A Cutting Away

I am a student in this life.  It’s a blessing to learn and I have learned by experience, reading and observation mostly.   Yet, it’s a  curse as well.  As I observe and learn, there arises in me the urgency  to put into action the lessons I’m learning.  It’s well and good to study a thing in a book, a paper, or a treatise, but another to put into daily action the lessons learned.  Putting into action the good things we learn can cause you to remove yourself from your comfort space and face what you would rather not.

“In one’s life. there are levels in the pursuit of study. In the lowest level, a person studies but nothing comes of it, and he feels that both he and others are unskillful.   At this point he is worthless.”

Upon my recent return to my home town I took noticed that a lesson was in order.  Before I made the journey, I felt such heaviness that hung around my neck as if wearing a slave collar popular for 17th and 18th century Europeans to adorn their slaves with.  Not that I felt some oppression by returning home for as a child I had a happy life.  But, a feeling of foreboding as if I should become aware of something.  I needed to see my aging mother since so many miles separate us and it had been more than a year since I saw her last.  This time, however was to be different since there was a lesson in store for me.

“In the middle level he is still useless but is aware of his own insufficiencies and can also see the insufficiencies of others.”

My father transitioned almost five years ago and my mother has carried the household with the heart of a warrior.  While she and my father were married she was the traditional June Cleaver 1950′s – 1960′s house wife, taking care of us and the house while my father brought home the bacon.  She attended all of our school functions, made dinner and found time to even play with us  children.  When she worked she never held a job long since my father really didn’t like her to work.  Be clear, my father made sure she would have funds to take care of herself financially.   Bu,  as her eldest child, when my father transitioned I felt it my duty to provide as much as I could to assist her in maintaining her living standard.

So, as I stepped into her abode, I could see there were small repairs that needed to be handled, painting, and just general upkeep.  I spent most of my time there taking care of these household requirements for any home owner.  In just a few days the house was bright and shiny again, and I could see on her face the pleasure she took in looking at her newly painted walls.  So, how could one who does this for their personal God, the living God that gave you life and not only by giving birth but by giving you life more abundantly be scorned?    My mother wiped our tears, cleaned our bodies, healed our wounds (mentally and physically), fed us good food and gave us the truth and rights on how to live as an upstanding being.  How does one lose friends and be scorned by siblings for giving back as one should?

“In a higher level he has pride concerning his own ability, rejoices in praise from others, and laments the lack of ability in his fellows. This man has worth. In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing.”

Lesson learned.  Yeshua said he came not to bring peace, but a sword.  I understand now this a time of harvest for me in that it is time to cut away the tares.  I am sure I appear as a tare to some, it’s their duty to cut away the tares from themselves.  I have been asked by friends back home when I will return for a visit and when I reach they find very little time to commune, verse, or spend any quality time.  Those were the actions of former friends.  Yet, when your sibling treats you in the same manner it becomes a deeper matter.  Surely, such behavior would be understandable if there were some riff between us,  argument, or falling out of some sort.  Nothing ever occurred as I would never allow such to happen.  But, this is the road and I fully accept.  On this trip I was able to get clarity on so much.

“But there is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all. This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way arid never thinks of himself as having finished. He truly knows his own insufficiencies and never in his whole life thinks that he has succeeded. He has no thoughts of pride but with self-abasement knows the Way to the end. It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, “I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself.”

DJANGO; ANOTHER WAY TO VIEW

 

We just don’t seem to learn.   I’m specifically referring to the behavior of Spike Lee, Katt Williams and Dick Gregory.  I do respect Mr. Gregory as a bonafide freedom figher and nothing less unlike Ski Davis of Zuri Speaks Dynasty Network referred to Mr. Gregory as a coon.  However I  balk at the verbal fencing conducted between he and Mr. Lee in publc.  This deminishes any intellectual conversation to just to media hype.  In the case of Katt Williams, I will just say he needs to concern more with removing the beam from his own eye before he speaks on the speck in the eye of someone else.  At any rate, Django Unchained has sparked quite a bit of conversation in all forms of media.  No matter the issue, in this coming era we have to be cognizant of the images being displayed of us and who is displaying those images.

 

Django Unchained has proven to be a boon for the aboriginal melanated people of the Americas.  Finally, the black hero does not die and in fact not only has a love interest, but in this case he has a wife.   I am aware Quentin Tarantino is given the credit for the film. However, I do remember how the Wachowski brothers were given the credit for the Matrix films and in the end Sistar Sophia Stewart won in court proving she is the mother of the Matrix story and not the Wachowskis.  I could be wrong, but we may see that another aboriginal is being usurped by the “Pinks” this time, but in the name of Quentin Tarantino.  Still, at this time Tarantino will get the credit for covertly telling us that Django is the incarnation of Shango.  The film appears to be a choclate version of Brynhildr, who in Norse (north) mythology is a valkyrie, the female Diety that decides which men live and die on the battlefield..  We who know, understand that Norse (north) mythology is only the pink European’s reinterpretation of abriginal myth.  Or a Europeanization of aboriginal wisdom.

Django is joined with his pink brother King Schultz.  A schultz is one that is a collector of dues and taxes for the lord of the manor.  In this case King Schultz is a collector of corpses for the sherrif or marshall of territories. In short a bounty hunter.  King Schultz says “I sell corpeses…” in this movie the sheriff would be the “lord of the manor.”    The word sherrif comes from one who is the representative of the king. The Schultz buys his brother from slavers and immediately manumits him into freedom.  In a way, Django is given a new life and in fact can carry out his mission to find and recover his wife.  Surely, for those that profess to know and love our people, but never do the research to realize people sold into slavery could and did marry.  Django was on a mission to get his wife back.  Django like Siegfried in the Brynhildr poem, had to overcome great odds to rescue his wife from the mountain of shields.  In this case Candyland.

 

Make no mistake Django evolves and is revealed as Shango by the end of the movie.  After receiving his freedom, Django immediatly dresses in blue and white.  Yemaya, the mother of us all, the Spirit of the sea, her color in the Americas is blue and white.  Django indicates his new birth by saluting Yemaya in his becoming.  At this stage he is not carrying weapons as such, only what appears to be a tiny two shot Derrenger which he uses to kill a slaver, one of the Brittle brothers on sight.  After utterly destroying the Brittle brothers he moves into his next evolution.

 

Django changes after being given life, he justly takes lives and transforms to his next evolution.  That of Ogun, the Spirit of iron.  Shango is a Spirit that wields the double headed axe.  Not all males can ascertain the strength to arch over to the feminine to have the crown of ultimate power bestowed upon them, however Shango is the male Spirit that has arched over and displays his connection to the feminine by outwardly weilding the double axe.  The Labrys (Labia) is a symbol of worshipping the Divine Mother.  Django changes clothes to the colors green and black, that of Ogun (Ogou) and sports six shooters on both hips, double weapons symbolizing the double headed axe,  on his side.  At this juncture he begins to come into the fullness of a bounty hunter and kills to sell bodies to the sherrif.  Remember it is Brynhildr (Broomhilda his wife) that determines who will live and die on this battlefield.

Finally after several trials and tribulations and gaining proper status as a Freedman, Django and his Schultz reach the Mountain of Shields or Candyland in this case, in Chicasaw Couny, Mississippi.  Chicasaw means one who is a rebel, one from Chicsa.  Repeatedly we hear the pinks in the movie say to Django “I ain’t neva seent a ni**er like you b’foe.”  They have never seen Ogun from Chicsa, the rebellious one before.  Utiliazing the misdirection of Legba, Ogun or Django plays his role to the hilt, even unto the death of a slave of Monsieur Candy’s that is torn to bits by dogs.  Again, the mission is to save Broomhilda (Brynhildr a Spirit which decides who lives and who dies on the battlefield not Django as many of you think.)  In the proper context we can now see that it was not truly Django’s call to allow the slave to be pulled apart by dogs, but Broomhilda’s. 

Finally, Siegfried (Django) reaches the summit of the mount – Candyland, loses his brother King Schultz as he has completed his destiny and begins the process of saving his wife.  Django must make the final evolution into Shango.  After surmounting great odds, even at the risk of being sold back into slavery Django, this time, frees himself and returns to Candyland to rescue his reason for living, his queen of heaven, Broomhilda.  He then has to become his destiny, and become Shango.  He again changes his wardrobe into a black jacket, burgundy (red) vest and a white shirt.  Wielding his double axe or two six shooters thus begins the final solution for Candyland by killing the mistress of the manor Mosieur Candy’s (lover) sister and tormenting Stephen the house ni**er (played by Samuel L. Jackson who does a masterful job.)  He then collects his wisdom (the valkyrie)Osun and fitting for Shango the Spirit of thunder and lighting, blows Candyland to bits with HN Stephen still alive inside the manor when the explosion occurs.

 

Shango and Osun, fittingly ride not off into the sunset, but ride into the moonlight. 

ITS SOUP WEATHER AGAIN. NOT YOUR ABUELA’S MENUDO

My new eating regimen has opened me up to the fact that I am feeling well fed by consuming soups.  In fact I think I have become a soup fanatic, much as back in the day when I learned I was a french fry fanatic.  Now, as my eating evolution continues, I can confidently say I am officially a soup fanatic.  Not only desiring to eat them but, create, and make my own soups.  Some are age-old and well-known but, with my particular spin and others are solely my own creation.  One soup in particular I learned to love was Menudo.  Menudo is a soup served in Mexico on Saturdays.  Much like other cultures, as in Jamaica cow foot or red pea soup is served on Saturday, so in Mexico its Menudo.

Growing up in So Cal, much of the Mexican  cusine, specifically Baja style cusine, greatly influences everyone living there no matter their state or country of origin.  Baja style food enveloped us all and my mother became quite the Menudo maker (my mother’s version of Menudo was closer to the Sonoran blanco style not the more common red chile based variety.)   Beef feet (Jamaicans call cow foot), beef tripe, pig feet, pig tails and hominy filled the pot.  Besides that she added in all those special Mexican herbs and spices that just gave the house this special aroma and the finished soup made our mouths so happy.  Over time, my diet regimen no longer could take the eating of the beef feet and never really liked the tripe (cow stomach) and surely did not ever eat pig feet of pig tail (floppers, pig tails and ears and trotters as my father called them) but hell I still loved my menudo.  I had to come up with my own version of the Mexican souper Saturday meal.

I was in the farmer’s market one day, passing the Latin aisle and saw a can of Menudo on the shelf and it hit me.  I would mimic all the flavors of Sonoran blanco style Menudo, but make it vegetarian.  What was most apparent to me that I had to do, was to keep that authentic Mexican flavor, but leave out the tripe,cow foot and pig’s feet.  I start by  washing and soaking cannelloni beans for about 30 minutes.  Put them on the stove with the fire on high to bring the beans to a boil.  Never add salt to your water, this causes the beans to be a little tough and take longer to cook.  You can add salt after they have become softer and you begin to add your spices.  After the beans have cooked for about 30 to 45  minutes, I will add some tomatoes and bring them back to a boil.  Then comes the good stuff.

To this I add fresh corn off the cobb (of course you can use frozen corn if you cannot get it fresh in your area),  a chopped yellow onion, green, red and yellow bell peppers, one mild serrano chile, a roasted poblano and a 28 ounce can of hominy.  Let that boil  together for about 15 minutes, add in sea salt to taste, black pepper, garlic and onion powder and the final coup de gras, a nice pinch of Mexican oregano.  Now, Mexican oregano is not the same as your common Greek or Italian oregano, it has a distinctive flavor and aroma of its own.  Bring everything back up to boil again for about ten minutes then turn off the pot leaving the lid on to steam the flavors down.

After about 15 minutes, take the top off toss in a hand full of cilantro chopped fine and cut a lime and squeeze half a lime directly into the pot, and recover.  This will allow the flavor to emit from the cilantro and allow the lime to seep into the food.  On the side chop and make some Mexican Salsa (Pico de Gallo), chopped scallions for garnishing along with a few lemon wedges.  Next, warm a few flour tortillas up and get ready to chow down.  I love to drink a nice cerveza with a warm bowl of vegetable Menudo and some Tapa Tio hot sauce.  Enjoy!

TAI CHI HEALS NOTHING

1. 

Over the last few mornings I have awakened to TV infomercials about Tai Chi.   Since it was an infomercial, sadly it was someone selling the health benefits of “doing” Tai Chi.  Let me reverse a little here and be clear about what I mean when I say selling the health benefits of Tai Chi.  No doubt I believe, no, let me be correct   myself.  I know the health benefits of playing Tai Chi.  Tai Chi, like her big sister Yoga, offer specific health benefits and I have been fortunate enough to experience the healing power of  my own vital force healing certain chronic pains I suffered from previous athletic injuries.  I know surely that by circulating vital force within the body, we can help our bodies overcome injuries and illnesses.  However, while selling Tai Chi, the idea of vital force is never explored.  The idea of building good character is not part of the sell.  It is Tai Chi that heals us according to the sellers.  Just by doing Tai Chi, be thou healed according to  lord god, TV.

When I first began studying the Way, my teacher instructed us to read as much about, primarily Chinese martial ways, (since this was the base of our style) as we could.  And, go on to read about all martial forms, from boxing to Kali to Capoeira.  And that we should reverence each in their own right.  After he decided he had taught us all that we needed to  know in the Way, he pushed us out like a mother eagle pushes her offspring to fly.  Since that time I went on to study Aikido and then settling into Tai Chi Chuan.  Keeping to the teachings that were the foundation of my martial studies, I read book after book on first Aikido then immersed myself into the study of Tai Chi.  I studied, read, and observed Tai Chi long before I began to “play” it.  I was well within the light of understanding the art from an esoteric stand point.  Yet, I had not felt the effects of this  martial art form.

Tai Chi Masters and Salesmen

As I began to “play” Tai Chi my body began to change.  People would see me and ask if I had been lifting weights, that I looked very toned.  In fact, at that time I had not touched weights. I had combined what I learned from my teacher and incorporated those lessons into what I was then learning and practicing.  Sure enough, as one of the books stated my body began to change.  I was beginning to understand and observe how thoughts come and go or more aptly cycle through your mind.  And still, I could see how developing breath was actually reshaping my physical body.   As I began to learn about myself I could see and feel that this was a connection to something much greater than myself, yet such an integral part of my total being.  It was as if I were connecting to the land, air, sounds and animals around me.  The more I began to gain understanding about these things I was beginning to understand something about breath and breathing, thinking, meditating, noting this change going on was not something that could be harnessed only tapped into.  Of course, the thought had occurred to me how could someone master sound?  Master wind?  Master the vital force that encompasses our universe let alone sell it?

People in the west are in fact microwave people.  They want it now.  So, the sellers of life will sell it now. They are the masters.  They can sell you health. Simply do this move and that move, and be thou healed.  This is so similar to the Queen Mother Witches giving out rituals over internet radio airwaves to people that need to rid themselves of demons.  Never once do they ever consider the one they are talking to may be the demons themselves.  They tell the people put this powder down, sprinkle that salt out there, turn around three times before entering your house to rid your self of evil.  Never once do they advise their callers to clean up themselves mind and body before they can put positive intention into the ritual.  Much the same with the Tai Chi masters and salesmen.They teach grasp the birds tail and move like this and you will lower your blood pressure. Move like that and cure your depression.  Tai Chi “masters”  can sell you on stopping a marauding dog from attacking you by pushing your chi out at the dog.  Selling a product and not teaching the essence of the ritual or Tai Chi “move” is related to giving someone aspirin for a cancer attacking their colon.  Just do it and it will work.

If one wishes to delve into the esoteric, into the world if Tai Chi, understand you will never master chi.  Let me be clear.  There are masters.  But, understand, the master is a master in the eyes of those of the student.  The student has not achieved the level of the one he/she is calling master/teacher.  Surely, the master/teacher knows there is much more to learn and accomplish and would always deny being a master of anything.   As people were awe struck at Jesus walking on water, Jesus knew walking on air was the goal.   Those that have the audacity to call themselves master are full of ego and have never attained the heights of what vital force can do and does.  The selling master/teacher/Queen Mother Witch is a seller of something that cannot be sold.  Tai Chi Chuan is a healer and a killer.  It is a subtle balance of life and death. It is primary that one work steadily to build good character and cleanse the body of impurities in this evolution.  It is by circulating vital force that we may be healed.  If there is no circulating of Chi or vital force, then this is not Tai Chi.

DO MEAT EATERS STINK?

Do you stink?  When I began to eat differently, by differently I mean I was primarily  cutting the amount of meat I ate everyday.  As I did this I began to notice something different when it came to body odor and other people.  At this time I was not able to discern my own, but I was beginning to pick up body odor on people that I was not previously aware of.  It was like I was getting some super olfactory  power, and of course as always we seem to notice foul odor before we get a whiff of a nice clean scent.   I found this post by Talia Furhman at Disease Proof very interesting when it comes to body odor and what we eat. 

Body Odor: Do Nutritarians Smell Better?

In the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Isaacson reports that as a vegan, Jobs believed that he smelled better than omnivores and didn’t need to bathe as often as his meat-eating colleagues. With this mindset entrenched in his meat-loathing brain, Steve was reported to rarely shower and to smell as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks (at least during the hippie days of his 20s and into his 30s), which was literally probably the case. Putting Steve’s reluctance to jump in the tub(e?)aside, was Steve onto something? Do people that avoid meat actually smell better than those that consume animal products regularly? Given that Americans spend millions of dollars each year on personal care products, perfumes and deodorants, it’s worth looking into the effects of diet on body odor.  Continue Reading 

WHAT IS HEALTHCARE???….MEDISIN!

And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived…Numbers 21:9

Growing up, there was a certain fear of snakes I had.  My mother is deathly afraid of snakes and worms, so that fear was passed on to me.  Now, I didn’t have that deathly fear of snakes as my mother, but of course there is some dread should one appear in my vicinity.   The Christian’s imagery of  the snake that of old serpent Satan, who was sent here to lie and deceive us certainly plays a major role in people’s fear of snakes.  The time is coming eventually that we will gain the understanding that the story of the serpent that deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden was actually used as an allegory to express the change from matriarchal society to patriarchal society.  Though, the snake in nature is thought to be sneaky and cunning, however is also the wise one as well. 

For one  reason or another, people maintain this fear of the snake, but should they become ill the serpent is what they will seek.  No matter where one travels in the world this universal symbol is recognizable.  For instance if you’re traveling in a country where you don’t know the language, you become sick and need medical attention there is a great chance you will seek out a building,  a person wearing a uniform, or a vehicle that may have the symbol of two serpents intertwined upon a staff, because the mind recognizes this symbol as a symbol of the practice of medicine.   Yet, we fear the snake.   But, maybe there is something to this fear of these particular  serpents.

Greek physicians utilized the Staff of Asclepius as their symbol for the art of medicine, which was the staff  dedicated to the God of medicine, Asclepius.  This God came to the Greeks by way of Ethiopia known in Egypt as Im-Hotep, One who comes in peace.  However, today we seek out the Caduceus, the staff above with the two snakes wrapped around a staff.  The Caduceus in fact is the Greek symbol for commerce and merchants, and not a symbol of the healing arts.  So, today, in this country of  the good  U.S. of A  where the people are  embroiled in and overwhelmed by conversation about the Affordable Care Act or  Obamacare, them true point is rearly spoken of and is shot right over the head (or should I say behind the back) of  the general population  is the fact that the merchants of MediSin,  the insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations will net the greatest financial gain through it all.  There is no mistake as to why the Caduceus was selected to represent healthcare.

MediSin – Dr. Scott Whitaker

WHAT IS HEALTHCARE? SOMETHING TO BE SOLD!!!

For almost two months I kept having dreams with one reoccurring theme.  Often I would wake during the night, stumble to the bathroom, come back to bed and when I went back to sleep the dream would continue.  Throughout out my life it has not been unusual for me to continue a dream after waking and as a child this used to terrify me.  As I grew, I would continue to have dreams of various kinds. I would experience dreams  that would be as exciting as watching a movie at the theater with a serious plot, to having a dream within a dream.

This time was the first time I had ever experienced a re-occurring theme.  For almost two months I dreamt of snakes.  Now, I wasn’t troubled by the dream, never chased by the snakes nor did I ever feel threatened by the snakes, they were just there never menacing just in the dream doing whatever snakes do naturally.  I first tried to relate the theme to the early movement of snakes in the city this spring.  Since it got warm early this year snakes were on the move early.  We also had more rabbits than usual in our area.  So, I also believed we saw more snakes based on the rabbit population. 

After a while I knew that I needed to study about this.  Anyway, I read about snakes in your dreams and learned much of it was about renewing.  I also learned that snakes in one’s dreams had something to do with health and wellness.  That hit home since I have been on a quest to improve my eating regimen and move very close to a 95% plant-based diet. I hesitated to tell anyone about the dreams,  since most people who are of the Christian way immediately tell you that it was the “enemy” or Satan you’re dreaming about and I didn’t want to hear that.  That belief is far off the mark.  Whenever someone says to me that snakes are the “enemy”, I often responded by asking if that were true, why would God have Moses put a snake on a rod in order to heal the people?  The answer is often a blank stare.  So, I embarked on looking into what I thought was the foundation or basis for the caduceus, the two snakes intertwined upon a staff.  I  was surprised to learn that the caduceus has nothing to do with health and healing whatsoever!

Lindsey Williams Is Right On

This blog site is about balance.  One of the goals of Tai Chi Chuan, is balance.  But, since Tai Chi has come westward it has lost a very serious element, or more accurately a vital element is being ignored.  The element of combat.  Tai Chi is a martial art, a war art.  And at this time we are at war.  We may not feel as though we are at war, but war is being made upon us.  It is subtle and vicious at the same time.  The subtlety may be the reason it does not feel like war.  We are engaged in a battle of our senses.

We are living in a time of sensory suppression and for that reason we ignore what is happening around us.  We understand that we are living in a global society, yet we can only see our little fish bowl of a world all the while the ocean of a world is swirling around us.  Back in the fall of 2011 I was listening to one of my favorite blog talk radio programs Center Stage (where is Kheri Hines???) and her guest was Lindsey Williams, a man who claims to reveal information given to him by the “elites”, a term he chooses.  He speaks of the elites as people who can “spend a millions a day and still never go broke…”  On this particular program Mr. Lindsey is invited back to bring an update from the elites.  During the program Mr. Lindsey says plainly that Greece will become so in debt that they will leave the Euro as currency.  And that this was the plan of the elites to take control of the country.   This was October 28th, 2011.

As I listened, intently of course, I really only gave his remark a mental note, but didn’t take it to heart as so many predictions are given about so many things, especially coming to the close of a year.   I thought to myself, “self make a mental note, but move on” of course I did this and continued to listen.  Well this week Greece fell back into recession, and this time the government is announcing the country is considering going into a new currency the new drachma.  Of course I about passed out when I read the article about this.  My mind immediately returned to Mr. Lindsay’s prediction and felt such a heavy feeling of melancholy.  I suppose, I felt so low because he also addresses the state of the U.S. dollar.

“By December 2012 the U.S. dollar will be dead, not gone but dead.”  These were the words of Mr. Lindsey that day.  The dollar will be dead.  We are witnessing the death of the U.S. Federal Reserve note.  Each time you see prices go up is an indication that the dollar is going down.  It is becoming worth less.  You have to spend more of them for the same thing.  You see, I can remember a time when a Snicker candy bar cost a dime.  Yep, a dime.  I went into the store just yesterday and saw the price of this same candy bar was $1.29.  I can remember gasoline costing $.35 cents per gallon.  This was a time when we would go to the gas station and my father would tell the attendant (self-serve didn’t exist at that time) to give some many gallons worth of Good Gulf.  Now, we have pump ourselves and put in so many dollars worth.  As we watch Greece and Spain, we are living in the presence of our own future.

I am still skeptical of predictions, yet I keep a wary eye out, more so since Greece is considering moving to the new drachma.  This will cause the people to lose any value of the currency they hold and debts they may have including the government may double.  And in the event Mr. Lindsey is correct about the dollar dying, we could certainly go the way of Greece and the U.S. could pick up the Amero the new currency  right here in the good ole U. S. of A.  We have to be aware of these things.  We have to do what we can to prepare.  With awareness, we can begin to prepare.  As I stated before this blog is about balance.  We rarely touch on such material subjects here, yet spirit and material must work in conjunction.  Our material world is on the opposing end of the spectrum of our spiritual world.  We are one.  In that condition, we can achieve balance and go into combat spiraling from the center out.  We are at war and war is combat.  Those of us that work Tai Chi Chuan understand that we are not one or the other, but both.

WHAT YOU KNOW

What do you know?  Have you found that knowing bars you from knowing more?  Have you ever wondered that what you may know may not be as it really is?

Facebook Religion

Facebook is really a good tool to stay in contact with your family, former college and high school classmates and friends.  It’s cool for me since I live so far from home I can vicariously be where my family and friends are on certain occasions.  I also love Facebook for the information I can glean from people I have as “friends” that I actually may have never or had any physical interaction with.  I may have never laid my eyes on some of these ”friends” in my life, but we share certain interests and often share information surrounding those common interests.  What I have noticed however, more and more, is the growing Facebook Religion.

Religion is a “tie that binds.”  On a certain level of thought I fully understand the idea behind a religion.  It represents a way in which people can travel to different places and connect with others that they have no other connection with, but through religion.  A Christian can travel to anywhere in the world and should be able to connect with others of like religion to worship and commune together.  The same I would believe would be true for practitioners of Islam and Judaism.  Yet, on another level the word religio also means to tie, as to restrain.  Often I hear my Christian friends and family say something to the effect of “I would cuss you out if I weren’t a Christian.”  Or “I sure would try to date that chick if I wasn’t married and a Christian.”  Religion is a “Tie that binds”, surely.

“God is in control.”  “The Holy Spirit has control of the television right now.”  I read these posts on Facebook and think to myself, ”really???”  Facebook has become a station where those that maintain the title Christian can express Christianesque things that are accepted as valid Christianity.  Most of my family and close friends subscribe to this type of Christianity and often post the above on Facebook.  For me this is a type of religion, a religion  I call Facebook religion.  There are many, many followers of this version of religion.  Their comments often range from hallelujah, to almost typing out a form of “unknown” tongue in response.   Yet, how many of them would actually be willing to attempt to put into action the verses and Christianesque sayings they write?

Christians claim to be “Christ like.”  I suppose then ”Christ like” is a version of Christ  conjured up in order not to attempt DOING anything Christ actually DID, other than praying.  A version of something, at the least, is a translation.  It’s also a turning and even hints at destruction.  Destruction would make sense if you don’t care to do the works of the original, so a new creation, a version of Christ is maintained and in turn this destroys the original.

This weekend I spent time with a cousin that lives near me, who happens to be from my hometown and of course we both have the same family as friends on Facebook.  The subject of Facebook came up and I had to let him know how I live and why I don’t respond to all the Christianesque chatter.  Christianesque chatter is just that, chatter.  I explained to my cousin that I cannot chime in on the chatter posted on Facebook by many of our family and friends since most of them are just talking and only willing to remain on a “Christ like” level of understanding.  They want to talk Christ, but actually attempting to do Christ doesn’t appear to be part of their religious plan.  I explained my position as one of learning.  Learning to put these lessons given into action.  I told him we need to begin to act out these words rather than just talk/write them.  Jesus went into the desert fasting, no eating, for 40 days and was confronted by “Satan” on the 40th day.  I asked him how many of those of the Facebook religious order would be willing to fast for ONLY three days without eating to actually DO as Christ DID.  His response….Blank stare!