People, People

In my life I have known many people. I have known all kids of people. I have known Republicans and I have known Democrats. I have known people who were healthy and people who were sick. I have known people who were Kings, and people who were servants. I have known people who were CEO's, and people who were unemployed. I have known people who were clergy and I have known people who were murderers. I have known people who were kind and people who were mean. I have known people who were black, people who were white, and people who were asian. I have known people who were rock stars, and people who can’t play a note. I have known people who were published authors, and people who can’t read. I have known people who were billionaires, and people who were broke. I have known people who lived in mansions and people who lived in huts. I have known people who were Christian, people who were Hindu, people who were Buddhist, people who were Muslim and people who were Atheists. 

Bare with me... I have known people who were alcoholics and addicts, and I have known people who were teetotalers. I have known people who were straight, people who were gay and people who were transgender. I have known people with tattoos, and people with untouched skin. I have known people who's names you recognize, and I have known people who did not have a name. I have known people who were born, and I have known people who have died. I have known people with two parents who were married, people who were orphans and I have known people who were adopted. I have known people who have won awards and people who were in prison.

Thanks for staying with me, as you can see I have known many, many people from all walks of life and with all kinds of backgrounds. Though they all have very different lives and opinions, there is one common thread that all these people have - they are people, human beings, just like you and me. They all have feelings, opinions, experiences, and fears. They all have good times and bad, they all have times of sickness and times of health. Yes, they all have much more in common than you may think. At the end of the day, they may truly be more similar than they are different. We live in a world that loves to divide us. The media thrives on controversy and drama. Radicalization of our faiths have led us to believe that those with whom we don’t see eye to eye are our our enemy. Our society wants to make our value as people based on what we have or how much we earn. Our insecurities drive us to the need to be right, and we have learned to do this by making others wrong.

We as people have always had differences, and always will. We have desires and insecurities that make us want more, but we also have an inner conscious that wants us to be satisfied. We all desire to be loved and we all have love to give. All major religions are founded on a basic principal of loving others and being a good person, and yet our nature has corrupted these core values.

Our enemy is not everyone else, our enemy is ourselves. The solutions is not to stand firm, yell louder and post more on Facebook. The solution is to stop and listen, and think before talking. I am in no way saying anyone needs to step down from their beliefs, but to know that just as they can hold tight to their beliefs, so can others. The problem is not our differences, it is how we deal with them. I say it is time that we stop and take a breath, and see that we are all the same in the big picture, and we all share a similar story. We are products of our circumstances and molded by our perspectives, and our truths are just that, they are ours. 

Are there higher truths? Yes. I firmly believe there are, and I am happy to share my views with others, but not impose them. My truth comes from my faith, and that requires me to love everyone, regardless of who they are or what they stand for. That means respecting you as a person, and seeing the good in you as well as respecting all of your perspectives and respecting your right to all of your opinions. You see, I do not believe that it is my job to force my truth on you, but to respect your right to choose what you hold dear, even if it is very different from mine. It is not because I am a better person. In fact, often it is a real struggle to keep my head right and my eye on what I believe. I constantly struggle with my inner-jerk and the ways of the world trying hard to pull me astray. But I desire to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

So please join me in choosing peace and being love. We are the key to changing the divisions in our world - not everyone else. You and me. Not later, but now. And not if they do it first. No, be the change you want to see. I challenge you to join me and start now. If I falter, forgive me, and I promise to do the same; but never should we let that be cause to give up the good fight!

Peace and Love,

Randy

Living, Loving and Losing

Yesterday our community was robbed, robbed of our security, robbed of our comfort and robbed of our innocence. A child was taken from us and called to join the choir of angels. Taken from his parents in the early years of youth. Their hopes, plans, and expectations revoked in an instant. There is no way to prepare for the feelings of injustice, sadness, violation and heartbreak that this brings forth. Watching children learn first hand of the things adults can not explain, much less process. Knowing that the adults themselves now, have lost a security that they have taken for granted. 

How do we deal? What do we do? Where do we turn? The questions fire around internally like a garden hose gone wild. Do we run to God? Yes... well maybe... is the the same God who just robbed us of our loved one? Do we open up and all cry together in love? or is that same love that just made us vulnerable to such profound hurt? Maybe withdrawing  into a hardened shell will protect us from further pain. Where to go? What to do? How can we stop the feelings of hurt and violation with no answers. 

The answers lie within. We know that love, the very love that makes us hurt so bad is the only thing powerful enough to even begin to repair the hole in our soul. The love that God blessed us with, the hope and promises He instilled in us. By a faith that there is in fact a heaven, we can find comfort in the fact that we can know our loved ones are in comfort, that we can maintain a hope of reconciliation. 

The concept of love and heaven are not a doctrine of religion, as most major religions arrive at similar conclusions. It is a seed planted in our very core. Planted by the same creator that gave us a profound ability to love to the point of paralyzing pain. It is internal, hard wired into us. God who created us in His image, created us in love, and also promised us eternal life. 

The answer to our healing, is to come together in love, to find comfort in the promise of a life eternal. to not run, hide, shut down, but to live each day with a new respect for the value of the gift it is. To love more, to give more grace, and to seek refuge in a God that willing gave His own son for our benefit.

It is the same God who entrusted us with the gift of our loved ones. Every day we get is a blessing. So we should not look with contempt at the time we did not receive, but live in gratitude for that which we did. The pain we feel is a testament to the true value of the gift we have received. 

We can not pretend to understand the larger plans of the Lord. We can not pretend to understand the enormity of eternity from the basis our perspective of time. We need to have a faith, a blind faith in its infancy, but as you learn to trust in that faith, to live in that faith, it reveals itself. It becomes no longer blind, but in fact, it becomes a life based on a knowing, living, breathing relationship with a loving creator. It no longer becomes a leap of faith, but an investment in love.

Though not all are prone to becoming vulnerable enough to find the openness that allows for healing, I ask us all to open our hearts, to be available to ourselves, to one another, to God to allow us as individuals, and as a community to come together and openly grieve, to heal together and to celebrate the gift that we were given, for the precious time we had it.

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'" (Is 55:8-9).

Yhea God!

And the greatest of these...

Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. At the risk of being cliche, I feel compelled to write about love on Valentines day. The bible refers to love as the greatest of faith, hope and love. I find this interesting when most of us see the bible as a manual for faith, written to give us hope, that talks about love. But I contend that that assumption is wrong.

Is the bible not the greatest love story ever written? Is is not an epic novel full of trails, tribulations, sadness, and triumph? Is not it a great love story about our creator and his undying love for us. It is a manual for us to learn how to love. As you can not tell me human nature is to love our enemies as ourselves. I wish that came naturally to me, but it doesn't. The bible teaches us how to love. Why, because our God is a loving god and he wants us to know his greatest gift.

Our love for a child is like none other, we value them ahead of ourselves. But that is a love that comes naturally to us, one that takes no initial effort. But we were created with this innate desire to find our partner. From adolescence on we search high and low looking for that one special someone for whom we feel at home.

It is in this place that we find the desire to voluntarily surrender ourself and feel that divine comfort. It is not an easy place to get to, in fact some never do. It comes at a hugh risk, as to find it you must risk you innermost self. Once found, it is not easily maintained, it takes a concentrated effort of continual surrender. But in that place of love provided as nugget from God, we can truly find glimpses of heaven and the love God, our father, has for us.

The book of 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 says "In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God."

So as we ponder how much we love and as we feel loved, let us remember to be grateful for this gift and give more of ourselves,as we know that we will receive far more than we ever give.

Yhea God!

Get in the Game!

I know we all get hit up all the time to give to this, support that, or help out with the upcoming... If you are like me, my first reaction is the definition of schizophrenia. Part of me wants to do everything, fund everything and save the world, and the other part of me cringes, as it shouts that you have no more time, talent or treasure available. As I write this, both seem correct and justified. But the truth is, none of the three T's (time, talent, and treasure) are mine to begin with, all that I have are the gifts that God has loaned me for this life.

But it is hard to truly justify that we have no money, or time or talent if you take an objective look at our society. What we are really saying is that we choose to spend out dollars elsewhere, and likewise , our time. I am not passing judgement on that, but asking that we be honest about our choices. God blesses us each with what he wants us to have, (not necessarily what we want to have), but it seems to me that with that comes an expectation that we need to intern bless others.

I struggle with wanting to fix everything, solve every problem, and do it all. I am not sure that is the point either. We are designed and called to be communal. I believe that God would rather have 10 people give $50 to a project needing $500, than a single benefactor underwriting the whole thing. It makes sense that then there are 10 hearts, minds and souls involved, not just the will of one. (Note to friends: you can write big checks to my projects because I will just make the projects proportionally bigger) It is not always what you give, but that you give. If you have other choices taxing your financial resources, find other ways to be involved. Sometime the contribution is as simple as a smile, hug or words of encouragement. Like everything in a journey of faith, it is not about a destination, but the journey leading there. I am fairly sure He just wants us in the game.

So my challenge to you is to examine your priorities and make you and you resources available to God. I have found that the more I give the more blessings I receive and I am not talking about money. The call is to get in the game, find the position that is the right fit for you and participate. So to quote a famous shoe slogan, "just do it!"

Yhea God!