The problem with Christians

I saw a bumper sticker that said "pray to end abortion". The problem is that prayer without faith is worthless and faith without works is dead. Therefore, the bumper sticker should read something more like "do something to end abortion" and that something should involve more than putting a bumper sticker on your car.

The problem with Christianity today is the belief that prayer without belief will actually cause something to happen. It is you that causes the action, and you must do more than wish something will happen.

Failure is an option

Learning comes by failure. That is, assuming you view failure as a temporary setback and then move on. You should want to fail. You should expect to fail. And you should know that as you try different things eventually one of them will succeed.

Failure is only failure if you stop trying. The worst failure is to never start for fear of ridicule. View those that ridicule as failures and move on with courage to try something new.

Contrasts

To have good there must be bad
To have right there must be wrong
To have wealth there must be poor

These things must be

To banish bad there is no longer good
To banish wrong leaves nothing right
If there is no poor there is no rich

The world consists of opposite

Water and land
Positive and negative
Male and female
Heaven and earth
Spirit and material

The new world

A few hundred years ago North America was a vast, virtually unexplored, wilderness. It was called the new world. Being called the new world implies that there is an old world, and thus, there was. The rest of the world existed. Europe had been civilized for centuries and the east and mid-east for even longer. Africa, the home of Egypt had once known the most advanced civilization in the history of time. In the last 100 -150 years, the civilization in North America has advanced far beyond any that have ever existed before it. For the first time ever, a civilization exists that brings clean food and water to its citizens homes, and in return carries waste food and waste water away disposing of it in a responsible manner. The rest of the world had thousands of years to imagine and develop such a system and it failed to do so. Now we, in America, are made to feel guilty for what we have. Guilty for developing pollution control that exceeds that of any other country up until this time. Yes, there may be some smaller countries that are "cleaner", but they are smaller for one thing, and more importantly, they would not have the technology to be cleaner had it not been for the USA. Look about the world and wonder where freedom came from? Where did the freedom to create the great society we currently enjoy get its roots?the world enjoys it freedom to hate the US because of the US. US citizens enjoy the freedom to complain, criticize, and even hate the US because the US gave them the freedom to do so; they hate the very thing that allows them to hate. Where would we be without that one time experiment in a constitutional republic? Where would we be without those initial thoughts that man can accomplish anything he puts his mind to if governments stay out of his way? Where would we be if a few people did not first believe that it should be possible for a poor person to rise above it all to become fabulously wealthy? These thoughts formulated America and are the "American dream". The American dream is not that everybody should have, but that everybody should have the right to strive for something better than what they were born into. It is not about taking from some and giving to others, it is about earning from the others as they freely pay for services. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Life's lessons

One of the hardest lessons to learn is that life hands back to us exactly what we expect out of it. If we believe we are poor, we will remain poor. If we focus on sickness we'll be sick. We attract to ourselves that which we think about. If our minds are full of greed, hatred, or envy we will eventually be surrounded by greed, hatred and envy. We will only see bad in people because the only things our minds will let us see are those we perceive as bad.

It is odd that this is a hard lesson because there is but one thing the human mind can control and that is its own thoughts. Nothing else in the physical or spiritual world can be controlled for there are fundamental laws that cannot be broken. Interestingly, many things we perceive as unchangeable can be changed by thought.

Why is so difficult to understand the power of your own mind. Nothing in this world, or outside of it, ever existed without first being created by a thought. Indeed, the universe itself came into being by the spoken word of a single thought. Our churches do not tell us this.

Go to a forest and examine the trees. Some trees are larger than others choking off the sunlight and consuming the soil nutrients of the smaller growth surrounding it. Is this tree evil, or is it merely surviving according to the physical laws of the universe that it is bound to live within. Are we better than trees, of course, for we have thought and the ability to control our own actions. But, it is not a sin that we consume sources and, if we have the ability, grow larger than the other trees. No trees ever grow exactly the same size.

Many of our churches, and some political belief systems tell us we should be the same size. The churches tell us that we are where we are because it is God's plan. They tell us to accept our position in life and wait on Him. Did not God give us control of our own thoughts? Did not God give us the power to make our own decisions and choose our own path. Don't listen to these churches for they are doing you no favors. Find what it is you want to do in life and stop waiting for "God's plan". His plan is that you use your own mind. You have heard the churches say that each has his own spiritual gift, and then they proceed to tell you to wait tables or do something within a church building. No, this is not your gift! Your gift is the thing in life that you enjoy doing most. If this is selling cars, then your God given gift is to sell cars.

How will you sell cars? Will you get as much money as you can offering little in return? Of course not. You do unto others as you would have hem do unto you. You follow the golden rule. You provide the best deal possible for both you and the person receiving your services. You go the extra mile. For if you go the extra mile your reward will be full.

Use your own mind. Stop waiting. Do something today. Think only about good things that are going to happen to you, for if you think about them they will. Treat others fairly and that treatment will be returned. If not by them, then by someone else.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

What poverty really looks like

Here it is all you American complainers that think you have it rough because you have accumulated debt and cannot pay back a school loan. You may really be out of work, but you can find a job. These kids did. It's called raid the city dump looking for food to eat and clothes to wear.



I've been to places like this, seen kids like these, but what can you do to help. Donating to that star on TV hasn't solved the crisis. Their predicament isn't caused by the American corporation that may have chosen to locate in their vicinity. It is not caused by bankers, or successful CEOs. No, it is caused by government. Governments of elected and non elected officials who care more about themselves than they care about unfortunates such as these. Sure, the government officials may take money from drug lords or corporations, but it is the government that is at fault for taking the money. There will always be corruption, and wealth is a relative term. I'm sure these kids would think that having a cell phone, a computer, cable television, a house (whether rented or mortgaged), food every day, running water, and clothes to wear would mean you are wealthy. In America, for some reason, you can have all those things and more and still think you are poor.

The tree

This is the story of a tree. A tree that began as an idea, flaming out of the bowels of human diversity. As a sapling the tree stood, rooted firm with the idea but flexibly moving in the winds of change that molded it. Though the tree stood firm the ideas around it changed. The tree thickened with growth no longer bowing to the change but resisting it; no longer flexible it stood against the wind often resisting the very idea that planted it. Many have carved their names on the great oak wanting to take credit for it or ride it to their own glory and purpose. The purpose of the tree has not changed, but it's ability to fulfill that purpose has diminished with the rigidity of it's age. Many have sought to cut it down, to plant another in it's place. Others still are happy with it and bask in it's shade.

The tree is old and does not change. It does not bend but it's branches break off in heavy storms. Those that bask in it's shade like the shade when it's convenient, but complain of leaves and acorns in the fall.


There is one thing constant in the universe and that one thing is change. Atoms recombine to form new molecules. Stars die and recombine into new stars. Planets die. The weather cycles from summer to fall, then winter spring and summer again, old things must die so that new life may spring forward. This is how things are.