thought of the day.444

a cycling truth:

From pain, joy.

thought of the day.443

Thought this was pretty cool:

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

— Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What exactly do Christians worship when they worship Jesus?

Jesus is worshiped for the same reason people have worshiped all gods—there is a benefit to it. In the case of Jesus, the ultimate benefit is eternal bliss and the ultimate penalty for failing to do so is eternal torment. But these are “reasons” for worshiping Jesus, not Jesus himself. What I want to know is what exactly are Christians worshiping when worshiping Jesus?

Let’s assume for the sake of the argument here that Jesus actually lived and was who he said he was. It seems we have his body, his mind, his message, his actions and his essence or being (God) to consider.

I would assume Christians don’t worship his human body which was hardly extraordinary. Perhaps they worship his resurrected body but it seems strange to worship a body, even one that can float into the sky, fly through space and alight on some distant throne.

Do they worship his mind — his message? Though some of his ideas were certainly excellent, nothing he uttered was original and certainly nothing was extraordinary. In fact, he was not even as enlightened as his contemporaries who argued against the evil of slavery while he remained silent leading to countless humans being bought and sold like animals with the approval of the church. His promise to torture people forever beyond the grave seems a bit lacking in the areas of compassion and empathy and led to the mental anguish of countless others. These two examples alone are reason enough not to praise such a mind and even if we found no fault with the message, surely Christians aren’t worshiping a message.

Is it perhaps his actions that are praise-worthy? Miracles and such? But then one is hardly worshiping “Jesus” but merely long ago “actions”.

Is it that worshiping Jesus is worshiping “God”? If we assume that “God” is the character revealed in the bible then shouldn’t we ask ourselves if we really want to worship a being who committed, commanded and condoned mass killings of men, women and children and myriad other distasteful things along with his more pleasant ones? Even if we justify such wickedness, these are “actions” not God himself leaving us with nothing to hang our hat on.

thought of the day.442

“You” will never “be” dead because “you” ceases to exist with your last breath and the non-existent can’t “be” anything.