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Happy Summer everyone.

Yeah, I know. The last time we met was in January. Since then life has been a whirlwind, but things have settled back down a bit. I have missed writing. Every time I wanted to sit and pen something, it just never felt like the right time. Today felt right. It felt like it was time to get back to penning some thoughts. As I write this, my mom is snoring in the background and there is Country music on the T.V. It's funny how being in a place of peace can help bring you back.

Being home has always centered me in a way nothing else has. My home consists of NYC, Bronx, NY, and a house that has had the same phone number for almost 40 years. Home consists of family - my mom and my siblings that are no longer just a phone call/text message/face book post away, but who are now within walking/driving/ bus distance away. While the people change and grow, home still remains home.

At one point in history people never traveled more than 33 miles away from home. Now we can travel halfway around the world. Sometimes it's for leisure, sometimes it's for work/opportunity, sometimes it's just for adventure. No matter how far we go, we always have a place to come back to that is home.

I pray that in wherever life takes you, whatever you do that you have a place to call home. Now it may not be my definition of home, but it will do the same things for you that it does for me. It'll keep you grounded. It'll allow you to safely go exploring the world and your divine purpose.

Thoughts to think of

Happy 2015.

That seems a bit presumptuous to say. The year just started, how do we know that the entire year will be Happy. Maybe it isn't that the year will be happy, but that you will have more happy moments than moments that cause you to question life and faith.

I hope this year brings deeper relationships, deeper meaning to life, and a deeper understanding of your faith no matter what it is or who it is you believe in.

I found myself thinking today about a few different things. I'm a native New Yorker, born and raised, but have been living in Florida for some time. I say this to say my experiences are a bit different from a good portion of the audience. Where my understanding of things come from may be different from where yours comes from. The thing that I find separates us is not the differences, it's that many of us forget that our understanding come from our experiences. We forget the humanity behind the dissension. We forget that when people disagree, they are disagreeing from their own experiences. I recently came across someone who has an issue with the Bible. He says the Bible is false doctrine because it is man-made. I read some of the comments that were posted in response to his video. Many people were attacking him because of what he said. Maybe I did not read further in the comments, but I did not see at any point where someone tried to engage him in a dialogue to find out why he thought the way he did. I did not see where anyone had stopped to understand his point of view and agree to disagree. I found more people attacking him. Not to compare him to Jesus, but it did make me wonder if that was why many people embraced his teachings but also why many more people rejected his teachings. It makes me wonder if people seeing the world from their point of view kept them from seeing Jesus for who he is. I wonder if people seeing the world from their point of view kept them from embracing the spirit of that which Jesus taught. I wondered further if people seeing the world from their point of view kept them and continues to keep them divided on many of the fundamentals of the teachings of Christ. Do we spend more time splitting hairs on non-essential things and not enough time on helping each other understand and even when we try to bridge the gap, are people willing to meet us halfway?

My challenge for this year and beyond is to remember that what we think is right comes from our own experience and that all we can do is explain it to someone but that we should not attack them for their difference. I challenge you to embrace another's humanity and strive to work together instead of splitting hairs on non-essential things. I bet you will find that the people who you believe have the biggest differences actually have the greatest similarities.

Happy 2015 everyone.

Forgiving yourself

We all make mistakes. No..Scratch that..We all get ourselves into situations that seemed like a good thing at the time we made the decision. We work off the information that we have at the time we make the decision. Once we realize what happened, we get down on ourselves. We get upset. We kick ourselves for being so stupid. We think about what would have happened if we had done things differently. We live in Regret. It eats at us until we just can't handle it anymore. Everyone deals with this differently. Most of us deal with it by being destructive to us and those around us...

This topic popped into my mind because I was thinking of the advice I received recently. I was on the bus talking with this gentleman in his 50s. He was telling me his life story. In the midst of the conversation, I said "I hope to have as much Wisdom as you do when I get to be your age". He responds with "The way you gain Wisdom is by learning how to forgive yourself". This may not seem like much, but it blew my mind. If you think about it, that is why most of us stay where we are. We don't ever stop and say " I messed up. I understand it comes with life and learning. I forgive myself for making that decision and I am moving on". It's simple to say, but complicated to do because once you forgive yourself, you have to stop living in that moment. You have to stop playing the tape in your mind over and over again. You have to stop being a victim. We need to treat it like we do with information we learn in School. You know what I mean. We learn it, study it to get a good grade on a test, but we forget it the minute we move on to the new topic. We need to study it to learn what we need to learn from the situation, but then move on.

We don't need to keep reminding ourselves of the unfortunate decision we made. We need to let it go and let God use it for good. Our unfortunate decision will become our testimony when we learn to forgive ourselves. Think about any one of the men and women of the bible. Every one of them made an unfortunate decision. From Abraham to Moses to David and onto Paul. But  God was able to take their unfortunate decisions and use them to not only make them better people, but to also give us some help on how to let go. Paul made the decision to persecute Christians. Paul is created with penning the majority of the New Testament. King David made the decision to have a man killed to take his wife. David is known to be a man after God's own heart. Moses killed a man, then had to go back to the scene of the crime in order to go get the Israelites. He led them out of slavery to the Promised Land. I believe that in the above situations, as well as others throughout the Bible, that if they hadn't forgiven themselves for their decisions, they wouldn't have been able to do what God destined them to do.

Are you keeping you from your destiny because you cannot forgive yourself for an unfortunate decision? Are you prolonging your pain and suffering because you can't forgive yourself? Are you replaying the tape in your mind over and over again? It was an unfortunate decision. Stop playing the tape and forgive yourself. You have too much to get done to keep dwelling on your unfortunate decision.

It needs to grow up!

I was thinking the other day of Joseph and his brothers.... Joseph we all know was destined for greatness and almost ruined it by not keeping his mouth closed, but that's a story for another day... What made me think about him was his brothers. There was a significant age gap between him and his older brothers. Joseph grew up being not only the youngest, but the favorite son. I can only imagine what they were thinking. To have been a fly on the wall the day they decided to sell him into slavery.... 

The reason why I was thinking about them was because of what happened later in the story when they had their encounter. His brothers did not know it was him. Many believe that it was because they thought he was dead. The revelation I received was that they never let him grow up. To them,except Benjamin, Joseph never stopped being the bratty little brother. He never stopped being the brother that said "I had a dream that there were 11 bushels of wheat in a circle bowing down to me."  They did not allow for him to grow up, to change.
I came to this revelation a few days ago because I was thinking that there were things in my life that grew up with me, but then there are other things that either didn't because they weren't supposed to or I didn't allow them to. I think that is a mistake many of us make. When we don't let things grow. We get caught and our ideas on something become stale.

But why is that? Do we sit down one day and just decide not to let things change?

Or is it just easier for things to stay how they are and where they are?
I found myself thinking this as I approached my 28th birthday.... I realized that there are a few things in my life that I either missed out on because I never let them grow up or that I got into because I was going on old information....

What about you? Are there things in your life you need to let grow up?

Trust

I found myself deep in thought the other day.. I was talking with a friend trying to decide what to do in a situation.. it occurred to me that both of us were afraid.. afraid to trust our instincts. It's funny how when you're a kid you have no problems following your heart, but as you get older it does become harder. Is it that we feel there is more to lose? What do we really have to lose though by not following our instincts?

This thought led me to the story of Paul (Saul). He wrote the majority of the books that have become the New Testament. How hard was it for him to follow his instincts? How hard was it for him to trust that he wasn't losing anything but gaining everything? I guess it was pretty hard. No one else that is in the bible was blinded by God. Some can argue that this was because he was persecuting God's people.. but I believe God had to get his attention. I believe that because Saul kept ignoring his instincts, that quiet voice, God had to appear in a grand way...

Have you ever noticed that in your life? Have you ever noticed when something is blaring and obvious?
Have you ever had a horse blinding moment?

Can we really know what anyone is going through?

I've always wondered about why we don't see more of Jesus's thoughts in the bible.. Especially when he is going through stuff.... Why is it that we never see what Jesus really thinks about certain situations. We do get a glimpse about how he feels the night before the crucifixion, but image living with that your entire life and not having anyone whom you could talk to about it....Imagine knowing that you are going to sacrifice your life for people who could care less and not having anyone you could talk with who would understand....

That might have been the hard part I think.. The not having anyone who could understand. Many people would eventually go through the agonizing pain that Jesus went through.. but did they really understand what he went through, or were they just using their experience to empathize with him...

Something to think about...

Life has been so busy as of late that this has been on my mind for weeks but I've never had the time to write it until now.

I've mentioned it before, but for those of you who don't know, King David is my favorite person in the Bible.

I just love his story. By far, in my opinion, he is the most human of the characters. There aren't many characters whom we meet when they are younger and then are allowed to follow their path to Biblical greatness. Most of the characters in the Bible we meet when they are adults and know nothing of their lives before their encounters with God.

David's story is one of the most commonly known stories of the Bible. He was a Shepard boy, was anointed king, killed Goliath, ran from Saul, was friends with Johnathan, became king, and had a Son - Solomon....

Now Solomon's mother was Bathsheba. Bathsheba was Uriah's wife. David had Uriah killed and then married Bathsheba....

I say this to introduce my thought....

Why did David have Uriah killed? Why did David feel the need to end a man's life to be able to take a woman for his wife?

It's been said that David let lust drive him to do these things... But I believe that is only part of it. I believe that at this point in his life  he wanted something that he had gotten himself - not because he was king, and not because he was a man after God's own heart but because he wanted it....

This brings up the question are we supposed to do any and everything to get what we want? Are we supposed to: Not be in a place where we're supposed to be at, watching something in which we're not supposed to be watching, and have someone killed in order to obtain what is our heart's desires.. Even if it is only for a moment? Are we?

I also wonder why Bathsheba? What was so "special" about her that he had to have her? What was it about her that he was willing to risk a lot to have her?

Maybe ultimately all it came down to was David made a choice. A choice at the time he felt was a good decision..... even if it was only for a moment....