-than, are not as good. When I was a Christian, I loved others as best I could, but I did so by wanting to change them, to give them the things I thought were the best things in my life. I thought the best way I could love people was by making them like me, by making them believe and do what I thought was right, and I thought that was what God wanted because I had been told what I was telling others: this way and no other is the Word of the Lord. I hate theology because it takes the inherent goodness of a person's heart and makes them hateful and abusive toward people they're trying to love or save. If I take a person, a unique individual expression of Yahweh who is doing and being themselves and I tell them that the way they are is in...

There's this idea that creation is waiting for the sons of God to take their places and make the world what it needs to be, this idea that some day out there Yahweh will come back and take us to Heaven and reign from His Throne. Once we remember sovereignty and that we are One with Yahweh, we realize that we are the ones sitting on this throne with Yahweh. We also need to remember that time and eternity are One. Time is the instrument of Our growth, and We actually use it to grow eternity. Once we realize these two things, we can see that We are sovereign in our own lives and ruling and reigning from this throne right now. The instrument of Our dominion is Our choices. This is what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 3 where he talks about how we each choose what materials to build our lives with. Some choose jewels, some choose clay. I, as the sovereign in my own life, get to decide what materials to build my life with. However, I cannot judge another's life. As each of u...

Scripture says, "Submit yourselves one to another." It also says "submit yourselves to your elders." These are two different statements. The first statement addresses the sovereignty of each human individual, which means that ultimately each person is responsible for his or her own life, and that each person cannot be judged or forced to adapt to another's lifestyle. Each person has every right to make whatever choice they want, and if another person doesn't like it, they have no right to violate that person's sovereignty in order to force compliance with an external theology, set of rules, or expression. The second statement addresses authority, in which a sovereign human may choose to submit a part of their lives to another sovereign human in order to learn from them, receive wisdom and revelation from them, and relate to them in love. This submission to authority should in no way violate sovereignty as it is the choice of the one who submits to su...

Each human being ultimately has sovereignty in their own life. Each of us has a place in Yahweh where it is just Him and us. My friend calls it the "universe of two." I call it "I am first." It is important to understand that time did not start with Adam and Eve one day and then move forward in an endless line from there. Time is more like the inhaling and exhaling of the Breath of Yahweh, and therefore there is a place in the universe where each of us was the first created human being due to the fact that each moment IS the Beginning. Don't get all caught up in being confused by the mystical, just go with it. Because if you accept that fact, then you can accept this: At one point in time, only you and Yahweh existed. At one point in time, there was nothing else attached to you. Nobody was above or before you. No one in your lineage had sown things into your family. No one in your church had established an acceptable theology. It was just you and Yahweh togeth...

Someone reminded me recently of the verse in Corinthians that talks about how Love keeps no record of wrongs. This is absolutely true! But how do you do this? Let's look deeper! I could choose not to. I could become bitter and angry and start to see the person who hurt me as a bad, untrustworthy person. I could cut them out of my life and disparage them. I could tell others how they've wronged me and how horrible they are as people. This is, of course, not Love. This is a mindset of "that other person is wrong." Wrong is on the record I have of that person. Another option would be that I forget that the times when someone hurt me ever happened. I pretend they were never real. They have no impact or influence on our relationship. This would be counter-productive to my own well-being. I would continue to go to an untrustworthy person over and over again no matter how much they've hurt me and ask them to love, relate to, and honor me no matter how often they'...

Sometimes I feel like in society, we roam the Earth in packs, finding safety in numbers as we seek to protect ourselves from anyone who is different from us, from the "other." Whether we group ourselves by race, religion, culture, philosophy, etc, many of us find emotional and psychological security in a tribe of some sort. We find this commonality that we decide is the most important trait of ourselves (or perhaps the one most in need of protection), we find others that have that same trait, and we form an impenetrable group, a tribe. This tribe will only let another in if they have that same trait. Sometimes the tribe is automatically closed to certain people because this trait is something that cannot be changed. Sometimes, though, this tribe touts its openness because anyone can become a member of this tribe... IF they convert, change their philosophy, adapt to a new culture, etc.  Because there is this feeling of safety that comes from being in a tribe, it is har...

And this is the gospel, that Yahweh has given us eternal life, and this life is in being His/Her Expression. Each of us, by virtue of the fact that we are alive, are His/Her Expression. The only way to not be His/Her Expression is to not be alive, to not exist. ~1 John 5:11-12 Original: And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. ~1 John 5:11-12 In other words: The Gospel is to remember that you are One in Yahweh, even as Yahshua was. That's what He was trying to tell us all along! You, my dear, do not count it robbery to call yourself equal with God, to say, even as He said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen an Expression of Yahweh." Whatever that Expression is, it is YOUR unique and individual, special and undeniable Expression of the Divine! Yahshua said, "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one goes...

People have been hurting me all my life in ways I could not acknowledge until now. I always judged people based on their motivations, their hearts, their reasons. I could see it. Often, they thought they were helping. Probably more often, they had their own traumas and past abuses that they never dealt with, and so they passed that on to me. The saying goes that hurt people hurt people, and that’s true. I am sure that I hurt others in these times of grief, although that is not my intention and I carefully examine my actions to determine if they are over reactions to avoid hurting others as much as possible. I also have certain safe people to whom I vent my frustrations while avoiding loosing them on others who couldn’t handle the force of my pain and anger. I know I’m not perfect at choosing the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but I try. Today I had a thought, though, about the intentions of the people who hurt me the most. Sometimes people hurt others unintentionally. But w...

One of the hardest things to do is to go from being a secondary character in someone else's story to being the main character of your own. Most people start out learning about life from their parents. As trusting children, we believe everything our parents say until maturity shows us that even they do not know everything. By the time that happens, we have entered social situations in which we yearn to be liked, accepted, and validated by our peers. If we grow up in religion, we are told from the start that we are not to trust ourselves, but need to rely on others who have more wisdom than us to tell us about life, the universe, and everything. The entire church hierarchical structure is predicated on this idea that someone with a divinity degree or who happens to stand behind a pulpit knows more about Yahweh than the person in the pews. Both religious and secular society teach us to value productivity in some form, and we all begin to strive toward some goal that we think will ...

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds . ~William Shakespeare At some point in your life, you will cease to meet someone else’s conditions and expectations. It is then that you will discover if they loved you unconditionally or if you were only ever loved because you met certain standards. And vice versa. Yahweh loves you, and you need to change. Almost every religion starts with this concept. “Yahweh is a God of order, standards, and laws. You need to follow them to live your best life. Yahweh wants what’s best for you, and so He has laid out these rules like a parent loving a child.” The Jews have 613 laws. I’d say Christianity has more, not because they are written down in canon, but because of the pervasive culture I grew up in which allows us to say “If you see someone about to walk over a cliff and they don’t see it, what’s the loving thing to do?” and then impose our view of the world and who Yahweh is upon other people. Ask a homosexual, a drug add...

Luke 6:37-38 says:  “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.   Forgive, and you will be forgiven.   Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your   bosom. For   with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” We've been taught in religion that this means that we must do good for others, give them generously all that we have, and after we do that, we shall reap the same rewards that we have measured out to others. We have been taught that the first thing we do is toward others, and that then because of that, whatever happens to us will likewise be good (or bad, depending).  Ironically, the Christians look down upon the Buddhists while preaching the same thing: karma. I would like to look at this a different way.  "Instead of judging others, write your own Covenant with Me. Together We shall determine what is ...