Bliss...Easy Come, Easy Go.

So folks have been asking me why I haven't posted in a while. Truth is I've really come to a sense of inner peace about a lot of things both spiritual and otherwise. I have been in such a blissful state that I haven't had a need to rant lately. I was about to write a post to that effect when THIS had to up and happen: The New York State Senate voted down the Gay Marriage Bill.

Seriously folks. Are we still living in the dark ages? Haven't we discriminated against each other for one inane reason or another enough already? The bill was defeated 38 to 24. Not a single Republican senator voted for the measure!! Call me naive but are you trying to tell me that every Republican in the state called up their senator and asked them to vote no on this? Do senators even check in with their constituents before they cast their vote any more? And don't try to tell me they're no gay Republicans! Ok they might not be...but that's NOT THE POINT!!

How much longer will intelligent free-thinking human beings continue to state with conviction that we're doing God a favor by not allowing Gay Marriage. Were we doing God a favor when interracial marriages were illegal? Or when slavery was legal? But I guess I just answered my own question. Some of us...dare I say most of us are not free thinkers but simply lemmings who do what we've always done because, heaven forbid, doing something different might require us to change our view about something.

As I'm learning in my Credo class, and realizing is a scary truth, we make many of our decisions based on our belief about God. Not consciously, mind you, which is even scarier when you think about it. There is so much embedded in some of us that we might not unpack it all before our time is up. And worse, some of us don't want to go through the unpacking process to begin with.

Listen folks...it's okay to change our belief about God. In fact, I highly recommend it. It may not be all sunshine and roses when you do it, but don't chicken out. Ask the tough questions and open your eyes. Only then might you find what you thought you had all along.

And speaking of changing views, I leave you with these....

IS IT OVER YET?!

so it took me a while to come up with a response to the presidential debate on wednesday.

it's an overwhelming IS IT OVER YET?!

i'm pretty much done...cooked...fully saturated...can't hold another drop.

i love obama and his ability to not get ruflled - last thing we need is a short-fuse on the mythical button.

yet in some ways he's sounding more and more like the politican he purports not be.

and mccain...well he just looked like he was having petite seizures all night.

we expect obama to perform a miracle.

truth is the country is in a hole so deep neither candidate can probably get us out in four years.

i believe obama's direction is the right one and so does the rest of the world (jump to http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/global-poll-how-the-world-sees-the-2008-election/article102257.html to see what i mean).

i truly believe obama will win in the next agonizingly long 3 weeks.

then it's up to us.

let's not forget what he is inspiring us to realize that we, not he, have to make the responsible changes on an individual level.

let's not forget things often get worse before they get better.

let's not ask how much worse things can get.

i don't believe in fate but let's not tempt it just to be on the safe side.

Welcome to my yard

Last week our Obama yard sign was stolen. I was honestly surprised, then pissed, then surprised I let myself get pissed by the actions of some moron who thought stealing a sign might somehow affect anyone's voting decision. So today I went to my local Obama hq and bought not one, but two new signs. There was a woman also buying new signs because her's were also stolen. The guy in charge said over 200 Obama signs were stolen from Lee's Summit. 200?! Couldn't even wrap my mind around that one! I get the country's divided (thankfully leaning towards Obama now) and some deluded soul will actually vote for McCain, but do we have to resort to petty theft?

I guess some folks out there choose to resort to petty theft to avert the sense of powerlessness they might feel in face of the approaching tidal wave of change. We all sense it. Obama represents our chance to catch up with the rest of the evolved world who have released the attachment to leaders looking the way they've always looked and thinking the way they've always thought. But admittedly many fear change. Even after we've experienced change and come out better for it. Well change can't be stopped. The question is how little resistance will we put up to make this an easy and graceful transition.

So go ahead...steal my yards signs...I've got more. And when they've all been stolen, change will still happen.

Welcome to my yard.

I think I'm a REVEREND AGNOSTIC!

The ministerial student's experience includes times of internal transformation. These times have been affectionally referred to as THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM. It's what helps to define us and our ministry, and perhaps we on the path of spiritual exploration all go through it. It's more of a concentrated event in school as we unpack, examine, throw out, replace, repack our Selves and meet ourselves again for the first time...and maybe a second and third time too.

My major piece of unpacking & examining is around my belief in God. I think I've released the last vestiges of God being anything other than myself (and you too) and haven't decided what, if anything, to replace it with. There's both an empty-grief feeling and completeness all at the same time.

I just finished reading (listening actually) A YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY by A.J.Jacobs. Jewish by birth, agnostic by choice, he lived the laws of the bible for one year-literally lived them; the obvious easy ones (not killing) to the inexplicable (not wearing clothes with mixed fibers). I highly reccomend it...the book, not the mixed fibers thing-that would put a serious dent in anyone's wardrobe. At the end of the year, he didn't believe there was a God, but that there was something sacred and neccesary about religion and spirituality and custom. He called himself a REVEREND AGNOSTIC.

I liked the idea, but not the terminology. It seemed minister & agnostic didn't go hand in hand. Yet that is where I am-not able to prove or disprove God's existence yet still believing. In what? Maybe nothing. Maybe it's just faith in our inherent divinity contrary to all earthly appearances. Perhaps Divine Nature is the God I can believe in now, but where is that divinity is those who commit the acts of unspeakable horror? Buried so deep that it's never seen the light of day? Perhaps the balance between divine inspiration and human psyche shifted too far over on the spectrum. But I digress...that's another rant for another day.

REVEREND AGNOSTIC...I'll try it on for a while see if it fits.
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