I am – or was – one of those skeptical people who saw people drinking “Jesus Juice” and being super nice to others and felt it was an act. Why are they so happy? “It’s fake”. In my personal transformation, I will continue to rely on the book of Job as what seemed to change my entire perspective on life. I was always a happy and cheerful guy. Fun to be around. A lot of it was a mask. A performance. It took a LOT of energy to be around people to put the clown makeup on and then be cheerful for everyone. As the fat guy in the room, everyone expects “jolly”. No one likes a serious fat guy. No one. And, if you aren’t cheerful and fun – people have no use for you.
No use for you.
Let that one hit you hard.
I have seen some shit in my life. Others have had it far worse, but most people in my life have had a very comfortable life compared to mine. Everything I did to advance myself I needed to fight someone, take out knees, battle, overcome. People may see the end result today of someone in a suit and a smile, but underneath you feel like some battle tested SEAL that seen some shit. Invisible to everyone, you walk among them with trauma, open wounds – and put on a performance to make everyone else feel at ease. If not, you risk being alone.
Alone isn’t so bad for me. I kind of crave it. My thoughts and ideas provide me a lot of comfort. Sometimes the strain of what I had lost, or failed at, or how I slighted someone could be overwhelming with the OCD flashback mechanism and feature I have. But what happened to me was – in a sense – an awakening. At the end of the book of Job, he has a new family and is even richer than before, and he shares his wealth with everyone and lives 140 years. Obviously there is a good deal of metaphor in here, and this is a story that could be a fable passed down for generations, but the point of it – for ME – was this…
He started with a family and focused on preserving his wealth which gave him status. He lost all – the family, the wealth, and the status. He suffered for years. But one day, God gave him back a family, greater wealth – and now he shared with everyone and that was now how he was revered. I am bastardizing this, of course, but it was this.
I lost. I suffered. But I now have that again and need to open my eyes and see it. And in a moment, a flash – I was mowing the lawn and had to stop because of the tears in my eyes – I felt the loss leave me and the joy of what I had fill me. The best I can understand, this is what is meant by people being “baptized by the Holy Spirit”. And when I just heard that in Acts, I was like….”yeah dude, that’s kind what happened”. And just now, I really get it. I get the joy. Why? Because what this felt like was all negativity just immediately left me – and was replaced by love, joy, and happiness. I immediately felt this gratification for everything I had like I never felt before.
It doesn’t mean I don’t have a bad day. Or get angry. Or that life is perfect. It doesn’t mean that at all. But I read something that gave me PERSPECTIVE. I didn’t feel I had to perform around people anymore. I didn’t feel the need to hold status like I did before. And instead of being in a mode of acquiring to improve status, it felt like I wanted to give to improve status.
In a moment. 18 years of pain, gone.
And at that moment, I also understood the concept of the born again people getting dunked, washing away their sins. I am bastardizing this as well, but it’s a form of wiping the slate clean – and starting a new relationship with God where you are being honest and truthful and accountable to yourself and God. Not like I’m calling him on a phone – but like looking in a mirror and instead of seeing all of my pain, suffering, and flaws, it felt like I saw a better, stronger, happier version of me that was coaching me along to be a better person.
Love – what is is?
I used to think of love like…..”I love my wife”. “I love my mom”. “I love pizza”. The same word has 3 connotations. But what has happened with me is that this definition has started to really expand. While it’s the same word – it has a lot more meanings now – but the same feeling of joy and openness. Obviously people can fall into a lot of different categories – but they may only wall into one. But if you think about it – all should fall into one of these.
Love thy neighbor. What? I am not going to just love this rando? What has happened now is I find myself at least talking more with my neighbors. Not in a creepy way. But I am making a point of trying to be more friendly with people. Before, I would torment myself about what I was supposed to say so they might like me. What can I say so that I have status in their eyes and I’m someone they may want to know? Now it is more outward like I want to just see how they are and give a friendly smile. It’s not forced. I don’t have to think because I am not trying to get anything from it. I’m trying to GIVE. And when then perspective changes in conversation – my ADHD brain that gets stuck in loops just doesn’t need to process. If instead of trying to gain status – it’s more like I want to offer what I can. Love in this sense is community fabric. And the stronger community fabric is, and the more communities that have strong fabric, the better society is. This also is of interest for mutual security and protection.
Love of people. No one is perfect. Before, I was very guarded about who I would let close in my life. If they didn’t have a particular status, I would not engage them. A filter happened. To me – there was a calculation of the cost of small talk was too great for someone that I may not want part of my life. This is the above problem I had with status. Conversations were about getting something from them. Acceptance. Understanding. Esteem. When this whole thing switched for me – I am now seeing people I barely know and getting lost in my mind about hoping things work out for them. I was at a wedding recently, and found myself seeing two people I didn’t know well – two imperfect people – just like me – and trying to figure out how to pray for them in the right way that wasn’t cheesy or forced or rehearsed. I just felt a wave inside of me of pure intent of good for them. Unselfish. Full throated. Like I wanted to beam magic energy to them to bless their lives. There was a point where the pastor had them look at the audience, and said something like, “look at these people – if you need anything, they will be there for you”. And this is the type of religious stuff I missed in my ceremony. I was like, “yeah dude. We got your back”. Then – I’m like “I barely know them, but there’s this magic energy beam shooting from me to wish them well”. It was surreal. So I am finding that focusing a lot of energy on the good of others, rather than spending countless energy trying to make my station better is such a wonderful use of my brain. I felt PRESENT. In my ADHD mind – details of a lot slip me because I’m running God knows what in my mind. This allowed for that noise to stop – and feeling PRESENT and that level of good for SOMEONE ELSE sort of hit me hard. I felt this was a way for love of mankind. Imperfect. Beautiful. Joyful.
Appreciation. This form of love to me is unfiltered. Not pretentious. Thank you. My son’s elementary school had an art exhibit. I could not believe how awesome a lot of this art work was. I mean, these were REALLY good – and if I was not there with a maniacal 5 year old I would have spent $15 and toured everything for 2 hours. It was THAT good. Next year, I legit am going back but having the wife wrestle the little one while I dawdle around. But I was feeling this joy. I sought out the art teacher and said it was amazing and told her she must be doing an amazing job. I saw the principal there and told her how awesome the art teacher she had was. I felt like sometimes too many people are taken for granted, and when someone does a legitimate good job – love for this person is to appreciate their efforts. I feel that if a society has this, as opposed to Karens bitching about everything, this could make the entire world a lot more pleasant to be in. You have a tough day. Your knee hurts. You got a bill. A flat tire. And someone tell you they appreciate what you do, that can make a terrible day turn into a really good day.
Companionship – I enjoy writing back and forth in texts with people. It keeps you connected, but when you get replies, it’s instant reciprocation. When you are sitting in a group of people, sharing space – it’s TIME you choose to spend with people that is quality time.
Friendship – You have different layers of friends, but these are people you seek to spend quality time with, do activities with, share ideas with, or even want to know about how they have been doing.
Duty/responsibility. I spread myself too thin most of my life. In a previous post – I talked about how my name Nathan means “to give”. I didn’t know this until a week ago. But most of my life I have been a giver to people. Earlier in life, perhaps I wanted people to like me. Most of my life it’s been about wanting to make someone smile. But more often than not, the tremendous efforts of giving I have never felt appreciated. See above. If someone wasn’t reciprocating the love I was giving them, why should I expend so much effort to them? Now – in the bible it says you shouldn’t give to expect someone to give back. We will cover this below. But in THIS case, I realized that there’s a type of love you give that you DO NOT WANT reciprocated. When you take care of children, you accept this responsibility. It can be hard at times. Taking care of a loved one who is sick. Accepting responsibility for something you may not want to do. When you have DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY – this is LOVE for someone. It is an act of giving part of yourself to them. Accepting the responsibility is huge. But what you get back is FULFILLMENT. When you have duty and responsibility for others, it gives you PURPOSE. So if you are struggling in life, just going from job to job, or boyfriend to boyfriend, or moving here and there – you are seeking PURPOSE. My job for many years defined who I was in a sense. My identify came from that sense of duty. I loved the work. I loved the responsibility.
Holy Spirit/God. I have a tough time actually categorizing this FEELING but it was the stupendous amount of joy I get when I am really spiritually connected internally and am my authentic self who wants to do amazing things. Exuberance? I don’t know. Of interest, every time I fire on the bible when I’m mowing the lawn, it feels like it rejuvenates the soul. Finding more meaning and depth in life is really enriching.
Romantic love – this is where you get your hormones all over the place. This one is probably the most self-explanatory. When I was younger, I “suffered” through unrequited love. Both of these are within you to project a life with someone, but only one of them in reciprocated. I could posit that the chemistry you feel for someone is the same in both cases, but when it is reciprocated back it feels fulfilling and joyful rather than stressful and somewhat depressing. Meaning – the joy you feel from a complete love isn’t something you should ever take for granted.
Love of a child – one big thing I am finding is that the bible talks a lot about how people are enriched is to have more descendants than stars in the sky or sand particles on earth.
Philanthropy – You give time, effort, and perhaps even money to a complete stranger. I stayed away from this for years due to my philosophical theories of self-enrichment and hypocrisy. I felt that people who just thought it would be a good idea to help at a soup kitchen were just trying to make themselves feel good. However – when this “holy spirit” of sorts hit me, and I recognized all of the joy in my life, and the abundance of love I have, it then felt like I wanted to give the overflow to someone else. While Jesus talks about selling all of your possessions, I went a step further. I wanted to GIVE all of my excess possessions to those who directly need it.
Kinship – I feel like because you know someone deeply and shared many life experiences from the time you were tiny, it’s like they are part of your history. Like your life story has them in for a big part. But this also means you are so close with this person you should be able to say almost anything and be loved as you love them. Faults and all. But a weird thing happens – I have a brother, but I also have a feeling of kinship with 2 cousins – one was like my twin growing up, the other was like a little sister. We shared love of family members. I have also had some seriously close friends for 30-32 years, and what happens is that you are so close with these people, they become kin to you. This is the closest thing you will get to unconditional love – except from your parents.
Parental love – this is where the unconditional comes in. You could be a massive screw up – and while they may be disappointed in you, they would take your suffering for you in a second. If you think about it, when they say “Jesus died for your sins” – you have to understand that parents would, in a second, take their child’s suffering in their place if they could.
Brotherly love – I am keeping this a step down from kinship because I believe kinship outside of blood is earned from brotherly love over a long, long, long period of time.
Now that we have talked about different types of love – what do we do when perhaps we are crossed? Jesus talks about turning the other cheek. But what about those in the world that mean to do us harm? What about those who have political beliefs which may wish to have my children lined up on a wall and shot in 20 years unless I’m vocal about my opposition to socialism?
I had someone of a difference of opinion than my spiritual guide – they know millions more than me on this. But it seems like much of this from a pastoral view is interpretation. Do we shop for churches based on an imperfect beings interpretation that is exactly what we think? I think it makes sense in a BROAD view to so this to see how values align. But if you are trying to find someone that agrees with your interpretation 100%, you may never find a church at all. I see a lot of this like interpretation of poetry. My biblical cycles chart I created was a way for me to understand pattern recognition and then look at the bible in a generational context.
Why?
- Take a 50,000 ft view of what the point of all of this is. To me, the bible is about giving a blueprint or architecture for society.
- Have parables that can be broadly interpreted to help a lot of people find peace
- Have structure for a society to keep people healthy, ensure societal propagation, and to have laws.
- Create order from chaos. When you had missionaries going to Africa to try and preach the word of God – were they not in a way taking chaotic societies and bringing order?
- Teach people how to love properly in the one on one level
If you look at all religions through this lens, you then start to see the differences between religions.
But you have a breakdown in society when one of two things happen:
- People are TOO literal with religion.
- People push back from religion
This is why people like myself have been on the outskirts of religion their whole lives. We pick and choose morality from an a la carte menu. I should have said I was secular, atheist, and was an ally with Judeo Christian values. But I am now no longer on the fence as an atheist or agnostic – I felt a wave over me that day mowing the lawn hearing Job, and it changed my life as far as how I feel about love and joy – and appreciation, and all of the stuff above.
Values. This is what tends to unite people overall. This is also how you then have factions of people into religious groups. But then you have religions like protestants that have many types of churches as opposed to Catholics with a centralized edict. Maybe Catholics need concrete answers and blueprints and are followers. Maybe Protestants’ values are more of a questioning sort who like different flavors in their coffee?
My spiritual advisor sees things through the lens of Jesus. From my limited reading and understanding, he tells everyone to sell everything they have and give to the needy. My advisor said to give first to the poor, and live off of what you have after that. Perhaps that is what tithing is to an extent? Does Jesus literally mean for me to sell all possessions – including my home – and somehow I will be provided for? Like everything with poetry, there can be metaphors and interpretation I see here differently that this type of flavor of Christianity. I see my role as a father and husband to provide, and to live a modest life – and EXCESSES from this should go to the needy.
Am I going against the Lord? If you listen to Charlie Kirk’s opinions – he talks about the OT and NT being equal and having different meanings. To oversimplify, when I am looking at Christianity – especially protestant – it’s like walking into a starbucks and seeing a menu with 800 things on there. You may see protestant flavor one – which is two dips of holy water, give away 5% of your paycheck, and do 3 hail mary’s. Protestant flavor two may be 16 dips of holy water, alms, and a prayer for needy people. All of the Starbuck have coffee as the base. But different people may gravitate towards different flavors based on values.
My spiritual advisor also appears to be friendly towards socialism. While my SA may have the massive understanding of how to make all flavors of coffee, my expertise I bring to the table here may be my understanding of 800 flavors of politics. And politics and religion do not mix well, at all. Consider having your latte exactly as you like, and someone comes in and pours grape juice into your coffee. Perhaps grape juice on its own is tasty, but when you mix the two, really bad flavors come out of it.
I posited to my SA that perhaps the awesome part of Christianity is feeling that Holy Spirit and wanting to give to your fellow man by your own free will. When you talk about socialism, this then presents the power of “tithing” to the state at the threat of gunpoint or prison. The “boot on your neck”.
I do not believe socialism is compatible with Judeo Christian values of GIVING. Socialism is TAKING. Both distribute wealth to those who need it. However, one is giving from an abundance of joy, and one is stripping your wealth at the behest of the state.
I believe that when massive money is involved, power structures grow. And when power structures grow, this means MAN is involved in deploying money and resources and MAN determines who gives what to whom. This led me to realize that the pendulum can swing too far to the church – as we have seen massive power with the church over millennia. But the pendulum can then swing the other way, and with this – you have socialist states with a secular deity installed.
This translates to the fact that, for me, neither the church nor the state shall gain power over my purse. In my spiritual advisor’s formula, you give to the church first, then what is left over is yours. In the concept of socialism, they TAKE from your wages first, and you live off of what is left over. In this model – both profess to own YOUR work product. Both profess to accept YOUR wages – and you must TRUST they disperse this for you. Both of these require faith in power structures. And with this, I found that when too much money gets involved, the friction becomes more and more – and slowly, you are giving your free will to either the church or the state, or both.
What my take of love is – is DIRECT love. Last night I had a $15 bar tab for my wife at a birthday event. I gave a $15 tip. The booze was inexpensive and I had food taken care of. It was a VA, and I have always had a soft spot for vets. So I gave DIRECTLY to someone’s cause I cared for. It wasn’t a lot. But that bartender may now be able to buy 2 outfits for her little ones from that.
I did not give 10% or whatever to a church. I did not accept the state pointing a gun at me to take 40%. It was DIRECT love of others.
To me, this felt right. While my spiritual advisor’s interpretation of the bible may be accurate for that flavor of latte, to me, I wanted to get away from the pumpkin spice flavor and try some others that felt more right, for me.
One big thing I posited to my spiritual advisor – I love the back and forth with ideas. I don’t like being “preached” to. I like self discovery. Asking probing questions that have me thinking. And my question back to them was….
“Would it not make sense to them that the OT had to do with law and order and macro purpose – and the NT was about how to treat your fellow man while living in an orderly society?”
This reminds me of a video I saw about the LA mayoral race. I am not following it super closely, but the current thinking there is – “the government needs more money for programs and to get the homeless into treatment”. This is the moral and ethical stance provided by the socialists today. If we just had more money, we could solve these problems. This is then what happened to the Palisades fires…
To be fair, some of these programs probably then provided meals or clothing for some of the victims. But the victims thought they would get a check from this so they could rebuild. Instead, the power of socialism funneled charity into govt and non-government orgs and the actual victims saw little to nothing from $100 million.
Pratt then looked at one of the people on the debate stage and said something like – “let’s go down there and try and get one of them into a program. You are going to be stabbed. They don’t want treatment. They want drugs.”.
This is the disconnect between the moral left and the pragmatic center. Endless giving of money isn’t going to solve any problems, as long as you have big government and lots of layers between you and the people who need the help.
There are two major solutions here:
- Eliminate crime, bust some heads, clear encampments, arrest people
- Eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from government and non government entities.
This tells me overall that there is a lack of faith in what happens to money given to churches, secular charities, or taken by govenment.
To me, direct one on one giving to someone, of my own free will – not only brings me joy, but ensures help is going directly to the source. This then cuts out the middle man. It promotes that we do not need institutions between us and giving to someone else.
I would argue that my flavor of latte Jesus would approve of. To give, of your free will. I can tell you this – the overwhelming joy I have with this Holy Spirit stuff is not just wanting to write a check to an org for $100, or put $100 in a plate for offering. It changed my life in how I now see people, community, and my individual responsibility in DIRECTLY helping someone else. I have helped people for years with career advice and planning. I gave TIME.
With this – I believe MY flavor latte is this….
- OT provides law, order, and purpose for society. They talk about marriage and procreation a lot.
- NT provides a way to directly help your fellow man and community DIRECTLY.
I believe that this was one of the problems to the Jews – is that Jesus was getting rid of the intermediary and he was a threat to Judaism. Sure, there’s the blasphemy part, but look at what happens to people when they try and tell people to shrink government or the church and directly help fellow man? They get shot at, and sometimes killed. Jesus was murdered. He essentially tried to teach people direct, one on one charity to others. Lead by example. Share your holy spirit. Heal people.
Overall, if you are Christ-like, you would revoke socialism and consider it theft. You would revoke tithing to a church, and rather give directly to people. Why? In BOTH cases, you can see how more and more money going to a central institution then creates temptation, power, and ideological control. If you disagree with a socialist, you are thrown in prison or executed. If you disagree with a church, you are ex-communicated or shunned – in both cases, the power of large institutions over you wield control over you that Jesus was having no part of.
So I think if you want to help clean up LA, or any messed up city, giving more money at this point has solved nothing for 60 years. The big government cannot help alone, the big church can’t help alone. You need ORDER first. Once you have ORDER – you can then have people investing in these communities. This creates jobs. Tax revenues to pay for services. Churches pop up and those with excess money give to the churches. This ALLOWS for one-on-one Jesus-like living. You can then produce children and live safely. Costs aren’t excessive due to bloat and you can afford these children who will tend to the fields, work in your store, or help at home.
Therefore….
Christianity best multiplies not through large institutions accepting cash or socialist governments seizing your wealth. Christianity, in my opinion, flourishes in safe, orderly societies that allow for investment, productivity, and excess wealth that can be gently taxed by the government and gently tithed by the church – but you have excess! And more excess allows you to DIRECTLY give – from the Holy Spirit, not through obligation to institutions.
Does it mean I’m not a Christian because I want safe streets so I can give a homeless man $5 without worrying about being stabbed in the street going there? I remember my wife commenting on the terrible shoes the minister had at the church where my mother’s service was. He was poorly dressed in cheap clothing. And I told her this – “this tells me he lives off of the bare minimum and is walking the walk. He is preaching not because he wants earthly possessions, but because he wants to share with you his love of mankind and to spread the word”. I see these massive churches on TV, and how these pastors are flying private jets. It’s disgusting. It is essentially trying to grow a brand name corporate charity enterprise. I would take the guy with shitty shoes every day…..
Because he is walking the walk in them. Shitty shoes and all.
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