Now that's not fair!

I have a question. I know you’re shocked, but don’t be. My question is what is fair/unfair? We had a forum tonight with the pro amendment 43 spokesman. For the record amendment 43 is the 'man one woman marriage is the best thing ever' amendment to the constitution of Colorado on the ballot up for vote on 4NOV06. I got one main thing out of what the man who came to speak to us had to say. Life is not fair when you are not in the circle of power. Things are not fair when you’re gay and you don’t have civil rights. Things are not fair when you’re an unmarried woman with children. Things are not fair when you want to join the military and you’re sick. Things are not fair when you want to drive at 12. Things are not fair when you want to go to Harvard but you’re grades aren’t good enough. I only have one thing to say. No I don’t. I have a list of things to say about this. Unmarried mothers have the option of getting married. If you can’t serve in the military because of your health, volunteer in some other fashion. If you can’t drive at 12 wait for a few years. If you want to go to Harvard, study your freaking ass off and go. When it comes to civil rights there is not much to be done when someone else can change things for you and doesn’t want to or even thinks it’s sinful to do so. It’s really not fair when a citizen of this country pays taxes and social security and contributes to society, but lacks the civil rights to protect their loved ones. That is what is unfair.
It’s not fair when the Savior of the World is accused of sacrilege and the summarily crucified. It’s not fair when children in third world countries die daily from dysentery when we have fresh running water on tap. How many of us drink bottled water because tap water just doesn’t taste right? That’s unfair. Come on. There is so much in this world that is unfair we lack the words the truly define it.
I do know that it’s completely unfair when someone else decides what is right or wrong for your life. It’s unfair when your rights as a human being are decided by those who feel what they believe is ‘more right’ than what you believe. It’s unfair when people have the power to change what is unfair into more equal and instead choose to make things more unfair than they were before. That means that it is up to us to make a change. Even while we are in the midst of in-equality, unfairness and discrimination we have the responsibility to attempt to change what we can or change ourselves. Christians/gays/blacks/Muslims/Jews (put your favorite minority here) will always be thrown to the lions in one way or another, it’s what we/they do in the lion’s pit that will define what is equal in the eyes of God. And that’s what really matters.

The Veil....

This blog is just for my own thoughts so I don’t know why I don’t write when I think I have nothing profound to say. I occasionally have interesting thoughts, but very rarely are they profound. SO…..that said. I have been learning so much in our In The Light service or should I say re-learning. We have been discussing prayer and the many ways to pray and what is prayer and how are we to ‘work’ it. The one thing I was taught to fear upon my conversion to Christianity was anything remotely ‘occultish’. Now this was construed as anything to do with meditation, healing touch as opposed to laying on of hands, and the like. For my entire life I have had the touch. IN certain situations I can touch a person and feel their pain or their power. Their life force if you will. When I meditate I can calm my crazy center. The two things that are gifts to me I was taught were evil tools of the devil. I really couldn’t find this in scripture anywhere, but it had to be true, right?
David said he meditated on the word. Christ felt power go out from Him when the woman with issue of blood touched Him. So why am I any different than them, besides the fact that I am not GodJ? I believe that through and with the Spirit we can do the things that Jesus did. I can feel when I touch someone ill that something has gone out of me. That ‘this talent’ didn’t go away when I decided to follow the Way of Jesus so now I have decided that it is a gift just like any other that I must try to figure out how to use. We are not given gifts that we should ignore them. It’s just one of those confusing situations God puts us in. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow, but one day I’ll figure it out.
As for the meditation, I have found that comfort and calm come when I use a mantra. It stops my mind from wandering and I am able to achieve a connection with the other side of the veil. I am able to see/visualize the supernatural. I know it sounds crazy. Even I think it’s out there, but all I can say is I am praying for a man in the South Pacific because I saw him while I was praying one morning. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know exactly what island he is on. I don’t know what he does for a living or why he is praying all I know is that he needs prayer. And so I pray. I know in my heart that no one is praying for this man or at least very few people are and I was directed to him. Let me tell my story of how this came about.
Steve, The Pastor Man, has been touched in his heart to pray for the world. He gave us the example of how he uses the visualization of Google Earth to pray for certain parts of the world. Anywhere he wants to pray for he sees in his minds eye and he travels there in his mind and prays over that place. In this same way he will see a person in his mind and he will do the same thing as they come before him. So I have been doing this and the first time I did it I could actually see the things and places that were being prayed for. I could see the light shining down on whatever or wherever it was that was being prayed for. I was taken from place to place very quickly to be shown that people are praying over Washington, Iraq, Africa and other places. I was going so quickly that I was trying to tell the being with me to slow down. The being. No I don’t know what or who or if it was an angel. If I had to guess I would say it was an angel of some kind, my guide if you will. I can hear the comments now… “She has a Spirit Guide! EVIL!” No, how else am I to know who God would have me pray for than to guide me there? I didn’t see anyone and no one spoke to me. I just knew that someone/thing was leading me. ANYWAY, I was seeing the light of prayer around all of these places and I was only at each for seconds it seemed until I was lead to this Island in SP. There was a man on his knees deep in prayer and there was no one else praying for/with him. There were no ‘prayer lights’ around him for lack of a better way to describe it, so I prayed. I still pray for a man across the world that I don’t know anything about. He might be a missionary. He might be a minister of some sort. All I do know with all of my heart is that he needs prayer. And so I pray. Kandis Glasgow

Anger and my Humanity

I got mad the other day. As a matter of fact, I’m still angry. Now this is not the kind of angry you get when someone forgets to put the cap back on the toothpaste. No this is the kind of irate you get where you want to do physical harm to another human being. Oh sure, someone is going to say to me, “You don’t really mean that.” “You’re not that kind of person.” But they would be wrong. I am exactly that kind of person and so are you. If we admit to ourselves in all honesty that we are human and that we are capable of any emotion and action, we have begun the true journey.

Several months ago during ITL we did an outline of our bodies on butcher paper,
I should say we outlined each other on butcher paper (for which I have not yet been forgiven) and we were told to write with in the outline exactly the things that moved us in our lives. Now I went along with the theme of the project and wrote all the nice sweet things that are really only a fraction of what moves or motivates me in my life. I wrote love and Jesus and music and joy and candy coated peace signs. It’s not that those things are not huge motivating factors in my life. They are, but what about the dark things in my heart that make me the carnal human that I am? What about the selfishness that motivates me more often than not? I wanted to speak out right then that I felt like a liar. These things aren’t the real me. At least they are not the total me. I wanted to scream out, “LAIR! Oh wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?” I wanted to cry out that I am not that person on the paper. I have an evil nature and I am at battle with it even now. The struggle is fierce and I am losing at the moment. I do and say things that shock even me. How could I want to hurt someone? And yet I wanted nothing more than just that for the past several days. I am capable of any behavior because I am sick. I have a disease that there is only one cure for it short of death. Jesus. And even then the illness lives on and wages war with my spirit.

If you ever have the chance pick up the “Little Red Book”. It’s an AA book that is a little version of the Big Blue Book. IF you read that and substitute the words human for alcoholic you will begin to understand the battle we are truly in. Step one: We admitted we were powerless over our humanity and that our lives have become unmanageable. We are addicted to ourselves. We are hooked on our lives. We are our favorite drug. We are filled with anger and self-hatred that is really self absorption. We lie and cheat and steal to make ourselves feel better and yet we are sickened by us at the same time. I know it sounds morbid and that I have a cynical attitude about things. But hear me out. This is honesty. I know my faults, my humanity if you will. I work at making them right all the time and for the most part I do okay, but there is that part of me that remains hidden and eats at me when I get cut off in traffic. But then I understand that it is not by MY strength, but with His. You see I know it is only with God that we are made right. It is only with God that we can be made right with those around us. It is only with God that we can ever hope to overcome our true selves. Step two: We came to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Some of us have completely overcome our violent, angry, self-absorbed natures, but not me. I put on a good show for the masses. I keep my addiction hidden. I even really do love people, but how can I say I love God and speak badly about my brother? How can I say I love God and yet there are children dying at the rate of one every five seconds from hunger. I got an e-mail once that said, “I screamed at God when I saw all the children starving until I realized the starving children were God screaming at me.”
I am selfish. I like my things. How do I stop liking my things enough to give them up so others won’t starve? I am the rich young ruler. I am the notorious sinner. I am Judas. And as long as I know that these people live inside of me, with the help of God, I can fight them. It is when I refuse to admit that they are there that they can do the most damage. I realize that only a Power Greater than myself can help me. Step Three: We made a conscious decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him/Her. Kandis Glasgow

Let's Meet

We had a meeting, for the first time, one on one with our pastor last night (9-25) just to have a chance to get to know him and have him get to know us. It was an interesting experience in that I am endlessly inquisitive and hopelessly opinionated. Cheryl made me begin by asking my ‘theological question’ ‘just how Christian is this church?’. I received an interesting reply that I am not sure answered the question I had in my heart. Steve answered us with his explanation that he believed in the cosmological redemption through Christ. I tend to believe the same way in that this universe will be completely restored to Jesus/God through whom entirety was created. He also stated that he doesn’t necessarily agree with Paul that Jesus dies for our sin and the God the Creator didn’t intend to set Him up as a sacrifice for that sin. He postulated that Jesus never said that was why He was here and that the first time it was ever spoken of was by Paul as an explanation of why Jesus was crucified. Hummmmm.

That bodes thought on my part as I don’t tend to agree with that rendition of the story. Not because of what Paul may or may not have said, but because of what John cousin of Jesus was reported to have said at Jesus’ baptism and that is, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” Now that I stop and think about it Jesus said many things that indicated that he knew of His impending death and the purpose for it. He said, “Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die it resides alone, but if it dies many more are created.” and “The Comforter will not come unless I go away.” Then “Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” At one point Jesus told the disciples that the ‘this temple will be destroyed and then restored in three days.’

So, in all of this Jesus, IMHO, knew he was going to be killed and or sacrificed. Not only that He said it was nescessary. John said He was going to remove the sin of the world. Jesus knew that the Comforter couldn’t come and death wouldn’t be destroyed, if He wasn’t killed and resurrected. He told us that there was no way for the church to grow unless He died. SO. What does this all tell me? I don’t have a clue, but I can try to make a guess.

John the Baptist said Jesus was a Lamb not just any Lamb, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Why would John call Jesus that? The perfect Lamb of God could only have been an offer of sacrifice to ‘forgive, or better yet, remove the lack of faith that was the cause of, sin.”

NOW, scripture says that, now I want you to get this, (and thank you Brian Patterson for constantly reminding me of this) anything that is not of faith is sin. So, if the Spirit could only come to dwell with people if Jesus ‘went away’ (was made a sacrifice to bring the Spirit) and faith comes through the Spirit, then Christ died to save us from lack of faith which is sin. Am I wrong? Is my logic flawed? Sin is such an ugly word that is used to exclude people from relationship with God. Sin is whatever is not of faith.
I guess what I am concluding is that Jesus died and was resurrected so that the Spirit could fall on all people not just a few. The Spirit leads us to/through faith to those things that are not sin. Let faith be your guide. Kandis Glasgow

Fruitiness (Bible Shorts)

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I was looking at an apple tree the other day with its freshly ripe green fruit. They looked delicious and I decided that I would love to have one. I stepped up to the tree to choose one of the tart apples. As I looked over my choices I realized that all the fruit was basically the same. Some were a bit smaller than others. Some were perhaps not quite ripe, but by in large they were all the same. Although I know it’s only fruit I thought a bit longer on this and realized that it probably looked a lot like the fruit that the seed that sprouted this tree came from. Fruit is the replication of the Seed. He is the vine we are the branches. If we remain in Him we will bear much fruit. John 15:5 Jesus said that, “Unless a seed fall to the ground and die it remains alone. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” John 12:24 Seeds grow trees that bear fruit. Christ died so that we might be the replication of Him. The Spirit came so that we could succeed.

Being a bit more fruity,