draft 27

it is sad enough when perception robs us of our friends. it is downright cruel when it takes away our peace. don't let perception get away with it.

in reality, there are no true or false perceptions; these are all relative. and thus, we ought to focus more on the effects of perception and not its nature.

draft 26

when in God's time you let matters be, the answer you seek will unfold with certainty.

draft 25

the joy that comes from helping relieve the suffering of another is everlasting.

draft 24

do not believe all that you perceive.

draft 23

unbridled consumption consumes us. it suffocates our soul.

Strangers

The only strangers in the journey of souls are our minds.

~~~~~

draft 22

revenge is a parasite that eats away at your soul.

fb marker - 1/23/2011

draft 21

it's all fine when in God's time. :)

draft 20

it is in our fallenness that we are all equal.

it is our common starting point that we all strive to arise from and help each other along the way.

there is nothing more hypocritical than a fallen unabashedly judging and/or showing disgust for the fallenness of another.

but then again, being hypocritical is an aspect of the fallen state

draft 19

why do i go to great lengths writing about our fallen state? for certain it is NOT to lower our value as human beings. rather, it is to make us truy appreciate the great love God has for us. understanding our fallenness also enables ourselves to find PEACE with our "failings" and the failings of others and thereupon foster harmony amongst each other.

look around you. look at your life. there is so much turmoil, anguish and disharmony and we can't seem to break free from this state of living. it need not remain that way.

we cannot be the master of our fallenness without first coming to terms with it.

coming to terms with it means realizing that though we may not be able to CHANGE it, we are but called to STRIVE to overcome it.

may we find our peace while we are still in this existence.

and not wait until we are six feet under.

draft 18

forgiveness gets easier when we have understanding.

draft 17

In the beginning there was only the spiritual realm and in this realm was God and God alone. There were no atomic particles, no quarks and no physical laws. There was only God, spiritual laws and the nature of God - Love.

love does not rest in one place. it is active. It, in fact, very active and the direction of its activity is outward. though it may be contained for a time being, it cannot remain so forever. and thus, the love of God burst forth and manifested itself further in the creation of other spiritual entities.

but the manifestation of love did not stop there for after the development of the spiritual realm, God sought to manifest the beauty of His love in a tangible manner. and thus sprang forth the beginnings of the physical realm.

and just as there are spiritual laws in the spiritual realm, so did the physical realm begin with physical laws. with the physical laws the formation of all things physical unfolded according to the orderly randomness of God.

it is this bursting and unfolding style of God's creation of that darwin and others have sought to observe and describe in various thoeries such as the big bang theory, the theory of evolution and quantum theory.

finally, at a particular moment in this unfolding process in the formation of the physical realm, God created the greatest tangible manifestation of the beauty of love when he formed a unique being that merged the physical with the spiritual. that being is the human being - the single entity of love that is the lynchpin between the spiritual and physical realms.

nobody made God. God simply was. this is a concept that our minds have difficulty grasping because we started from something. even scientists such as hawkings attribute all physical creation back to physical laws. so kyle's question would be parallel to asking how did physical laws come to be (who made physical laws).

and that my dear brothers and sisters is the story of ALL creation. understand it and in so doing, grasp your eternal value to God and the value of all human beings to Him.

draft 16

the Lord knows what you need. do not allow the chaos of life to fool you into thinking that He has abandoned you. never allow yourself to fall into the trap of believing that you are being punished in the form of "misfortunes" that your life seems forever mired in.

draft 15

the love of Jesus is a love of ALL and for ALL.

we can certainly condemn and deal with ACTS of evil but it is not in our authority to condemn human beings by whom such acts come.

 for all human beings are fallen and the fallen state is of an evil nature.

and thus we are called to rise up from our fallenness through selfless love.

to strive to overcome our fallenness and to continually do so until the end of the journey of our soul

the end of that journey is the day of reckoning or the day one commits the greatest act of love (whichever occurs first).

draft 14

one's fallenness does not disqualify one from understanding and explaining the teachings of Jesus to the rest of the fallen. we are all called to help each other overcome our fallenness. we are NOT called to help each other ENJOY it.

draft 13

and here is the not-so-secret secret - intelligence is not the core of our being; our soul is. our intelligence (some refer to this as our consciousness) is not eternal; our soul is eternal and that is what makes it the most valuable entity in this existence.

draft 12

i go precisely (not recklessly) to where my fears lie so as to eventually master the skill of overcoming these.

draft 11

in truth, i do not have much wisdom. the wisdom of my actions (that eventually bares itself out) stems from my blindly setting course along the path that the Holy Spirit seems to lead me to. where does my certainty come from that the inspired path is indeed from the Holy Spirit? the certainty stems from the underlying motivation to do an act of love however foolish the act might seem at the onset.

draft 10

though faith is inherently and ultimately blind, it is only with the sight of understanding that we eventually gain it.

God gives us this faith when we passionately seek and want it.

we come to seek and want it when we see with understanding.

~~~~~

draft 9

the precise moment when i finally woke up to beginning to love Jesus is very clear to me to this day. i was in high school and almost obessively in love with a girl in the class year after me. long story short, i was agonizing one evening over how my passionate love for her was largely ignored and unrequited despite my relentless efforts to gained her attention and favor.

as i was praying to God and crying out my emotional anguish to Him, it dawned on me that i was doing the exact same thing to Him (God).

that was the moment i truly felt the pain of God and His unrequited love for me.

that was the moment i cried and began to pay more attention to recognizing His love for me and mine for Him.

that was the moment i began to love Jesus.

~~~~~

draft 8

our fallenness, if we let it, will turn everything beautiful into an aberration.

~~~~~

draft 7

Your core essence is selfless love. Whether you buy into this truth or not, whether the thought of it makes you puke or not, you will never find that which you restlessly seek until you strive to align your life with this reality.

~~~~~

draft 6

as failure prone as i am in actually commiting selfless acts of love, i nevertheless attain most of my peace from knowing that i am earnestly striving continually to do so.

~~~~~

draft 5

strive to live your life in accordance with who and what you really are.

you are a child of the Most High and made from His essence.

~~~~~

draft 4

mother teresa was moved to a life of herculean acts of selfless love not so much for the impoverished and marginalized who directly benefitted from her care but rather for those who are inspired to see the virtue of such acts. in other words, to allow others to see Jesus in our time and age.

and that is inclusive of those who were the recepients of her care.

~~~~~

draft 3

when our senses are stripped of all that is manmade and that which are left in our midst are but the natural, pwrhaps then might we sense the distinct and quiet presense of God.

~~~~~

draft 2

our mind is the epicenter of our fallenness.

do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." - from the epistle of saint paul to the romans.

the light of Jesus shines bright within our soul to illuminate our mind. tap into that light to renew your mind and thereupon begin the process of transforming your life. and thereupon find peace and live in peace.

~~~~~

Colored View

Our view of others is oftentimes colored by our view of ourselves.

~~~~~

draft 1

there are some who view God as an utterly selfish being who created the universe and programmed all that is in it to behave in His prescribed manner solely for His entertainment. it would be a sad realization if indeed our existence was nothing more than that of a puppet's.

indeed, we can observe in our responses to stimuli (whether it be a physical, emotional or other type of stimulus) that a lot of these are automatic (occur instantly without even a conscious "decision making" process on our part) and predictable. there are numeorus experiments in sociology, psychology and other fields of science that clearly demonstrate and confirm the PROGRAMMED aspects of our being.

can you think of any act that we do that is NOT an effect of some programming in our being but rather is a conscious exercise of free will?

i believe that everytime we STRIVE to overcome a programmed response (be it physical, behavioral, emotional or other) in order to manifest our selfless love for God (via our selfless love for others), we are exercising free will.

the nature of free will is spiritual and thus it resides only amongst spiritual beings in accordance with spiritual laws. in other words, our soul has free will; not our mind.

overcome your mind so as to allow your true destiny to unfold.

~~~~~

Greatest Act of Free Will

No greater exercise of free will is there than to offer and surrender one's free will back to God.

~~~~~

Wisdom

In truth, I do not have much wisdom. The wisdom of my actions (that eventually bares itself out) stems from my blindly setting course along the path that the Holy Spirit seems to lead me to.

Where does my certainty come from that the inspired path is indeed from the Holy Spirit? The certainty stems from the underlying motivation to do an act of love however foolish the act might seem at the onset.

~~~~~

Overcoming Fear

I go precisely (not recklessly) to where my fears lie so as to eventually master the skill of overcoming these.

~~~~~

Gaining Faith

Though faith is inherently and ultimately blind, it is only with the sight of understanding that we gain it.

~~~~~