#45

I sat next to an elderly lady in the airport sometime ago. We began chit-chatting about travel plans and then she said "Can I tell you some thing?" I replied a well rehearsed yes, to keep the conversation moving along.

She then ask me to excuse her while she got on her soap box.

She said "This has been on my heart for sometime and I am glad you are letting me get this off my chest. I personally think churches are money making entities. I realized this when I saw my pastor driving a better car than anyone in the congregation. It makes sense that churches want people to lean on the Pastor's understanding rather than the church goer's own understanding of themselves and the world around them. God made me perfectly, my heart, my mind, my soul, my body. I have the same human faculties, if not more, than the Pastor. Constantly, Pastors say that the Devil is the enemy. The only enemy in life is yourself. God is everything therefore God is the metaphorical Devil, God is you. God is every you can think of and more. Life is all about perspective. How ever you choose to view your own experience or the experiences you happen to encounter is up to you. The fear of being away from God in our next life is what compels us to give money to the church. How can I or anyone be away from God in the next life when God is everything? Logically."

I laughed out loud. She had a valid argument.

I had a lesser soap box in response to her spill.

I said that, "The church is a place for people to gather to lift each other's spirits, that aspect might just be worth the cost of admission. Churches instruct their members to repent, which is a noble notion. But, not in the way most pastors mean it or the way most members receive it, I think this is where the misconception is. Repentance should only be for you to make peace with your past so that it does not haunt you. For if you are not at peace with yourself then you can not continue on your journey peacefully."

In Air Philosophy

Imagine if you were only a mind. Would you consider yourself free? Or trapped in darkness? Without a doubt, you would be free of the sensory perception of the physical body and physical world. Free to think whatever you would like. Free from judgement. Free from obligations. You could essentially create a world within your mind. Something like a dream. But, you would only be a mind. Therefore nothing that you create or "imagine" in the "dream" world would ever truly exist in the way that you exist. They would only exist because you exist. Basically, only you would exist. You would be an artist, painting a picture for only you to admire. But eventually you would get bored of that picture and alter it, maybe even start from scratch again. This process would continue and continue forever. Such a bleat existence that would be. It is my philosophy that we are more than a mind. We are also body and soul. Our mind gives us the ability to imagine, rationalize and take logical action in response to the events that we perceive through our body. The body's main function being to interact with the world that we have created with our soul. The soul is eternal. Our souls are the self-teachers of our world. Our souls being the very fabric of existence. You know.. that feeling that is way more than just a feeling. I contend that the state of being of our interconnected souls is reflected in the world that we are sensing and rationalizing around us everyday. Everything that has happened to you in your particular experience has been a lesson from yourself to yourself to teach you something that you would not have learned any other way, or even wanted to learn any other way. The only credible source in your reality is you, us. (Remember we are interconnected souls) When the soul is at peace the mind and body work to their fullest capabilities. If you can ease your soul, you can ease those who are interconnected with you and create heaven.