My Religious Views

Most of my life, I have heard it taught that God loves us and when His Spirit comes within us, He enables us to love and live rightly.  In order for us to live this lifestyle, we need to discipline ourselves and to force ourselves to learn to love and to live according to the laws that were written in the Old Testament.

 But that is not what I believe.

I believe that God loves us.  When He comes into our lives via His Spirit, we experience that love.  As we live within that love, we learn what love is.  His love invades our hearts, our souls, our very being and as His love spreads through us, we start loving.  We first learn to truly love ourselves, then that love spread to others.

As we start loving others, we start treating them rightly.  As we interact with others from love, we have no need of law, because we will naturally do the things that the law wants us to do.  So that even though we are not under the law, we fulfill the law.  That is why, I often say that it comes down to living loved and loving others.

As we experience this love and how it causes us to act rightly toward others, then we become less demanding of others living up to what we picture the law requiring.  We start treating everyone with this life changing love.

As I read the Bible, I see Jesus (Who is the direct representation of God The Father) interacting with others in this way.  It was said of Him, that He loved being with tax collectors and sinners.  When the religious leaders of Jesus' day (who demanded everyone to live according to the law and to traditions) approached Him, Jesus told them to learn what it meant that God prefers mercy to sacrifice and if they had known this then the religious leaders would not go around condemning the innocent.

This is how and what I believe at this time.

My thoughts on the aftermath of a massacre.

The massacre that happened at a school on Friday Dec. 14 was pure evil.  I don't care to know who the shooter was or why the shooter did those things.  The only stories that I care about hearing from that event are the ones about the heroes,  like Victoria Soto who laid down her life to save the lives of her kids.

I also do not care to hear all the bad rhetoric that has come out since the event.  It just sickens me when something bad happens and people try to find excuses to take the blame off of the wrongdoer.  Circumstances can play a part of evil events, but that should not mean that we do not hold the wrongdoer  accountable for those actions.

Evil massacres like this has occurred all through history.  The Christmas story as well as the story of Moses have  massacres of innocents within them.  This shows that it is evil and not the weapons that cause these events.  (note:  People within the US do not own automatic weapons, so we do not really have pure assault rifles.  What we have here amounts to semi automatic hunting rifles that are replicas  of assault rifles.  I call them replicas because they are missing the piece that makes them automatic.)

God has not ever depended on school curriculum, policies, or intercom announcements to be in a place.  God is everywhere.  His message is spread through the changed lives of the people He inhabits.

The way violence is portrayed within the US could very well be a contributing factor in these events, but that should not excuse the wrongdoer for his actions.  He did what he did because he chose to do those things.

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me!

There is a line from the song "Christmas" from the Rock Opera "Tommy" by "The Who" that contains the this line:  See me, feel me, touch me, heal me!  It is a haunting line and it is the one line from that song that has been stuck in my head for about 40 years.

As you may recall, the Rock Opera deals with the life of a boy who was born deaf, dumb, and blind.  This line that I quoted deals with his isolation.  It is his cry for help.

I have seen this same cry from help from numerous others who struggle with isolation placed upon them, not by deformities, but by the cold shoulders of others.  It is a life lived in "shame".  A belief that everyone looks down on you.  A longing for a friend, but in a midst of people cannot find anyone to share their intimate soul bearing thoughts with.  This is a condition that I have experienced myself.

People living in this condition need to experience the love of a neighbor who lets them know:  "I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you."

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/mrrogersneighborhoodlyrics.html

From what I have seen, the love from this neighbor can lead the person to a love of themselves.  I believe that the proper belief about one's self can help overcome the shame that forces people into this bad type of isolation.  Also in the process, the person can also find the love of their Creator who also will help them.  Once again, it comes back to "living loved and loving others".   The Who's "Christmas": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmijD6jqHs My Neighbor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJz_vVkcFg

My experiences 7 months into being a Parrot Head.

I have been a Parrothead for 7 months now.  During these 7 months, I have been able to attend and be a part of 9 gatherings.  I must say that during this time, my experiences with the group has been totally different from what most non-members would think.

Right off the bat, I must comment on their acceptance of me as a non-drinker.  Parrotheads have a big reputation for being heavy drinkers and for me this has been a big issue.  I came into the group explaining that I do not drink and have even explained why I have not ever started drinking and they have not only accepted me as a nondrinker, but have supported my decision not to drink.  

Another thing that I have noticed is the support and love that is shown for others.  I have seen people, while going through their own hardships, working hard to help others who are going through their own hardships.  This has just blown me away.  There are churches out there that would do good to learn of this type of love that I have seen here.

One thing that I have noticed is the love that I have seen between certain couples in the group for each other.  You can see that love in their eyes as they look upon each other.  I see the way that these people interact with each other and the group and I know that these people can teach me about love and marriage.

In short, my experience has shown me that there is love here, as people accept each other, support each other, enjoy the company of each other, enjoy the same music together and love each other.  It has been the type of experience that draws me in and causes me to want to me a part of the group for a much longer time

The Perfect Season - My 8th grade football team at Sunnyvale

With the high school playoffs going strong and other leagues winding down, I have been thinking about the Sunnyvale Football team during my 8th grade year.  Sunnyvale was a small school back then; only having 8 grades.  They had to bus off high school students to North Mesquite after that.  The school was so small that they had to combine the 6th, 7th, & 8th grades, just to get 18 boys to field a team.   The schools that we played fielded teams composed of only 8th graders.  

The home games were played on a field next to the school that had a couple of small bleachers that would not hold very many people, but it seemed like the whole town would come out to the games.  They would jam in close to each other and encircle the field.  Some would pull their cars or pickups up close enough to the field so they could sit in or on their vehicles.

I forget who all we played that year, but I do remember playing Forney, & Crandall (We played Crandall twice - once at their place and once at ours).  We ere supposed to scrimmage Vanston that year, but that was canceled after members of our team got into a fight right before the game.  We also played every 8th grade team in Grand Prairie.  There were other teams that I no longer remember without going back to the school and finding the trophy that lists all the games and the outcomes.

There was one game that really stands out in my memory though.  One of teams from Grand Prairie featured a group of boys that had played together since their peewee days and had never be defeated.  They had not lost even one game.  They were feared among all the other Grand Prairie teams. 

We played them at our field.  They came out and their team was so large that they practically covered the whole sideline.  They (as did most of the other teams from Grand Prairie) had shone arrogant smiles, chuckles and laughter at our combination of 3 grades just to come up with 18 players, not to mention that they also looked down on our stadium.  

Our game with them was the next to last game of the season and we had already beaten all but one of the other GP teams.  Everyone was wondering if this team of little"rednecks" could do what had never been done before.  There were people from the other GP teams there to view the game.

It was a very tough game and a lot closer then the score showed.  We scored the first touchdown, but failed the two point conversion.  They then scored on a big pass play and got there two conversion.  The turning point in the game would come just a little bit later as they launched another big pass for a score, but their receiver lined up offsides, and so the play was called back and they were penalized 5 yards.  They lined up and ran the same play again, but this time our outside linebacker (or end) hit their player and held him as the rest of us gang tackled him.  We would go on and hold them and we then had all the momentum, and we kept the momentum for the rest of the game.

I believe that the final score of that game was 20-8, with the Sunnyvale Raiders winning.  We would go on and also win the last game of the season against the one remaining GP team even though we were still emotionally flat after our big win the week before.  We ended our season with a 9-0 record.

Later on while working at a Warehouse, I met a man who was the backup quarterback for that "unbeatable" GP team.  I asked him what happened after that game and why did they not go on and dominate the high school scene.  He told me that a lot of the players could not take the way people went from worshiping them to laughing at them.  They got caught up into drugs and other stuff and quit playing football.

As for the Sunnyvale players, I only know of 2 that went on and played varsity football in high school (although there were 3-4 players that went to other high schools, and I do not know what happened to them).  No one from that team went on to play past high school.  We did not have a lot of talent, not to mention that there is usually a lot of difference in growth and maturing from the 6th to 8th grades but we did come together to be one team and we played our hearts out.  That team was something special and will always have a special place in each of our hearts.  The unified team that had the perfect season.

My thoughts on Halloween

I have friends who go all out for Halloween and I know some who refuse to celebrate it.  It is that type of holiday. I am somewhere in-between those two extremes.  While some probably do celebrate it as a Spiritual Holiday (like I do Christmas), I feel most people only celebrate the fun of it just as most people celebrate the fun of Christmas.  After all, most people like to dress up and pretend to be someone or something else.  I know that I would be included in that group.

As a boy growing up, I always dressed up in costume (usually a hobo), and my parents and carried me to Riggs Circle in Mesquite to Trick or Treat.  After I got married and a family of my own, we let our kids get into costume and my wife carried them Trick or Treating ( I never could get off work in time to go).  Now my kids are doing the same.

Really as a person who spent most of his adult teaching the Bible, I really like this time of year.  It is the one time of year that people are receptive to talking about the supernatural.  I love the Halloween stories and figures within the Bible.  I miss teaching those stories.

Saul (King of Israel) does not get any answers to his prayers so he consults a medium and she summons the prophet Samuel from the grave and the ghost of Samuel talks to Saul about his coming doom and the death of his sons.

At the time of Exodus, there are magicians in Egypt who for a while, match the miracles of Moses tick for tack.

During the life of Jesus, there are demon processed people who are even more terrifying than the girl in "The Exorcist".  And don't get me started about Lazarus or all the dead people who leave their graves and walk back into Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' Death and Resurrection.  I could go on for hours about these stories and characters.

Yes, I also like the stories of Stephen King, Ted Dekker and others.  I grew up watching the classics:  Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man as well as Godzilla, King Kong, and others.   A good story or movie is good, and a good Halloweenish story is still a good story.

So have a good holiday my friends and watch out for any houses falling your way (especially if you are the Wicked Witch of the East).  ;-)

The coming darkness

I did the grandfather thing  this evening as we all went to a carnival.  It was a beautiful day even through the temperature was about 10 degrees below the average temperature for this time of year.  The sun was out and the time had come for it to be going down in the West.  The full moon had already come up and was sitting in the daylight in the East.  

I kept quiet after noticing that and when it was time for us to leave, I looked again.  The sun was just barely over the West horizon and was casting a beautiful hue across the western sky.  After gazing upon that for a second, I turn toward the East where the exit was and saw a sight that I have seen a few times before and it astonishes me each time that I see it.  The full moon was sitting higher in the sky than before and below it was a beautiful belt of a pinkish hue going horizontally across the eastern sky. The hue was separating the daylight from the coming darkness of night.  

I just stood there for a moment and kept my eyes upon the coming darkness.  It was coming toward us as an invading blitzkrieg conquering the land.  It would be just a few minutes until the darkness would overtake us all.  

As I was driving home, I kept monitoring the situation.  By then the darkness was upon us and already past the Moon.  No matter how hard the darkness tried though, it could never blot out the Moon.  The darkness tightened its grip upon our land, but the more that it engulfed us, the brighter the Moon became. 

As I viewed this phenomenon, I started thinking about life.  It reminded me that the darkness that overtakes all of us from time to time and brings sorrow and hardship into our lives also makes the love from others glow that much brighter.  The bleaker our situation, the brighter each good and kind deed stands out, just like the Moon in the darkness of night.