To Believe in God We Have to be Able to Imagine Something Infinitely Bigger than Ourselves or Else We Cut God Down to Our Tiny Understanding.

Pleasure is very fleeting. Joy is a whole other ballgame. It leaves a permanent imprint. The greatest joy comes from love. To me, God is Love. The scriptures were written by humans evolving from tribal to universal. They were created by people with different kinds of minds, from literal to metaphorical. They are the footprints of the human journey. From the accounts in the New Testament, you can see Jesus evolving from tribal to universal. I see Jesus as a unique example of human evolution. Some get it, some don’t. Those that do, have a God that is universal and in everything and everyone. God doesn’t need praise. But I have found praising God brings joy and connection to something greater than us. It could be that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If we ever recognize that love involves more than loving others as we love ourselves, that it involves loving others more than ourselves, then we’ll know what Jesus learned and did and calls us to do. I think Jesus was a leap in human development, a prototype for the spiritual journey. I think the God within us as humans, the God in every cell of the universe, the God in Jesus are all the same and greater than the bread boxes religions try to contain God in. I don’t think truth or God are limited to Jesus, but I think Jesus finally “got it” and his actions speak louder than any words. He’s my “guy” and to me he embodies both the feminine and masculine. I believe that the spirit of God that was in Jesus lives in all of us. But we evolve by inches like inch worms, seeing through the glass darkly, learning to love slowly and painfully. Prayer is a form of caring. Caring matters, particularly when there is nothing in our limited skill set to do to help. It’s not a substitute for doing what we can. It’s a focusing together. I’ve witnessed and even experienced the power of it. See the blog. Laughter: Carbonated Grace and scroll down for a series on experiences of God being in the timing.

I wrote this in response to reading Spinoza’s view of God, some of which I understand and believe. But I have personally experienced more. And I pray to continue growing both in understanding and ability to love until the day I die. Then hope to explode with mind blowing joy right after that.

Positive and Negative Side Effects of Feminism

When we focus on only one side of a goal, we have tunnel vision. Often, a perfectly good goal, if carried out without taking into account the realities of human nature, will have side effects, both positive and negative that no one anticipated.
In the struggle to give women with talents and proclivities other than maternal or domestic a level playing field with men, we created an economy based on two incomes. While this helped free women from abusive or unhappy marriages, it also increased the number of one parent households. Corporations, growing to sizes that have more employees than the governments of many countries, no longer have to be focused on pleasing customers or employees. Instead their priority is on increasing profits by both growing exponentially and maintaining a low minimum wage. This, combined with the other trends, has increased the number of children living below poverty level exponentially. In our small county’s school system there are at least two hundred children without an actual home. Many are living in cars or motel rooms or are in a cycle of moving from one friend’s house to another’s. And every where, women whose talents and personalities are maternal and domestic are not only no longer valued for who they are, but unless married to a wealthy man, cannot afford to stay home to raise their children. Until we recognize the side effects on children and ultimately the culture, getting a reasonable minimum wage will not become a national priority.
In the wake of women taking pride in their bodies and all this involves, such as pregnancy and breasts to feed their newborns, the fashion industry jumped on the bandwagon with styles that leave little to the imagination. Now older women with crinkly necks are looking on Amazon for Muslim clothes shops. This trend doesn’t really help us in our struggle to get respect for physical boundaries. Men and women may be equal under the law, but the reality is that generally we do not have the same reactions to bodily exposure of the opposite sex. When a man with the values of Jimmy Carter admits to looking at women with lust in his heart, it should open women’s eyes to how innate and strong the difference is. (I admit I do enjoy the freedom that the invisibility of being an old lady gives me while waiting in airports. I pass the time comparing the pecs and buns of the young men passing by. But it doesn’t make me want to grope them.)
If women want men to not only actually hear what we say in the board rooms and as teachers, preachers, and leaders, but to respect our physical boundaries, the reality is we need to dress reasonably. Recently, I heard a young woman arguing that women should be free to go shirtless, since men are. I think we are becoming out of touch with the reality that no matter how equal we are, there are some general, though variable in degree, differences between most men and women.
In the beginning of the feminist movement, my hopes were that women would bring the classical Yin/feminine traits, such as nurturing, conserving, subjective relating, unifying, and receptivity into the workplace and government to give balance to the Yang/masculine traits of competing, creating, objective questioning, separating, assertiveness. What I didn’t realize is that taking on the male power structure would require women with more of the Yang traits than traditional Yin ones. I hadn’t even thought about the obvious fact that we all come with different degrees of both. And on top of that, hormonal shifts, relative to age or health, can change us drastically.
It seems to me that the greatly increased acceptance of women as equal to men though not the same, may play a large part in the growing acceptance of the reality of feminine men and masculine women. It has become obvious that there are innumerable variations in combinations and degrees of feminine and masculine traits. And we may can fake ours, but we didn’t get to choose them when we were born. And our dominant ones may not match our exterior bodies. And while many men seem to be threatened by this, most mothers love their children whatever their individual mix may be.
So, as with everything under the sun, every change sets off many side effects, both healing and challenging, that we didn’t expect. And it take open minds and kind hearts balanced by practical reality to increase positive results out of them, while minimizing the negative.

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Living Only in the Present Moment: the Downside

A cautionary tale of our religious ancestors:
First we have Esau, an outdoors, physical kind of guy who lives in the present moment. And in this story he is so focused on his physical hunger in the moment that he’s oblivious to the long term consequences of his choice. Seriously, sell your whole future for the quick fix of a bowl of stew? (Jelly doughnuts maybe, but not stew.) Esau might have skipped lunch, but he isn’t starving. And then there is his twin brother, Jacob, a guy who not only thinks about the future, but wants the security of being number one so badly he robs the person closest to him of his birthright while he’s feeling weak. Obviously, there’s nothing new about dysfunctional families.
Like Esau and Jacob, we also have hungers that we justify as needs, because they dull the pain of being imperfect and vulnerable in a scary world.
I don’t know about you, but I’m often a bottomless pit of needs and wants.  Which makes me inclined to addictions, the need to control, and often being judgmental in my heart. And those are just the things I’m willing to tell you about.
But, thanks be, Jesus himself tells us that God’s love for all of us, not just for the goody two shoes, is like the tender love of a mother and father for their own tiny new baby. I’ve experienced that awesome unconditional love of God through Jesus. And though I believe the title ‘chosen’ leads to hubris and the word ‘saved’ can delude us that we are finished, I do know heart, mind, and soul without any doubt, that I (and all of you) are tenderly and totally loved by the God that created us.
Then why is life, even with its beauty, pleasures, love, and joy, so darn hard? Perhaps, the problem is that humanity is still childishly frozen in the terrible twos’ stage, where like Esau, we want what we want when we want it, no matter the consequences.
Whatever Jesus being one with God means, the human Jesus took on our frailty and struggled just as we do. Like us, he often learned the hard way by trial and error. Think of Mary and Joseph- frantic when their twelve year old stays behind in Jerusalem without telling them. Finally, only after his mom makes him realize how unkind that was, Jesus goes home and by obeying them, ‘grows in wisdom and goodness.’ He didn’t come into the world finished. At the wedding in Cana, we see the thirty year old Jesus reluctantly start his public ministry when he is again nagged by his mom to be kind. Later, the now amazing miracle working Jesus, not only gets totally exhausted, but sometimes is so overwhelmed by the huge crowds of needy people, that he tries to escape them. Then we hear him venting his frustration with his followers for always missing the point. And near the end, he gets so upset and angry that he calls his best friend Peter, ‘Satan,’ for tempting him to deny the suffering ahead. NOT kind! He even breaks down and weeps from the heartbreak of failing to reach his own people. This is a Jesus we can identify with. After first resisting what were then heretical challenges, he shocks everyone by allowing women, unbelievers, and even an enemy Roman to convince him to include everyone in his ministry to the ‘people of God’. That’s a BIGGIE.
But his most important example for us is that over and over, he needs one on one time with God. Because God is his number one source of wisdom, power, strength to persevere, and most of all – love. And he knows that the Spirit of God is within, so he goes to the mountain top to get away from the clamor of daily life so he can hear that quiet voice. If he needed that, how much more do we need to take that time to listen.
In the garden when he faces all that he must lose and suffer, in an absolute agony of fear, he sweats blood. He even begs God to spare him, but then his first-hand experience of God’s love frees him to trust God’s will. Still, at the very end, rejected and betrayed by his friends, he cries out in desperation when he feels like even God has abandoned him. But, even in the depths of that terrible loneliness, he chooses to commit his spirit to God.
Jesus living in the limits of humanity is able only because of His always deepening relationship with God to survive the failure of his best efforts, rejection by his own people, betrayal by those closest to him, and even death, all without becoming embittered or unforgiving. From the cross he prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Ultimately he shows us, that from a close relationship with God, all loss, even death, can become a doorway, not an ending. To me, without the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, life obviously not only doesn’t have a happy ending, but wouldn’t seem to have any lasting purpose, never-the-less a reason to keep on struggling to learn how to forgive and love unconditionally.

Law and Pleasure: Gifts from and Paths to God, but Not God.

The perceived conflict between body and spirit precedes Christianity and has alternately been absorbed and rejected by both Christian and non-Christian cultures over thousands of years. Generally, humanity goes from one extreme to the other by simply reacting, rather than responding, to excesses. This is a human evolutionary issue, not limited to Christianity. We just live in a society where reactionary Christians are the loudest right now.
Idols are subtle issues and vary between making an idol of the Law to making an idol of Pleasure by simply making one of them THE priority without taking into account the resulting human suffering this causes.
Both Law and Pleasure are gifts from God and both can be paths to God, but they are NOT God.
When we make Law into a God without any allowance for preventing brutality to other human beings, we defeat the purpose of law. Law is simply the beginning stage of logic and love. To live together humanely, we need laws. The minimum of loving others is to not kill, rob or use them for our own purposes.
As those humans inclined to consider future possibilities have evolved, they have challenged the rest of humanity to value not only pleasure and propagation, but relationships between humans: from mates, to parents and children, to families, to tribes, to nations, to hemispheres, to the world, to the natural world, and now, the universe. Humanity, however, does not mature easily or smoothly, but progresses in extreme zig-zags between ideal goals and present practical realities. Unfortunately, there are seldom any serious attempts to balance or blend the two.
Our concept of love has evolved from don’t kill or rob each other, to love others as you love yourself, and hopefully, we are finally beginning to recognize that when Jesus gave his life for us, he was both illustrating and calling us to whole new level of love. “Love one another as I have loved you.”
This brings us to the challenge to integrate body and spirit. Limiting ourselves to body ends up in hedonism, making pleasure an idol. Limiting ourselves to spirit ends up in an unrealistic asceticism that makes law an idol. Recognizing that we separate body and spirit at our own peril, we can find that when blended they both become paths to God/Love. Being loved by a human being is our appetizer, our small taste of the Spirit of Love that is God. Only when we integrate the two, do we avoid the pitfalls of the idols of hedonism and asceticism and even begin to want to learn to love one another as God loves us.

Christian Paradoxes

For all of you who aren’t sure, it is possible to be gay and Christian. It’s also possible to believe in God and science. It is possible to be pro-choice and anti-abortion.
It is equally possible to be a feminist and love and respect men. It’s possible to have privilege and be discriminated against, to be poor and have a rich life, to not have a job and still have money.
It is possible to believe in sensible gun control legislation and still believe in one’s right to defend one’s self, family, and property, it’s possible to be anti-war and pro-military.
It is possible to love thy neighbor and despise his actions. It is possible to advocate Black Lives Matter and still be pro police. It is possible to not have an education and be brilliant. It is possible to be Muslim and also suffer at the hands of terrorists. It is possible to be a non-American fighting for the American dream.
It is possible to be different and the same.
We are all walking contradictions of what “normal” looks like.
Let humanity and love win.

This is a quote for which I am trying to find the original author. Will post their name when I find it.

Most important: Intelligence, Kindness, or Humor?

I used to think intelligence was the most important trait. Later in life, I decided kindness was.
After this election year debacle, I suspect both are equally important and that a sense of humor probably is way up there with them, because it can free us to see ourselves honestly. Age doesn’t automatically bring wisdom, but it often brings humor which can be the beginning of self-honesty.  And once that happens, you empty your pockets of all those stones you are tempted to throw at others. And that’s the beginning of wisdom.
Kiddos! We ALL see through the glass of our limited perception darkly (imperfectly)! Quick! Get rid of the temptation of those stones before they come back to haunt you.

Eleven Year Old Granddaughter Asks about Donald Trump

Her mom’s reply: My 11 year old asked me why people (Donald Trump) were saying we should deport all immigrants, Hispanic and Muslim, why he wanted to start a database or have people wear numbers, why he thinks we should close our borders to an entire race/culture, why he said such angry and ugly words about people. She said ‘a lot of my friends wear scarves on their heads. They are not bad people, they are nice and my friends’. I have tried to explain to her what’s going on. I have told her both sides. That bad people have done horrific things in the name of a perverted view of a religion. That those things keep on happening all over the world. She has seen some of the news coverage about it. She, in her 11 year old head, is trying to understand something none of us will ever understand. She also immediately understood something I think all of us should.
Let’s step back for a moment everyone. Step back and truly listen to what’s being said right now. Hate is rampant and being applauded. This has all gone too far. Do we not remember the holocaust? What’s happening in our country right now, is the beginning. Yes, there are people (monsters) who pervert a religion to justify killing innocents as there always have been. This is not new, nor is it confined to a disgusting perversion of the Muslim faith. Yes, we DO need to do something about it. No, we don’t need to incite fear and hatred.
My 11 year old understands this. Why can’t adults? After I explained, as impartially as possible, which I will admit was difficult for me, why Trump (and others) were saying the things that they are, she looked at me and in all her 11 year old wisdom asked quietly ‘isn’t that what Hitler did?’ She, as a babe, understands the ramification of what is being said. She has little 11 year old friends who are scared because they wear a headscarf or go to the mosque. She sees their fear and hurts for them. Isn’t about time we, as adults, took a page from her book of wisdom and say ‘this is enough! We will defend the innocent, but we will not do it by punishing the innocent!’
My heart hurts and my brain is tired. Please stop this hate. Stop applauding it and spreading it. Stop before it’s too late to bring this freight train of bigotry and racism to a halt.