Never in a million years would I have even imagined that I would be any sort of activist... and I'm still not certain anyone would really call me one now. People have called me opinionated. People can accuse me of an agenda that I don't have... or they can "shut the hell up" and listen. The reason I put that in quotes is because a friend and I have been plotting to put together a web show called, "Shut the Hell Up". I'm hoping to get started on it soon, but schedules have been rather crazy and getting us both and the third person involved together in the same place at the same time has been proving easier said than done...

The only agenda I have is to speak the truth in love and to encourage people to see just what it means to "love your neighbor"... and dang it, even go so far as to "love your enemies." The thing that I have realized in some of the "fights" I've started by doing this on Facebook is that it is impossible for people who can't seem to love and forgive their own selves to extend that same love and forgiveness to other people. They live by the law. They die by the law. They're condemned by the law they themselves can't keep and are therefore willing to condemn, even more so, those whom they believe are even "bigger sinners" than themselves. 

Romans 5:1-11 NIV Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I know a whole lot of Christians who do not actually believe these verses... at least not as a whole... and if they believe it for themselves, they certainly have quite a difficult time believing them for others.... Especially the others who may not yet grasp it themselves. What a horrible thing, to believe that something doesn't apply to another person because that person doesn't believe it? How much more so should we believe it DOES apply, because it is written about them. Those who are yet sinners are EXACTLY who Jesus died for... and if that isn't enough to warrant us (the ones who believe it and have been COMMANDED to love our neighbors and have agreed to do so) loving the people who are different than us... WHAT THE HELL IS? 

Apparently, in the minds of some of these people I have argued with, these verses don't apply to the very people who need them the most... How is that even possible? So... To anyone who knows me on Facebook... I'm not going to tolerate anything less than love from my friends who call themselves Christians. If you're going to bash my gay friends or question their salvation or their belief in God or their ability to hear from God... Well... I will not tolerate you for very long. I would rather talk to an honest "sinner" than a hypocritical "saint."

Yesterday, I finished reading the book Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra. Fascinating look at how the human body works on a cellular level and even on a molecular and subatomic level. On one hand, I can see how people can easily dismiss it as New Age nonsense. Chopra uses quite a few Indian words that have been taken out of context by the West... more specifically, by Americans... and have been given meanings that are "out there" rather than what they actually intend to mean. I have been finding more and more that there are a lot of things that are the same concepts described in different words, depending on who is describing them from what perspective.

There was one line that stood out to me:"If you knew how to control the creation of impulses of intelligence, you would not only be able to grow new dendrites, but anything else." Impulses of intelligence is how Chopra describes the action/reaction of the body in releasing chemicals into the blood stream, or the neurological impulses that seem to travel, not like electricity through wires, but simultaneously through chemical transmissions. The body's response to a cut, for example... It knows what to do without your brain consciously having to tell it. Every bit of the immune system seems to have an interconnected mind of its own. It is influenced by everything around us, and even everything inside us... since thoughts themselves are also tied to these chemical type reactions... Example: Imagine something that you're afraid of, and your heart, your lungs, even your sweat glands will react to it even though the thing itself isn't even present. Thoughts alone are enough to cause a physical response. So, that being said... it is equally as possible for thoughts to influence healing and health... OR to compound sickness and disease. 

Hebrews 11 talks about faith being "the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things unseen." Going by everything I've read... Faith works on the quantum level like this. It works within our subatomic structure. It is what causes the creation of these "impulses of intelligence." It is both a conscious and a subconscious kind of thing. "Faith comes by hearing"... the human body responds to what it hears. It takes action based on this. Hearing doesn't necessarily happen just with your ears. The line from a song in the musical "Tommy" questions, "How can he be saved, if he can't hear?" People have, in the not so distant past, believed that deaf people were incapable of being saved because their ears prevented them from hearing the Gospel. We look at that now and laugh... but that ridiculous belief has had quite an impact on the Deaf community that is only just beginning to fade. But that's a digression that isn't as relevant to this as it could be...

Jesus says more than once (as do Isaiah and several other prophetic writings) "He who has ears to hear, let him hear..." This is rarely (if ever) meant literally. It has to do with a perception of things that are both beyond and beneath the five physical senses. People have questioned a "sixth sense" because there is no obvious "organ" with which to experience it. Ears hear. Eyes see. Skin touches. Noses smell. Tongues taste... but what sensory organ picks up anything else? My own reading and understanding would have me believe that the entirety of the human body is like an antenna that receives signals that are beyond and beneath perception with the more obvious senses. It has already been proven that "brain" cells exist outside the brain; that there are cells that perform some of the same functions in just about every part of the body, sending and receiving neuro-chemical impulses. The DNA within every single cell in the human body has the complete "blueprint" for the entire body... and the ability to adapt itself within it... it is totally wild to think how intricately designed this "dirt" we live in is. 

So... I'm bouncing around from one thing to the next, probably not making a whole lot of sense. But the main thing that I walked away from this book with is that there is way more to this life than just what we see on the surface. I have always known that, always felt it. I'm probably one of the oddballs out here who doesn't have the filters that keep me from seeing it. (Both a blessing and a curse.) I find it fascinating that people have been "proving" for the past 20+ years that I'm not crazy... LOL 

To give this a bit of perspective: This is a blog I wrote about three weeks before my mom died. We had just moved out of our house in Philly and into an apartment in Bensalem. We had just done a fantastic Vacation Bible School program at an African church... and my mom had just wound up in the hospital for what would be the last time. I was working at a gas station in Philly. I HATED the job that kept my kids from ever seeing John and I together, except when we were playing "pass the kids". Life was INCREDIBLY difficult at this point... yet... THIS was what was on my heart and mind:

My World

For all of you who don't know... I live in my own little world.  Not entirely as an escape from this so-called "real world" but apparently my view of this "real world" is so entirely different from everyone else's that it may as well be that I live in a different one.  I may as well call it my own.

Anything is possible in my world.  Mostly because I believe that God can do anything. I don't live in a fantasy world.  I'm not so naive as to think that "everything is alright" simply because I can imagine it that way.  There is something deeper than that that I cling to for life.  Everything really is alright.  It is this insanity that we call reality that keeps us from knowing it.

What do I mean by that?  Well, the REAL reality is that God is ever-present, always working and He really does work things out for GOOD.  I live in that reality.  Aside from my silliness and pretending, which are fun games, I live in the reality of God's goodness and grace and unchanging love.  I know beyond a shadow of doubt that God has His hands in everything I am and that His work is good, but most of all, it is HIS work.  My only responsibility in it is to trust and obey.  There is nothing more than that.

It's a matter of keeping my ears open to that still voice behind me that says, "This is the way, walk in it."  It's knowing the Savior's voice and keeping it in the forefront.

YES it really is THAT simple.  I've seen people struggle and read thousands of books, when all they really need to do is sit down with God and learn His voice. 

I think I somewhat offended Pastor Todd on this camping trip by saying, "Sometimes I think people should spend more time doing it rather than reading about it." when he said he was reading a book on prayer.  The way I said it did come out totally wrong and rather insulting, but my point was that, if you want to learn to pray, JUST DO IT. 

There is no formula for your relationship with God.  Nobody else can tell you how to have one.  God deals with us on such an individual level that no book or blanket statement is going to lead anyone into a deeper relationship with Him.  It might inspire a person to seek one, but it can't take the place of sitting down face to face with God and hashing things out. 

Gary preached about hearing the voice of the Shepherd.  He said something about the desire to be loved, being the desire to be known and understood.  How would you feel if you desired to be known and understood and all anyone ever did was read books about you, but rarely took the time to actually talk to you?

My thought is that it does not matter much what anyone else thinks of God... I want to know what God thinks of Himself.  The only way I can do that is to talk to Him myself.  Even reading the Bible, if I don't understand what God's trying to say... I ask Him.  I've found the answers in more than a hundred different ways.  Some of them quite unortodox... most of them totally unexpected or even contrary to what people think. 

I've been called everything from arrogant to a heretic to just plain crazy.  In my world though, I've found those things to be compliments... why?  Well, because I know the truth.  I'm not arrogant, I come across that way because I know what I'm talking about and I'm confident in it. I'm not a heretic, at least not in the truest sense of the word.  And if I'm crazy, well, that's ok... why be normal?