Preference
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY
Unorthodox Christianity is getting more pronounced as time moves on.
What was once a beginning of one culture is now 30,000 individual denominations of Christians, in churches around the world and wanting to decide the lives of others from their pulpits. How many churches wave a banner that says “WE ARE THE “REAL CHURCH”. “WE KNOW WHAT GOD WILL DO TO YOU”. “IT WAS WRITTEN IN A BOOK FROM 2,000 PLUS YEARS AGO FROM A CULTURE IN JERUSALEM ABOUT A CULTURE THAT NEVER ACCEPTED A CHRIST ON THEIR OWN GROUND”. That culture fell in love with with an itinerant preacher whose beliefs resulted in him being crucified by many of those leaders who are clueless about JESUS, a good Samaritan who was born in Bethlehem in what today is Israel.
And you wonder why I called it UNORTHODOX.
I may comment on my dogs, or my help from those who have helped me for so many years that when I hear of an Orthodox debate about just what GOD is going to do to someone else, I wonder how they figured that out. Or the result of some situation that shakes your head and a life decision is expected to be made by someone that you will never know who that person is. You will never know, and that you are basing your judgment on a religious or political decision from a Church or a judge or a Supreme Court that is going to allow many to decide a decision based on how someone who GOD has known their entire life, every day every hour and who GOD will be with every day and moment for the rest of their lives vs. any judge or church or politic whose knowledge of this person is unknown to them and yet fully known to GOD. That person from birth has thought about that decision and every day has asked GOD for help. GOD gives GOD’s reasons and GOD’s Reason alone. If GOD enters your sphere and says LOVE ONE ANOTHER and an Itinerant Rabbi says “FORGIVE THEM FATHER THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO” How do you know what GOD is thinking?
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY?
GOD KNOWS.
SUNSHINE
Smiles or Frowns 
Matthew 5: 14-16 You are the light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a bushel; they put it on a lamp stand where it shines for everyone to see. In the same way your light must shine in the sight of men, so that seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in Heaven.
Spring has sprung in Iowa as the temperature is going up after weeks of extreme winter. Spring is a wonderful feeling and the memories of spring days with mentors and friends makes me smile. The sheer number of people that have crossed my path and have made me the me I have become over all these years, has been the gift of a life that often makes me shake my head and say thank you GOD for all. If I prayed a prayer of thanks for all of them every day I would have no time left to enjoy what would be left of the day. Thank you GOD for that sunshine of memories.
When I look to my Bible for strength during hard times I think of how so many of my mentors have made such an impact to me by the way they responded to their difficult times. I have read many blogs and many renderings of what GOD is, or what Earth is. It seems often that SIN comes with the territory of Earth. It makes me wonder why would GOD create such a place. When I analyze just how complicated it has to be to create the inhabitants of Earth from a plant to grow, a baby to grow and be born, whether animals, humans, trees, flowers or any of the objects you see or are so small you do not notice to think that a Loving GOD did to be so subjective makes no sense.
Is the journey of life on planet Earth meant to serve a jealous GOD, or is Earth meant to provide a Spiritual journey that provides the opportunity of a physical life to be engaged in the physical nature of GOD’S provision. As I was walking about working the other day I saw two people one right after the other. The first walked by with a frown that seemed to be permanent on the elderly face. The second walked past with a smile that could light up the darkest night. For sure there are tragic events. For sure mankind has the ability to create tragedy. It is the same story for the Cardinal that sings on that first day of spring or the squirrels chasing each other from trees across rooftops in a city that exists as a playground. 40 below zero is the same cold.
What is the purpose of creating life anyway. Do you ever wonder.
Years ago as young man just starting out in the retail world I found myself working in a department store in St. Paul Minnesota. I got off the elevator in my new assignment to have a well dressed much older gentleman, well into retirement age, say hello with a smile as natural as a sunrise. I was caught off guard and responded and asked for directions to my new assignment. He responded and went about his job in the furniture department. When I got to my job assignment I asked my manager who he was.
I was surprised when he responded: “Smiley. We all call him smiley because we have never seen otherwise. He’s had his bad days over his life like all of us, but that smile lights up every day for all of us”. I remember Smiley quite often 40 some years later when the Spring SUNSHINE comes out after a long stretch of very cold winter with snow falling and cloudy like we have seen this year.
Earth is an element now occupied by by Billions of people. That is what Earth is. You being alive on Earth is not a mistake. It is a gift. Every vision of the Sun is a blessing.
I discovered a few weeks ago when I passed out at work and fell backwards onto a concrete floor. I felt nothing. I did not know anything that happened and was being placed in an ambulance when I figured out that I was being loaded in an ambulance. I was being asked many questions like what day it was, who I was, what day of the week it is. It required no time to occur. A concussion, what became 8 stitches in my head, and yet no pain. The first thing I recognized was that I was alive. I had a gap of time that could have had any type of result. I had another gift from GOD and the help of many people to give me that gift. It was Earth. These things happen. Many reasons that have been reviewed. Every flash of SUNSHINE is a smile. It put Smiley in a new light. It put so many mentors in a new perspective. GOD did not create a Sinner’s paradise, GOD created Earth for us to enjoy.
There are an estimated 30,000 different denominations of Christianity. Being confused about which one you follow is to be expected. There are Asian Christian Churches for whom EARTH is not a home for sinners. It is the home for people. Will you have your light shine in a smile, or will you hide it in a frown. Everyday of SUNSHINE is a gift and a blessing and represents a new day, everyday.
Hide it under a bushel NO, I’m gonna let it shine. Everyday.
NEW EXPECTATIONS 2-14-21
NEW Expectations
It is Sunday Morning. A pretty traditional Church day for me. It is on the internet thanks to the pandemic. Before the Internet it was called Church and Family day. There isn’t Church at the building day. The pre-pandemic church day started with a coffee and rolls get together. One then went to the sanctuary for the Message and when done we all went to our favorite Sunday lunch or brunch day.
I got up today and felt lost. The world is changing. What are my expectations when the word PRAYER comes up? What do I plan on doing with that prayer box when I take it off the shelf and remind myself that my faith has a home of sorts. Unorthodox Christianity? My conversation with GOD is centered around something called prayer. When Jesus talked to the disciples it was conversation. When someone wanted healing for a friend or family member, or a neighbor one sought out Jesus to be the healer. A miracle now and then. But this is me, this is now. My prayer box has expectations that come with it. The social club doesn’t need me. What is the purpose of Unorthodox Christianity?
Every day I pray. It may be a breakfast prayer or a dinner prayer. I may have received a special prayer to pray for a member of a church family, a co-worker, it may be a TV prayer as the messenger for any or all of the thousands that have had to confront the Pandemic. I may have a family member challenged by cancer or covid, or health issues whose name surprises me. It may come as an obituary to tell me I am getting older.
It may be for someone whose name I do not know or recognize. We all get the message somehow. For someone. For some purpose. What is it all about?
The world has many tribes. Groups of people who believe alike, in something. There are groups who profess non-belief. Who do they pray to, from whom do they request a loving heart and caring thought?
There are Bibles, there are Sutra’s, there are classes on religion and thousands of churches with billions of believers, believing in something. There are judges to judge right and there are judges to judge wrongs. Who do you pray for, and who do you pray to. You ask for forgiveness and for absolution. I think I admit my wrongs, and I ask for peace.
I may speak in tongues. I ask in long messages or short messages. I have many names for GOD and which Name must I use for which prayer? There are billions of prayers every moment. I ask myself, what do I expect from the prayer? What do I expect GOD to say? What do I expect GOD to do in response. What if I disagree? Will my prayer take precedence over someone elses? Is my prayer honest enough? Is it correct enough? What do I expect from it?
Is my prayer Politically correct enough? Will others who hear my prayer agree with me or not? What if their prayer challenges mine, or disagrees with what I was taught the prayer should be about. Is my prayer like a snowball rolling down a hillside getting bigger as it goes? Does my prayer find me shaking my head back and forth wondering if GOD agrees with me, or not? Are my prayers realistic or are they unrealistic. Do they truly have meaning, or wishes or desires. Are they lost in a cavern of thousands of years ago that sounds like “this person or “That” person wrote it down. Have the conversations become fragments of great thoughts, or confusion?
Just what am I trying to accomplish during my prayer time?
On and on and on. I may take hours and say nothing meaningful, I could be wasting GOD’s time. Is GOD on my side? What do I want to take away from my prayer? Do I want peace, do I want to WIN? What is it I am praying for? Do I want the temperature to be warm for a few days or `below zero’. Is such a prayer frivolous?
Now that I have written a bunch of stuff down, what do I do with it?
I have expectations, don’t I. Do I have any power to have it My Way? Do I even know what my way is? How would GOD hear my prayer? How would GOD accept it or answer it. What are my prayer Expectations?
I want to listen first and pray second. GOD has ways of talking to me when I have questions. Does GOD disagree? Maybe. Does GOD want you to say something specific to come from you? Do you agree?
The conversation you have with GOD is the beginning of your teaching and the door that GOD will open. It is between you and GOD. The challenge is to seek out your answers. Not someone else’s. You have already set your own challenge. That challenge becomes your expectation. Listen to your questions, listen for GOD’s answers.
Life is very much like an old saying, walk a mile in another mans shoes. Your expectations should include your learning. You have to ask to learn. The conversation you begin will last a lifetime. And we call it LIVING. And it starts with expectations.
The internet has created all kinds of questions and presents all kinds of answers. When you punch up Unorthodox Christianity on the Internet what do you expect to find? What sort of a question do you have to answer? The questions and the answers lie within you. They lie within conversations that you may have long forgotten, pictures you may have drawn, music you may have sung. If you are lost will you become found? You and GOD can discover the found. Your Expectations become your challenges. Your challenges become your answers. Your answers become your journey.
Life is meant for living, take your faith off of the shelf.
UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY
FOR THE DISENFRANCHISED
BELONGING
Phase One of the election has finished. Many are disappointed and many are elated.
Today we have seen a unique forum in our American History. I simply can not fathom the number of prayers that went into this election for GOD to deal with. I also realize that the contest will not be over until January 20,2021 to bring reality into play. I have been jotting down some thoughts as the process has been moving along.
First of all:
I have started with my original title from my original website home base because UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY grew out of creating a LOVING HOME for the disenfranchised. Those who need an accepting home for ALL those whom GOD created as EQUALS. ALL GOD’S CHILDREN.
Jesus is not a CEO of a business. He mentioned that The Meek shall Inherit the Earth.
Jesus is not an apprentice in a political football game.
Christianity is based on a tenant, a new commandment that was brought forward from JESUS called LOVE ONE ANOTHER. To get your attention and emphasize His point he died on a cross and came back to explain it to you.
Jesus is a lifestyle “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
GOD is LOVE
LOVE does not threaten.
LOVE has no need to threaten.
Threats won’t change the worldly.
Threats do not create love, they just create actors.
Only LOVE can create love.
Only LOVE will be recognized as LOVE.
Behavior threatens.
Behavior creates risks.
LOVE is not measured by RED STATES vs BLUE STATES
THE BIBLE is not a PROP. It is a book of wisdom to either be accepted or ignored.
GOD created the Heaven and the EARTH.
Much like ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, JESUS had expanded on that thought long before our first politicians came up with their thought of what EQUAL meant.
When the people came with their children for Him to lay hands on them and say a prayer with them the disciples rebuked them and turned them away. Jesus said “Let the little children alone, and do not stop them from coming to me; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to.” Then laid His hands on them and went on His way.
Jesus also brought up another interesting prayer:
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
BELONGING
So many AMERICAN’S believe that they are not the right gender, the right color, the right culture. They feel that they are disenfranchised to the simple basics of life in America to this day. If you want to parade the BIBLE around without LOVING ONE ANOTHER, Or have preference of one group over another, or penalizing and ostracizing those who may disagree with you, you should read the NEW TESTAMENT. The GOOD NEWS.
NOW is the Beginning of PHASE TWO of the election. The REAL GREAT AMERICA that the rich have tried to reserve for themselves and THE NEW WORLD ORDER has done AMERICA no good. AMERICA deserves a second chance to be truly great the first time. To be grateful for the people that have made AMERICA what it is. THE PEOPLE. The protectors, the military, the police, the workers, the miners, the first responders, all colors, all cultures, all faiths, all Church denominations and all beliefs who have worked the hardest for America. The ones for whom many businesses want them to do 40 hours of work with a 20 hour paycheck. The ones that work two and three or more jobs to get to the poverty level and enough to buy a place to live and groceries to eat. The families that need health care in a country that puts more value in their profit as apposed to their people.
BELONGING is the strongest human emotion as you go through life. Our strength has ALWAYS been our diversity. OUR diversity that has included CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, HINDU’S, BUDDHISTS,and more. NATIVE BORN AMERICAN INDIANS, ASIANS, EUROPEANS, and every other country. GAY, STRAIGHT, and LOVING PEOPLE from around the world coming here to help AMERICA be a HEAVEN ON EARTH, unlike any other nation in it’s scope in the world. PEOPLE who come here with the intention to BELONG. TO be ACCEPTED. To be WELCOMED as all the others have been coming here over the years to be.
AMERICA should not be based on being a third world country with a $26 trillion debt and an upper class investor society that likes all the accouterments that these immigrants and natives have provided for as little money as possible.
WE THE PEOPLE have only progressed to PHASE 2. WE THE PEOPLE have a long way to go to make AMERICA GREAT WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.
LESSOR OF TWO “EVILS”?
BY THE RED BOX or BY THE BLUE BOX
We have become a nation of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. Can we return to a nation OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE?
America is at the threshold of its most serious election in its history. The choice is much clearer than ever before in its history and I think the American people are finally seeing it as being as important and serious
an election can become.
For the first time in its history, the majority of Americans fall below the dream than those who live within it. For the first time in American history we have laid off more dreams than we have created. For the first time in American history we have moved more of the American dream overseas than we have created avenues to the American dream here. All this under the watchful scrutiny of the American Corporation into whose hands our Politicians, and Leaders have entrusted our dreams and who have traded our dreams away to make themselves higher profits in many nations around the world but our own. The American dream was once a reality, but is now in foreclosure.
The American dream is now falling through the fingers of those who put it there in the first place through their hard work and their relatives sacrifice to achieve what they had once achieved and have had taken that great economy away from them. For Profits for a very few, and more power for but one.
It will be interesting to see just what direction we “dreamers” take come election day. Those of us who have invested our energy and a lifetime of hard worker to prepare for our retirement to have our leaders use our money free of charge for their own political welfare. It seems that the two party system has become a CHOICE BETWEEN TWO EVILS. One which could care less and another that can’t explain to us where that money is.
One whines about the media and a media that would have you believe that only these two parties comprise choice. Money talks in AMERICA, not the notion of AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL.
We have become a people who now vote for “The Party” and pay no attention to the people we are voting for. We have become a people whose future has been traded to CHINA as well as too many other foreign nations to jot down here, for higher profits at headquarters, bigger dividends, and fewer workers. Those very people that built the greatest country on Earth have been sold out by the CORPORATIONS and the elected politicians that keep telling us how great we are as a country by increasing our debt by $24 TRILLION Dollars, while their personal BILLIONS increase by the moment. They don’t have to pay health care to the people that have made them all wealthy. So they don’t have to thank them with retirement benefits, but they “lay them off” so that their profits get buried overseas so they don’t even have to pay taxes to the country that made them wealthy in the first place. Will America forever let their corporations steal their future for the sake of their GOD – money? Isn’t a free and healthy America worth anything to them? I’m not seeing it much on the street. The very wealthy are taking care of their own but not too interested in the ones they set aside to make more room for wealthier politicians and themselves.
Will AMERICA ever be for ALL THE PEOPLE or just for “OUR PEOPLE”? The struggle has always been our ability to make AMERICA GREAT THE FIRST TIME. All races in AMERICA have been to war to defend AMERICA. All RACES are included in the ranks of the country’s police, fire, first responders, garbage collectors, postal deliverers, normal working people who seem to be less important to the Corporations or the Politicians. THE PEOPLE should have more to say and be listened to than just six months during an election year. If we keep voting for the same people over and over, it is no miracle that Congress has been focused only on themselves over and over again.
ONLY THE PEOPLE will make AMERICA GREAT for the FIRST TIME. ONLY THE PEOPLE can create the original idea of UNITED WE STAND. ONLY THE PEOPLE can learn to vote for PEOPLE not the party.
330 MILLION PEOPLE cannot come up with 2 people Who care more about THE PEOPLE than their PARTY.
It seems that we find ourselves once again having to choose the least of 2 EVILS than the best of all choices. It will take WE THE PEOPLE to say on election day “THE PARTIES OVER”, or AMERICA may have a hard time to ever be great for ALL THE PEOPLE just once.
SHARING THE WEALTH
Sharing the Wealth
from: 7-24-2005
No Amount of Money
No amount of fame,
No amount of power
Can keep the grim reaper at bay.
Nothing that you do here
Can protect you from his hand
The secret lies in living
To help the most you can..
For those whose gifts are many
Much more is required
To help the ones less fortunate
And those whose lives are tired.
The truest gifts present themselves
When you stretch forth your wealth
To touch the ones that got you there
And recognize that in yourself.
The gifts of GOD weren’t handed out
In fits of preference,
But given to the ones GOD thought
Would take best care of them.
The poor man found the gift of love
And family that stood fast..
The rich man found the people
That loved him for his wealth..
Which gift contains more value
And which message do you heed,
The gift of love so freely shared
Or the poverty of greed…..
dw
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
1-25-02 (updated 8-31-20)
‘Their GOD is not our GOD.’
“Our beliefs are the true beliefs”.
So many times have I heard this come out of the mouths of Christians I am reminded of what Jesus said, “It is not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, but what comes out.”
I was involved in a discussion once with a Christian acquaintance and the topic came up of whom GOD loves more.
Who are the true chosen?
I asked him to list the people on Earth whom GOD did not create. You see we are ALL the children of GOD.
I related a story: when my grandmother baked cookies for me she always made more oatmeal raisin cookies than chocolate chip cookies. Why? Because I liked oatmeal raisin cookies more than chocolate chip cookies. If we believe that GOD shows some sort of preference for one group over another, certainly the chosen people are Asian, for there are many more of them than anyone else.
I believe GOD is big enough, intelligent enough, and loving enough to speak to all people in their own language and in their own culture. I believe there is a measure of truth intertwined within all the religions of the world and that we are missing the entire message when we exclude one faith journey vs another because of our tribalistic propensity to hold our own ritualistic faith as the entire truth of GOD’s teaching. How much wisdom has been lost in such ignorance.
Jesus taught, ”Love one another”, No caveats, No claims of exclusivity of membership. “By this [love] will they know that you are disciples of mine”, LOVE is a common destination that leads to peace. In fact, it is the only destination that leads toward peace. Until we can embrace our diversity of culture, religion, and faith with the understanding that GOD speaks through many tongues, our destination will be one of division. Until we learn to focus our energies on a common destination of loving one another, our world will never find peace. I believe that:
GOD WILL NEVER DENY HEAVEN
TO ONE WHO LOVES.
THIS IS OUR PROMISE, IT IS OUR HERITAGE,
IT IS OUR TEACHING, AND IT IS OUR GIFT.