Jesus, the Political Prophet

                                                     “Jesus, the Political Prophet”

Most of us were brought up in Sunday school and church about a young, white Jesus, holding a lamb with meek expression on his lovely face. Unfortunately, our religious mentors have done us a great disservice, shielding us from who Jesus really was in the context of the world he lived in. 

 

Jesus has been portrayed as a savior to our souls, which he is, yet he is much, much more and his ministry has a large impact on the world we live in as it has across the centuries. His traditional portrayal as the meek savior has rendered him powerless to change the world we live in, even as we believed that he has saved our souls.

 

Jesus didn’t come only to save us from our personal sins, for he said, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” John 12:47. He came to save the whole world in its full context, including our lives here on earth and situations in which we live. That includes the conditions of oppression, racism, poverty, and human rights. He compels us to follow him, not only to be good persons, but to be change agents for a better world. That broader context puts us into situations where our physical lives are at risk, even unto death as martyrs. Need remind I us of how Dr. Martin Luther King gave his life for civil rights. During the terrible persecutions of the church in the first three centuries, after Christ, an early church father is quoted as saying, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” This has been the case across the centuries. In our lifetimes, we have witnessed the brutal lynchings of persons who died defending their faith, in the face of evil, from Emmet Till to George Floyd and many more. 

 

Dr. King knew of the Jesus who changed the world as the political prophet of all time King harnessed his movement to the political Christ and endeavored his followers to do the same. Time and time again Dr. King quoted Jesus, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 6:24

 

Dr. King reminds us of the consequences when we empower our faith to speak and act truth to power. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Matthew 5:12 History records the transformation that occurred when the civil rights movement unleashed the political and spiritual forces by millions who “walked the talk,” risking and sacrificing their lives for justice and peace.

 

Jesus began his life as a political figure at birth, when he was threatened to death, by the despot Herod, who sent his death squads to Bethlehem to massacre the innocents when he didn’t find the baby Jesus. The family were forced to flee to Egypt, becoming political refugees, and living three years as undocumented immigrants. How often have you heard that story read or preached in your church? Not in mine. 

 

Jesus was born in Palestine, a trade route which brought people from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Therefore, it is safe to say that Jesus had brown complexion, black hair, and an Arab nose. He and his family were of “low estate, raised in an insignificant village. He apprenticed from his father, in the carpenter trade, living on subsistent wages. Aramaic was his mother tongue even as he would learn Hebrew later to defend his Bar Mitzvah, at Jerusalem Temple.

 

As a young prophet, he broke the religious laws, incurring the wrath of the powerful religious leaders. Every act of breaking the law, was a political act, and he knew it. He encouraged his disciples to glean the fields on the sabbath. He healed and forgave sinners on the sabbath. He respected women as his equals by befriending Mary and Martha. He debated theology with woman at the well, which motivated her to share his messages to her fellow Samaritans, who had rejected her. He forgave the young prostitute who under the law should have been stoned. He even welcomed Mary Magdalene “the other women who accompanied him, as his disciples.

 

His actions spread like wildfire, even reaching the leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus’ fate was determined long before he arrived in Jerusalem in Holy Week.

 

Three times in the Gospel of Mark, he warns his disciples, “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31

 

His arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey challenged to the political authorities, declaring without saying anything, that he really was the king over political kings. We all know about Jesus cleansing the Temple from the corrupted money lenders and the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. Jesus was so angry that he whipped them with lashes. He attacked the entrenched economic system of the Temple. 

 

Later, at his trials with Herod and Pilate, he responds to their challenges who he really is and how his kingdom is more powerful and enduring than theirs.

 

Pilate found Jesus guilty of treason against the Roman Empire. Only prisoners guilty of sedition were were crucified. The crime was so heinous that the cross was used to so that the prisoner would experience the worst form of punishment and death.

 

 Jesus suffered the cross nor only for our sakes, Jesus died for the whole world, not just for pardoning our sin for us to enter heaven. Jesus died on the cross so that we can join him to bring justice and peace into the world. His kingdom isn’t only for heaven, it is also for the world, as we confront violence, racism, and injustice. That’s why his prayer urges the kingdom to come first to earth and as it is in heaven. Salvation of the earth means the redemption of this world and the health of our planet. 

 

Jesus’ life and message are prophetic and political, and we ought to believe and act with in him as such.

 

 

What Would I Have on my Tombstone?

Metanoia (to be transformed)

What would I have on my tombstone:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, 

He emptied himself

“The meaning of Life is to find your gift… The purpose of life is to give it away. Pablo Picasso

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:1-11

Sergio Longino Ortega Believes I am His Hero

Sergio Longino Ortega Believes that I am His Hero

Dani Higgins, a Polk County educator assigned to keep migrant children in school, recruited me to be a mentor to agricultural worker children living in Mulberry FL, nine miles south of Lakeland. She was collaborating with a scholarship program, “Take Stock in Children.” TSIC, is a Florida based program that provides student scholarships to children whose families earn less that $25,000 a year.

Students qualify if they keep their grades up through high school and don’t get in trouble in the law. They are vetted in the 8th grade, then are counselled and receive a mentor to meet with them at least twice a month. Upon graduation, these students automatically a scholarship which thay apply to go on to college or trade school. Most attend local colleges like Polk State and the University of South Florida.  A few have gone on to Harvard, MIT, and Stanford with full rides.

I began my mentorship in 2017 with Sergio and another boy, students at the Mulberry High School. I met with them for a half hour each, once a week.

Sergio is an only child, born in Mexico. After his parents crossed the border, as undocumented cizens, Sergio was four years old. They entered the agricultural, migratory labor force, picking fruit and vegetables. He was born with congenital issues including severe hearing loss and a damaged heart valve. His conditions had set him back from school for several years.

These issues didn’t deter his determination to overcome his disabilities and to get an education. His parents supported him in attaining his goals. When I started mentoring him, he was wearing a falty hearing aid, attached to his skull. He barely could hear. His speech was slurred. His dry humor was contagious.

As an illegal alien, he and his parents lived under the threat of deportation.  Then President Obama signed an executive order that established the DACA program.  This gave children who had entered the US illegal temporary residency status. I remember when he told me when he attained temporary status.  This gave him the privilege to get his driver’s license, pay into social security, and get a job legally. I remember his joy, punctuated with a big grin  

I spent two years with Sergio and during that time his life was to have a radical transformation. With Dani’s help and support of the First United Methodist Church of Lakeland, we put together a program so that Sergio could receive internal hearing implants.  The Mid-Florida Speech and Hearing Center purchased the modern hearing aids. First Church with donations from supporters purchased the aids, each one costing $5,000.00. A call was made to the Lakeland Regional Medical Center who contacted an EMT physical, Dr. Lakhani who offered to do the surgery to insert the aids, pro-bono.

Sergio came through the procedure without a hitch.  Then the magical day when Sergio and I sent to the Speech and Hearing Clinic where he was fitted with his hearing aids.  The change was remarkable.  Sergio’s face lightened up as he began to hear sounds he had never heard before.

After the fitting, Sergio and I went to lunch to Reececliffe’s for lunch.  As we were conversing, he suddenly stopped me and ask, “what are those rushing sounds?”  I said that it was the traffice outside. Then he said, “I can hear people at the next table talking!”

He was launched into a new life.

Shortly thereafter, he graduated from high school, and as expected he received his scholarship worth $30,000. He enrolled at Polk State College. He attended for a semester, but decided to switch of over to the Traviss Technical School.  A year later he graduated as a licensed auto-body repair man.

Throughout most his life, he worked the fields during the summers with his parents. As his parents reached their senior years they found stable work in a nursery, leaving behind their migrant work.  Sergio found a job as an auto-body repair man.  

We continue to check in with each other. Many times, Sergio has expressed his appreciation for all the support he has received, yet he never has told me that I am his hero.

What I do know is HE my hero.

Let's Talk About Love

In English, “love” has many meanings. The problem is, the word is misused for purposes other than "I love you." These have nothing to do with love. The misuse of “love” is abused. Such as, “Let’s make love.” Is that what it really means? Or does it really mean, “let’s f**k”. When you pick out a dress or jewelry you say, “I just love this.” How can one love an inanimate object? Or music. “I love that melody.” “I would love to have a hamburger right now.” What you are saying is anything but love for another person.

The Greeks have eight words for love, each with its own unique definition.

Philia - friendship
Agape - Selfless love
Philautia - Love of self
Pragma - Enduring love
Storge - Affection or Familiar love
Eros - Sexual passion
Ludus - Playful love
Mania - Uncontrollable eros

But the most profound one for me is “Agape,” love beyond self, or selfless love, which Jesus the Christ uses and lives by, applying it in word and deed to all he meets and relates with. Perhaps, the best example is his friendship with Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus, his mother Mary, and Mary Madelaine, whom he considered among his closest disciples along with Peter, James and John and the rest of the disciples.

Another example, is that Jesus felt “compassion,” an active use of Agape:
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36. In the Greek, “compassion” means, “his guts moved.” Feeling what others feel, radical empathy.

“The second one is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31

Two of Jesus’ parables teach love in action: The Good Samaritan, Luke 10:30-36  and the Prodigal Son (parable of the two lost sons). Luke 15:11-32.

The best expression of Jesus’ love with women, especially women condemned by society: the woman who was caught in adultery, John 8:3-11 and the woman at the well. John 4:5-42

So, Agape is my definition for love.

Larry Rankin, April 06, 2023

Whose Earth Is It Anyway - Celebrating Earth Day in the Denial of Climate Change

 Preached at the Beacon Hill Fellowship, April 23, 2023, Tim Sizemore, spiritual leader

 “Whose Earth is It Anyway?” 

 

“The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” 

Psa 24:1 KJV

 

The late Dr. James Cone was the founder of Black Liberation Theology. He spent most of career as a professor of Systematic Theology at the Union Seminary in NYC. He wrote,

“Until recently, ecological justice has not been a major theme in the liberation movements in the African American community.... Justice fighters for blacks and the defenders of the earth have tended to ignore each other in their public discourse and practice. Their separation from each other is unfortunate, because they are fighting the same enemy—human beings' domination of each other and nature.

 

The logic that led to slavery and segregation in the Americas, colonization and apartheid in Africa, and the rule of white supremacy throughout the world is the same one that leads to the exploitation of animals and the ravaging of nature...People who fight against white racism but fail to connect it to the degradation of the earth are anti-ecological, whether they know it or not. People who struggle against ecological injustice but do not incorporate in it a disciplined and sustained fight against white supremacy are racists, whether they acknowledge it or not. The fight for justice cannot be segregated but must be integrated with the fight for life in all its forms.” Sojourners Magazine, July 2007. 

Psalm 8, makes the comparison between the “bigness” of God and the “smallness” of humankind.

 

“O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. ...When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, ...whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” 

Psalm 8:1-5, 9 NRSV

 

Julian of Norwich, the 14^th century anchoress from Norwich, England, whose writings are the earliest surviving writings in the English language by a woman, wrote in one of her “shewings,”

 

“I know well that heaven and earth and all creation are great, generous and beautiful and good... God’s goodness fill all his creatures and all his blessed works full, and endlessly overflows in them... God is everything as I see it, and the goodness which everything has is God.”

 

The Psalmist in 121:1-2  exults “I will lift my eyes to the hills— From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” KJV

 

The psalmist declares out total dependance to Mother Earth, this our sacred and compelling duty to keep her healthy for the future of humankind. 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Gen 1:1-2 NRSV

 

The Hebrew word for God is pronounced “RUACH.” with the emphasis on the guttural sound, RU-ach. It is a feminine word, meaning - Wind, Breath, Life Force.” In the Greek it is “pneuma.”  Pneuma adds an additional meaning to RUACH’s two – “Spirit.” It is the power encountered in the breath and the wind. 

 

There is also the image of God “hovering” over Creation that it is about to be. The writers of Genesis give us an image of a dove sweeping, moving, and hovering, spreading  her wings to protect her chicks.

 

These are all feminine words and images. The writers of Genesis suggest that the Earth and the Universe were created by a “mother life force.” 

 

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; Gen 1:1-3 NRSV 

 

Astronomers with powerful telescopes tell is that the “Big Bang” occurred nearly 14 billion years ago. In 2015 the Webb space telescope revealed the most distant galaxy so far from earth. 
It is known as GN-z11. It looks like a few clumps of red, fuzzy matter. It is estimated that it was created about 2% into the life from Big Bang. 

 

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So, God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Gen 1:26-27 NRSV

 

Twice Genesis mentions that humankind was made in God’s image. It doesn’t mean that we were made to be gods, rather we were created as God’s image, that is to reflect God’s divinity. Later, in Genesis 3, the woman, and the man, make the terrible decision to consider themselves as gods. And as they say, the rest is history.

 

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

 

God’s blessing means that She entrusts man and woman to have dominion over the rest of Creation by living into God’s image. By dominion, God “entrusts” them to care for Creation. Dominion is not “domination.” Humankind does not have a unilateral control over Creation to do as they fit, even to eventual destroy it for their own selfish gain to power and riches.

 

Genesis concludes the story of creation when Ruach declares  “... to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the “ruach” of life, I have given every green plant for food.” 

 

“And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” Gen 1:31 NRSV

 

In all the previous stages of creation, God declares what She has just made as being “good.” But here he declares all that she has made as “very good.”

 

Genesis 3 records Adam and Eve’s “Sin” as their desire to become as their Creator. However, the fifth century theologian, Augustine of Hippo, redefines their sin as the “Fall,” or as the “Original sin.”

 

The original meaning in Genesis 3 is that in the Garden of Eden, the woman and man CHOSE to sin against God.  God never made them to sin. God gave humankind the freedom to choose between good and evil. The rest of the story of humanity is based on how people made that choice and acted on it. This had nothing to do with humankind’s original goodness as recorded in Genesis 1. 

 

The false doctrine of “original sin” was applied by the Church into scaring people with “hell and damnation.” 

 

Matthew Fox joins a host of Christian mystics across the centuries who challenged the false orthodoxy of the Church who abused God’s original blessing. 

 

What does all this have to do with us today and what are we going to do to about it to save the our planet?

 

1. We must reclaim our mother-consciousness, embedded in our essential goodness, as declared in Genesis 

 

2. Fox writes what the Celts have known for centuries. Mother Earth is first Bible. 

 

In 1972 James Lovelock proposed the “Gaia” theory. Earth is a living organism, with living and inanimate beings are created by Mother God. They manage the climate and biochemical conditions that make life on earth possible. Gaia can recreate and heal herself if humankind allows her to do so.

 

3. We must become a part of the healing of the earth. We must become activists for the sake of our survival and all created beings. It’s a lot more than recycling and ceasing the use of plastic and foam cups at church dinners. Our activism must be much more substantial and transforming.

 

For example, join environmental activist groups like the Sierra Club. The Polk County League of Women Voters is active promoting EV vehicles and organizing household coops to install solar panels. 

 

The Lakeland Branch of the NAACP is advocating for the removal for toxic waste dumps located in African American communities. Fumes from these sites have a direct correlation with low-birth weight in newborns and causing asthmatic patients.

 

We must lobby our politicians to support laws which address climate change, or to vote them out if they don’t. 

 

We can stop throwing our shoes at our TV's or to just pray that Mother Earth will heal herself without our intervention. The good news is that if given a chance, Mother Earth will return to her original goodness.

My Faith Journey

I have never known when I didn’t believe in God, even as a child. One of my earliest memories is that I would look up into the sky and watch the puffy clouds move, as they were pushed by the breeze. I was filled with wonder, wondering what they hid beyond.

Time isn’t measured by what was, is now, or in the future. There is no time, but the present moment, as it happens. It is kairos, the Greek word, as the “right time” or “opportune moment.” Another way to understainding kairos is to take every moment in time a an everypresent time. It has a profound effect on how one lives life without regrets for the past or anxiety for the future. The evangelist Luke quotes Jesus, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Luke 12:25-26. 

The Buddha refers to this as “mindfulness,” where the mind focuses on the moment, without clinging to the past nor worrying about the future.

After 74 years, I can articulate these truths which define my faith more than when I was young. Then, they were intuitions. Now I know.

My parents gave me the foundations of faith. God is love who accepts me without judgement. I am to pass this love to others and have empathy and compassion for others without boundaries- unlimited and grace unbound, extravagant grace.

Later, I discovered what was the foundation of their faith as they past it on to me and my brother, David. 

“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;…  
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27

This text simply means that all humanmkind is made in God’s image, as all of us are made from God. In modern, scientific terms, we are part of the stardust of the “big bang.” We are all made out of the same stuff, so why all the division and hate, of power over others, etc?

Sunday school taught me the stories in the Bible. I like to hear about the young David who defeated Goliath, the giant. That story defined by inate choosing of the underdog, confronting the bully. Today, it defines my motivation towards social justice and speaking truth to power.

My faith reached a crisis point as a 19 year old, when I was in Neuquen, Argentina in mission trip in 1967. This is where I met and fell in love with Trudy, my future wife. The crisis centered around my choice of vocation for the rest of my life. On the last night of the mission, Trudy and I with other couples slipped out of town to the hills behind the city, here the gentlewind and the lights of the city flikered in the distance. We had a special moment together, both realizing that our friendship was more than that.

Early next morning we returned, met by the angry missionary concerned that townpeople assumed that we had committed sin, and it would affect his reputation and his work in the new church. A he haranged and shamed us, I felt that I was sinking into an abyss. I called out, “God catch me!” I felt as if a hand caught me.” I felt peace surround me. I realized what my vocation was to be. I felt “called” by God to be a minister to the Gospel and to serve Him by reaching people for Jesus Christ.

The experience was not that suddenly I was “saved.” I knew that Jesus loved me and had always accepted me, since I was born. It wasn’t that I “had accepted Jesus as my personal Savior,” saving me from going to hell.” “In fact, I have never believed that there is a hell.

Shortly thereafter, I entered into another crisis of faith. I couldn’t find any Christian spirituality in any of the churches I was going to where I was attending Emory college in Atlanta. I met a young man and fellow student, Charles Haines who was a follower of Meher Baba (compassionte father) an Indian Perfect Master, or Avatar, a messiah of this age, who claimed that he was the reincarnation of all the religious leaders accross the centuries, including Jesus.

Another powerful influence in my faith journey is the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. I have written about this experience in one of the earlier blogs in my Storyworth. 

Charles Haines and I decided to attend the public memorial service of Dr. King aMoorehoue College, in mid-April, 1968. As I witnessed his casket and family pass by, I quietly committed my life as a Christian activist directing my life to confront the Goliaths of this world for the sake of Christ.

I left the group after about a year, but I gained some insights from that experience. Onpee of them is that all major religions have a common root - belief in one God, who creates and loves humankind. That God created humankind into essential goodness, even if humankind chooses to sin, or rebel against God. There is an essential ethic of doing good and rejecting evil. and that humandkind to act with empathy and compassion to others and creation.

All these essentials are found in the teachings of Jesus in his parables and the Sermons of the Mount and the Plain. Also, we are to model Him in the way he treated people with kindness and understanding. In other words, Orthopraxy, right action, is more important than Orthodoxy, right belief.

Right after I left the Baba group, a fellow student invited me to attend worship at an innercity church, Trinity United Methodist Cburch in downtown Atlanta. I could write volumns about this experience, since I went through junior and senior years at the college plus the three years at Candler School of Theology at Emory.

There, I learned the practice of the Way of Jesus (I prefer to name Christinity). I was exposed to the inner city poor, especially in the black community; youth violence, addiction, and injustice. And yet I met wonderful people, mostly victims of a system that relegated them to second class citizens or were caught up in making poor choices in their lives.

Trinity was my incubator for ministry where the work was messy and often failed to meet my expectations for success. I consider the time at Trinity as the foundation in ministry, a proving ground to all that followed. Trinity has influenced my whole ministry. Trinity defined by orthopraxy

I was able to focus on how I would dedicate ministry as one who confronted bullies in solidarity to the undeserved as to tilt windmills as Don Quixote, fighting the good fight of faith in the face of impossible challenges, almost always going down in defeat.

After I married Trudy, I felt as if dark clouds surrounded. After years of uncertainty, anger, and rage. I was distressed and confused. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I had my first extended depressive episode in 1983. I was diagnosed in 1992 and began taking medications, and later began therapy address maladative behaviors due to compisating the bi-polar bad habits. The combinations of medications and therapy helped to clar my brain and live a more normal life.

Through all those terrible years I never felt that God has abandoned me, nor judged me for my condition and behavior. I felt loved and embraced by God, who felt my pain and nurtured me through it all.

I began the Five Day Academy for Spiritual Formation in 2001 and am now present at the 2023 Academy. I attended the 2 Year Academy in 2011 - 2012, which was 8, 5 Days in two years. That is, I have attended about 20 academies.

The academies guided me into the practice of spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditations in the Christian traditions. Prior to the bi-polar being stabilized, I wouldn’t have been able to absorb the teaching nor the practice of spiritual formation, nor to be able to meditate.

The 5 Days and the disciplines that I began to practice have been a game changer in my mental health.

Now living into my “fourth stage” of life, I found a new faith expression. Three years ago, I joined an insight meditation mindfulness group. It is based on the Buddhist teaching in a secular fashion. I have discovered that the Buddihst and Jesus teachings converge. The Buddha lived 500 years before Christ. Who knews if Jesus’s teachings were influenced by the Buddha. I realize that Jesus is more an eastern sage rather than just focused on the West.

In summary, I have discovered that if one is to have a growing faith, one must have an open heart to learn and receive new experiences, and leave behind old ones that no longer work, or have meaning. The other is that faith involves mystery and not certainty, for if you only relay on certainty, then there is no faith. If there is no mystery, then there is no opportunity for God to reveal what God has in store for you. If one refuses to doubt, there one closes the opportunity to guide you into a new field of faith.

So, I come full circle on my faith journey, and I leave this blog as a open book, because faith development never ends while I live on this side of the veil, until it is fulfilled on the other side, waiting for new surprises to behold.