Everything in it's time!

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)
Many of us find ourselves in a position that is in stark contrast to what we imagine our lives should, or could, be. Every day is a struggle, just to make it through the day. For those of us who are married, there is a constant juggling act between the children, the job, the housework and spouse, and a more often than not oversized circle of friends, relatives and social and civic commitments. We are tired, frustrated, angry and fed up. And tomorrow we'll be even more tired, frustrated, angry and fed up. So how did we get here? God's word says, "my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge". And that's the key. We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.

We don't know who we are, we don't know where we're going... So how do we start to figure out what we don't know? We begin with, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and ALL these things will be added unto you". Such a simple, yet profound, scripture, yet it is the first step in our lifelong journey to destiny. To seek God's kingdom means to find out what the universe (you can call it the heart or mind of God) is revealing to you, concerning you. The truth that is hidden in it, concerning you. The Bible says that "before we were formed in our mother's womb, I knew you." Which means, there was a plan for us even before we were born. This plan was imbedded in our spirits, in our soul. But we have to seek it out, by paying attention, being watchful, prayerful, listening to our own inner voice (our own passions, our dreams). This is what Jesus meant in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said "watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation." Pay attention.

Unfortunately, rather than seeking God's kingdom FIRST, and allowing the things to be added to us, we tend to go after the things first. And this is where we begin to go wrong. Because the "things" are not what will make us happy (things like a good job, great career, awesome marriage, perfect children, etc). The things, in fact, can make us quite miserable. Because going after the "things" mean that we have entered a rat race that we can never win. The boundaries do not remain the same, they keep changing depending on all sorts of crazy stuff, like how old we are, or who we are trying to impress! But if we seek the Kingdom of God first , delight ourselves in him, what happens? We begin to be aware of what is really inside us. Then we begin to know our own true desires and dreams, those born out of nothing but our own spirits.

Once we have reached this place, where we know what we want, we know where we're going, and we know what's good for us, then we can begin to go in that direction. It is still the responsibility of every individual to make sure that the path they are on is the right one for them. It is the responsibility of parents to give our children wings and teach them to fly; but in the end each person will make the decision to lift those wings and fly, and decide in what direction to fly. And when the time is right, we'll soar.

"And God has made everything beautiful in it's time" (Eccl. 3:11)
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven" (Eccl. 3:1)

My father died on 3 September 2009. He died alone, peacefully, at the MSJ Medical Centre. His name was Llewellyn Sylvester Spencer. I was not there. But the last time I spoke with him, I told him I loved him, and he said he loved me too. It was on the phone. Thank you God that you made him alert enough to hear me say that, and be able to respond. I wish I was there. I wish I could have gone back home before he died. I wish I had spent some time with him over the summer. I wish I had given him a hug sometimes, or just touched him on his hand sometimes. Or just taken him for a drive. I wish I had called him more often.

I spent a lot of time, wondering why he couldn’t let go of the past and move on. But the truth is, I also had not let go of the past and moved on. Although we had developed a good relationship, I also never did open my heart completely and just let him in. I loved him – absolutely I did. But without even realizing it, I had not completely removed the block wall that was silently standing between us. I never realized I was doing that with my father till now. And now I understand. I understand that I also had a role to play in our relationship – it was both of us who loved each other dearly, but were unconsciously afraid to just let it rip. I know my dad loved me, I know he did; I saw it in his eyes every time I looked at him. And he was always proud of me. Me, who hasn’t accomplished anything of note; he was just proud to call me his daughter. And now I’m proud to call him my dad.

Life, and death, have a way of teaching us some hard lessons about ourselves and each other. If we are lucky enough, we learn those lessons and become better persons. We learn to forgive quickly and completely, and we learn to live with our arms – and our hearts - open wide. We learn to love fully, not tentatively, and expose ourselves to the ones we love and trust that they won’t hurt us. And if they do, we forgive them and love again because we know we have also hurt others. We learn to “let everything happen to [us] – beauty and terror”. *

I love you daddy, I really do.

*Quote taken from the poem God Speaks, by Rainer Maria Rilke

The truth

The truth is always there, lurking around, waiting for us to acknowledge it. We have to set it free, for it to set us free.

What's in a name?

I've been thinking lately about how we are so pre-occupied with finding out who people are identified with. Like, are you a republican or a democrat? christian or muslim? buddhist? no? atheist? what? And if you say "christian", there's a further breakdown - anglican? baptist? evangelical? It's funny, we don't know how to approach someone or interact with them if we don't know anything about them. We don't like having to listen to what our own spirit is telling us about someone, or just take the time to get to know someone without having any pre-judgements. It's why we miss so many signs in our relationships. We make assumptions based on what category we are able to put people into, but we usually don't see the truth because it's hidden behind those labels. If we take the time to "know" each other, we will "know" the truth about each other that we need to know. And that truth will set us free! That is, free to do what we need to do AND free to be what we need to be with, or for, each other.

We talk too much

I think we talk too much. I mean, we, people. Do we really need to have an opinion on everything? There's just too much talk shows out there. Too many experts. And not enough people just listening to each other. We just want to give our opinions, because, of course we're entitled to them. But here's my 2 cents. Sometimes, there is no need for an opinion on a matter. Some things (many, many things that pre-occupy our conversations) should just be noted and left alone. They're not issues! The Miss USA/Miss California thing is NOT an issue. Naming a place Mt. Obama is not an issue worth rioting over. The name is kind of weird sounding, yes, but so what? Oh, for goodness sakes! Shhh! Be quiet. Listen. You'll hear so much more.

So have you ever wandered about God's face? What does God really look like? Is He really jewish? is he white or black? Ever thought that He might be Indian? Well, why does it matter anyway? Are we saying the face of Jesus is the face of God? Hmmm, interesting. But I'll tell you my 2 cents on this matter. God has no face (well, not just one), nor race nor religion. If we were all created in the image and likeness of God, doesn't it stand to reason that actually we ALL are the faces of God? Now, ain't that something? That should make us think twice before ever calling someone ugly again!

Think about it!

God vs. science vs. religion

Yesterday on The View I heard a discussion about religion vs. science, what should and should not be taught in the schools and why (or why not).

So here's what I think. There is no distinction between God and Science. And there are no discrepancies. God is God no matter what we believe, or don't believe. The difference is between religion and science. They're both based in man's heart, or mind. Science is based on research and religion is based on faith. But maybe if we didn't see the differences so much, we would actually discover the similarities between them both. How about we stop pushing against each other, and look again?