Jesus

Since I was raised a Roman Catholic
I am also Christian
but in contrast to other Christians
RC's focus is on the gospels and not
as much the other books like Duteronomy
or Leviticus, Galatians, ...etc....

I have had the honor of sitting in on
several Baptist Bible studies and sermons
and I loved them but I really wonder
about all churchs - communities really -
how anyone can truely live up to everything
is states in the Bible.

Here in upstate New Jersey we are getting ready
to celebrate....yes, celebrate Halloween where
the kids and adults alike get dressed up and be
silly for the day or the week depending where you are invited to...
it's alot of fun for most of us...

down where I experience the Baptists ( we have them up here too even
one next door to me - a church I mean ) some say they are against
Halloween because it's sorcery.....well!

All Hollow's Eve is All Holy Eve and a time for Spirit
for all our loved ones.....departed and soon to be departed
it's really an important time as a community to share
in grief and in joy....

Jesus, was and is an awesome example of how to be friendly
in times of greed and poverty....and grief and joy

a member of the Baptist church reminded me
when he asked, "what is the greatest gift of all?"
and I was tempted to say it but instead I asked 'what?'
and he said exactly what I would have blurted out before
but I thought 'awwwwh, you'll sound really corny - don't say it'
he said it for me....LOVE
that's what Jesus reminds humanity to think
Folks lose alot more without LOVE that with it
Folks gain alot more with LOVE than without it.....LOL

That is such a lovely thought d-Knots, only I do have one negative question to ask, so many times I hear/read that there is not much to distinguish between love and hate, many say they can mean the same, and that is what I have a problem with. How many times have we had a row with a loved one and said I hate you, when what we really want to tell them is that I dont hate them, that I do love them really, but at that particular time, what I meant was, I dont like them. Hope this makes sense. Maybe some people are afraid to open up to there true feelings, including myself.

I'm honored, too, that you mentioned it, Vanilla.

sure,

on an open forum it's not desireable to open up
and I've been there rowing with family....

I miss my spirit friend Dreamer.

She quoted it best so far to date,

"the opposite of Love is not Hate it's Indifference.....";

not sure who said it first though here I credit her with it's trail to us.

So, when you're angry and say "I hate you" suddenly you're thinking is
it true do I hate them.... When I look back and think about all the times
I missed some of the folks I grew up with and how naive and ignorant I
was not holding on tighter to them... The folly of youth is one thinks they
are invincible and everyone and everything will always be there regardless
of the whip of the winds of Time.... Wow! Blows the mind right up...
Dreamer's statement of old makes me wonder did I not Love them enough
to hold on tighter that I may have shown indifference to them by not holding on.
Wow! some Life Lessons are hard to swallow... I have a few that are holding on and
won't let me forget where I came from...

I Love Jesus's essence, too.
Who knows I might not like the guy in reality
but what his message, has been, passed along is worth the study...
because he is an adaptable personality that really affirms
genuine caring about each other and the self in
the universal community not just a narrow minded
hole in the wall day in and day out....LOL.

here we go I am going to pick out a quote from the Bible
it's 1 Corinthians Chapter 13
some of you may already know it....
this is the Apostle Paul
the one that was just spreading the word he didn't
actually know Jesus
this is part of his response to questions
put forth to him from the Church (community) at Corinth

1
1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
2
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4
3 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
5
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
6
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
7
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8
4 Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
9
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
10
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
13
5 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I may have heard it once somewhere while a child in Catholic School
though it was faint. I heard it clearer when I watched a movie entitled
"The Mission" main actor Robert De Niro; it's interesting it was assigned as
part of, both, a World Racisim and one of my English courses.
The movie portrays the various angles of Christianity's essence,
Religon controlled by Politics, Nature, genocide, ...etc. The priests
happen to be Jesuits but not the worst of the lot of course it's the
politicians that ruin life as we know it....

ok, time to step down off the soap box....LOL

LOVE really is the glue
that heals ills
another form of the basis of TCM (traditional chinese medicine)
Think Positive that you will be well again...soon!