Wednesday, September 21, 2016

In Which I Update my Circumstances

I moved from Florida (apparently, I can't do large cities) back in with my mom in Michigan in March. We got a car, which I am driving much better than I thought I would (haven't driven since I was 15). Thanks, years of video games!

I was fired August 18th.  I was told bereavement wouldn't count against me; I just wouldn't be paid for those days.  I was told this by personnel.  Well, apparently they do count (eventually, because I checked and they were not on my record).  The next day I got sick, I was fired outright.  No coaching, no warning, nothing.

I did not fight it.  I don't want to be there.  If I'd known they could hold up my unemployment pay for at least a month, I might have fought it.  Fight for a job in retail that was killing me slowly?  How twisted and sick is that?

I haven't been so happy since I was in college.

September 9th, I published part 3 of my series.

September 18th, I published part 4.

September 27th, I will (just kidding!... maybe).

Happy Equinox everyone!

In Which There is Ranting about Hypocrisy and Love

Why is it easier for people who claim this is a Christian country to support killing people halfway across the world than it is to feed and shelter those at home?  To want for them to be healthy and healed?  If you value your money/things more than someone else's life, you are no Christian.

Those people have remade God in their own image.  They must be questioned, their corruptions brought to light.  Why accept the bold faced lies that are used to manipulate the population into compliance?  Can so many so-called Christians forget the one thing Christ said was more important than all others:  "love thy neighbor as yourself."   I'm not a Christian by any terms, but that is what I aim for on the daily.  That is the goal of life, the universe, and everything.  Love thy neighbor.

Love them because they are you. Love because it is the only way to unify and heal.  Love whether or not they deserve it but because of the person you are. Love because of the person you wish to become. Love because it is the only way to peace, equality, and real freedom.   Love until you forget about you and just become love itself.

The teachings of religions have the potential to unite people, but they are used as tools to divide us. Rather than cloister ourselves within the exclusive walls of particular faiths, why can't we just agree that we value life?  When I see the news, I see human suffering in an astounding array of forms.  It does not matter where, it does not matter who, what nation, what color, what thoughts they have about the history of humankind or the nature or preferences of the creator (which, by the way, would have created EVERYONE, if you believe there's only one God).

It doesn't make any sense to me.  Have your faith, have your beliefs, fine, but if you think you have the right to kill someone because they disagree with your beliefs, it makes you as equally radical as they are.

If your God is Christ, bloody well act like it.  Get your little egoic self out of the way and be love.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

In Which Love is Discussed

When we fall in love with someone, it is our own feelings that we get so caught up in.  We get hooked on what we feel in response to them.

There can be an adjustment period, where we really learn how this other person is as the boundaries lower and we become closer. 

Our love can deepen and expand, where we appreciate their little quirks and idiosyncrasies and truly admire this person.  And it can be mutual and beautiful. 

Of course it exists, and of course it is real, but it's in us, always in us.  Our ideas of reality,  of what the other person feels or thinks can be flawed, but our love isn't really misdirected; it's just that sometimes we don't realize that the light/love we see shining from someone is really our own.

Some people blaze their own sunlight right back at you.  It really does exist.  It's no guarantee things will work out, unfortunately, regardless of how powerfully you both feel, but it exists.

You know that song,  "if you love somebody, set them free"?  It's one of those things that always struck me as being true, and it made it easier to let people go.  If I love someone, I always want what is best for them, and to let them make their own choices.  If they choose to stay with me, wonderful.  If they choose their own path away from me, I respect it, even if it hurts.  I wish them the best on their way.  It's also helped me respect my own choice to leave when a relationship had run its course.

We don't choose how we feel, but we can choose how we act on those feelings.

We never know what someone has planned when they come into this world, and maybe our paths coincide for a long time, or maybe only briefly.  Maybe they came into our lives to show us how profound our own hearts can be,  when the light of our own love can be so brilliant we think everything else is shining too.

If you cultivate your own light, eventually it's not going to be such a heartbreak when you don't see someone shining back at you, because you can see your own way.  You won't need a lighthouse in the distance to reach for, because you are your own sun.

So many of us confuse want, need, attachment, and control for love.  Love is an outward radiation.  It is light.  It is not something we need from other people to fill ourselves--if we look at it from that perspective, we will always be disappointed.  We will feel as though no one reaches us because we're not meeting their light with our own.  And if we are busily radiating our love, there is little darkness left within us.

Note: this was initially a reply on Facebook but I considered it relevant enough to make into a post.