Forgiveness

There has been a lot that has occurred in the last week.  I have been both surrounded by the love of friends and railed against people who only want to use me.  In the midst of it all and in writing my piece on prayer forgiveness was put on my heart.  Forgive others in the measure that you want to be forgiven.  A tough concept for me.  I don’t previously haven’t forgiven easily.  I hold grudges and hate.  I would see my enemies crushed beneath me.  Now I have started to forgive those who trespass against me.

Most importantly of all, I have decided to forgive my greatest enemy.  I have decided to forgive myself.  I harbored ill will against my own failings, weaknesses, stupid decisions and base desires.  A born overachiever who was taught to be mediocre at times, sometimes cast in that roll by my own demons and others by peoples errant perceptions of who they want me to be. I forgive myself.

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How to Pray Properly.

Last night was a rough night.  It was filled with pain and prayer.  Yep, the two P’s. Funny how they go together.  It is the equivalent of getting religion while in jail.  It is gone as soon as you get out.  My understanding is this pain is here to stay for a good long while or until the offending body parts are removed.

So by now I bet you thought I was praying for the pain to pass, right?  Well you’re only partially right.  I prayed for a lot of things, but mostly for forgiveness of my sins and perceived sins.  After all, what is a little earthly pain compared to the pain of burning in hell for eternity? A perspective shift.  I begged for forgiveness.

And by telling you, I just broke one of the rules for praying as set down by Yeshua (Jesus). But I want to make a point and teach something religious for a minute.  (Not all of my posts are filled with self pity…lol).  Most of us believers in Christianity have been incorrectly taught about how to pray.  That probably includes you.

I’m no biblical scholar, priest, etc. I do not profess to know all things Godly or ungodly, so please take what I’m going to say with a grain of salt, then go look it up in your bible and formulate your own opinions on the subject.  After all, it is your immortal soul at stake.

1. Pray in private and/or secretly. Praying before men gives you your reward.  You are seen. (Matt. 6:1-:5) If you want YHWH (God) to answer your prayers, then pray in secret and he will reward you openly.  (Matt. 6:6)

2. Do not use vain repetition. Remember when we were taught how to say grace? “God is good, God is great, let us thank him for this food, and bless the cook. Amen”.  Or the best of all the “Lord’s Prayer”?  How many times do we still use these prayers as adults even though the bible specifically says not to vainly repeat words. So do not use them. (Including the Lord’s Prayer.  It is an example of how to pray, not a prayer to be repeated). Pray from the heart.   (Matt. 6:7)

3. Do not just ask for stuff. The Most High God is not a waiter.  This runs counter to the “Secret” and other such teachings.  But Scripture says that YHWH already knows what you need and will provide it for you.  If that is the case, then why are you “speaking” wealth, health or a mate into existence?  Yeshua teaches not to use vain repetitions and not to ask YHWH for what you need.  (Matt 6:7-:8)

4. Praise the Most High God. Always recognize the Most High God as being God.  Praise him continuously.  (Matt 6:9)

5. Submit to His Will. Recognize that it is not what you want to happen, but His will that you should submit too.  Tat means He gets to decide what happens to you. I can’t tell you how many non-believers have been created because they were taught that God is supposed to answer all of their prayers.  The Most High God is not a genie granting wishes.  Remember we serve Him, not the other way around. Ask for help to accept what happens and is happening.  (Matt 6:10)

6. Ask for sustenance. Pray daily.  Ask for what you need.  That does not include such things as cars, women/men, or a lavish lifestyle.  The Scripture talks about food. Tty to limit requests to those things that are essential. (Matt 6:11)

7. Ask forgiveness of your sins. Here is where me and most Christians disagree. See the common thought in Christianity is that you get into heaven by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  I think that it requires more.  You have to actually follow the teachings of Christ.  Christ taught you to ask daily for the forgiveness of your sins. He also taught that you would only be forgiven in the same measure you are able to forgive others.  If all you need to do is be “saved” then why would your Savior teach you to beg forgiveness from the Most High God? So you have to ask to be forgiven every day. (Matt 6:12)

8. Protection from Satan and Sin. Ask not to be led into temptation and for deliverance from evil.  This should be a daily inclusion.  People say that once you are saved then the Devil cannot touch you, but that’s not wholly true.  You can be led astray and must guard against it!  Ask for deliverance from the greatest adversary in your life, the one trying to corrupt your immortal soul and separate you from God.  (Matt 6:13)

I encourage you to read the remainder of Matt 6:14-:34 if you profess to be a follower of Yeshua (Jesus).  Then read what he preached on Prayer and fasting.  Move forward in your spiritual life and teach your children how to pray properly.  I have been enlightened in writing this post and learned somethings. I hope that you have been helped as well. Study to show yourself approved to the Most High God.

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Use me until you use me up.

I really need to talk to someone. Too bad I have so few real friends.  I got really bad news last Friday.  Not that fleeting kind of bad news, but the real serious real bad kind of news.  After my drunken stupor, I talked to three people.  The response from all three was what I expected.  Support from 2 and an “I told you so, hopefully this is a wake up call” sort of response from the third. To bad it was the third that I really needed just to provide a little sympathy.  It was not a wake up call.  It was simply another step in my predetermined future that I refused to fight off.  From my perspective its all just a matter of not if its going to happen, but when.

Anyway yesterday, I was frustrated about a lot of things.  I needed someone just to talk to.  Not even really to talk about what was on my mind or what process was frustrating me. Rarely do I want to talk about those things.  I just wanted someone to talk with me and make me laugh or to listen.  Then I got a phone from an old friend, someone who used to be my best friend, out of the blue.  Immediately I suspected the reason for the call.  Unfortunately, I was right.  He called, as most of my “friends” do, not to see how I was doing, but to ask me a legal question.

It was an important legal question about transferring power of attorney from a sick relative of his.  I understood the call.  I was glad that I could offer some advice to reduce the burden on his family. Yet, I still hated the call.

I’ve gone through a lot.  Still am.  Some of it the fault of others, much of it my own fault, some of it fate. Sometimes I just want someone to call me just to ask genuinely how I am doing. I probably wouldn’t tell them really.  I’d probably give them the usual “surviving” or “staying out of trouble” or “great”.  Rarely the truth because my truth is subject to exaggeration and melancholy best expressed through irony which is not appreciated by everyone.  However, most times when people call and ask how I am doing, its really just a polite asking before they ask me for advice or free legal assistance. Those times just breaks my heart. They send a clear message that they really do not care how I’m doing.  They only care about themselves and what is important to them at the moment.

I’d rather they just skip the bullshit and say what’s on their mind.  Its an insult to only ask about me out of some misguided need to try to be polite.  If you want to be truly polite then apologize for not calling me before needing my help.  That I could embrace.  That honesty would make me feel less used.

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Debt Free. A shopaholics tale.

In the past I have dealt with emotional stress by eating.  I ballooned up in weight to nearly 300 lbs.  Health problems got rid of the weight.  While I am still technically obese as defined by today’s medical community, I look pretty good.  I’ve vowed to never let myself go like that again. (Which of course reminds me to buy a new scale and check my weight.).

I replaced eating with shopping as a way to deal with my problems.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still an emotional eater. I noticed it first when I changed jobs several years ago.  I stopped eating during the work day. With the new job came a loss of many of the emotional triggers that I had built up during my work day to help cope with an unhappy work life.  This was all confirmed when years later I returned to the former job to do some contract work.  As soon as I sat down in the familiar setting the eating began. Epiphany.

I have always been someone to fill my life with things to provide happiness.  When it was not food, it was toys.  Not literally toys, but things.  I remember in junior high school I would buy books and comic books to escape my life.  As I progressed into adulthood it became computers and computer parts.  Then, of course, gadgets and video-games.  I cannot even begin to tell you how many cellphones I have had over the last 10 years.  I would guess at least 1 for each year. That’s about 8 too many.  (I hate talking on the phone.)

The most expensive thing I ever bought leased to heal an emotional wound was a luxury car.  I was hurt that my not yet ex-wife had taken a new lover who gave my kids Christmas gifts.  I bought an E-class Mercedes-Benz to make myself feel better.

These days I have realized my shopping habits.  I still am horrible with money.  I’ve made a lot in my lifetime and I’ve spent a lot.  Most of it is just forgotten junk strewn about my tiny post-divorce apartment.  I own 2 xbox 360s and 1 PS3.  Oh and let’s not forget the Wii that sits unused in my room.  (Well not completely, my daughter plays it on occasion.). My house is literally littered with stuff I do not need and do not use.  Money wasted.

So because of money issues, a long story, I have decided to take a new continue a path I started a while back.  See while in college I had racked up about $30,000 in debt.  I paid it off in two years.  I’m smart.  I have been a trained financial planner of sorts.  I studied investments.  I have a decree in Economics from a top University. I figured out how to accelerate debt repayment thanks to the internet. Presto, mostly debt free.

So now I am older and find myself, thanks to the economy (mainly), and a thirst for financial freedom in a similar place.  I have a ton of debt.  A veritable mountain of it.  A good deal of it is not from acquiring toys so much as trying to live above my means while facing a shrinking income stream.  (No, I’m not broke…).

Most of the debt actually has nothing to do with what most of you are thinking.  My credit card debt is a mole hill compared to the rest of it.  In fact, I am gonna ignore that debt.  Its the rest of it (student loans and the IRS) and the cash flow (cash flow is king by the way….its how most of you debtors live even though you are in over your head) that’s the problem.  I do not have the cash flow that I used to have (but I’m working on that too.).

So I’ve decided, for a bunch of reasons, to try to sell everything in my house that I do not actually need or use and put the money towards paying off things.  This goal is not just to reduce my financial footprint but to also simplify my life.  I need simplicity these days.  I have to learn continue to learn and grow in being content with my life and what and who is in it.  Follow along, it will be an interesting journey….

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Work. Sleep. Repeat.

As a kid I would wonder what was the meaning of living.  Today as an adult that question still seems to dominate my thoughts. Unfortunately, I still do not know the answer.  That fact renders life some what pointless.  They say that brilliance is a hairs breath away from madness.  I balance on that hair.  Sometimes you really can be too smart (can you ever really be too smart?).  Contemplative maybe.  A classic over thinker.  You know, when thinking gets in the way of doing and being and living.  Thinking in a bad way.  Not thinking and curing cancer or righting social injustice through thought combined with purpose and a dash of action.  No, just thinking.  Thinking about why am I here and what is my purpose and what is the point of it all?

When I was a kid I used to wonder (still wonder) what would be my life’s work.  No, really, I did wonder about it.  I remember being really young around Junior High School or less (random number in my head 7, so maybe I was 7 when it started) and trying to figure out what people would remember me for when I died.  What would my headstone say? Morbid thought.  But life seemed to me to be a bunch of people running around distracting themselves from the harshness of life.  Work, sleep, repeat.  I did not want that for myself.  I did not want to be like that. I wanted to know that what I did mattered.  So I decided that I did not want to be forgotten. Problem is that I also believed (and still believe) that in the end everyone will be forgotten.  Nothing that we do will last. Time is not a kind master.  Memories are not kind mistresses. No one will now why the street is named after you or care. (There is an MLK Jr. street in major cities across America, I wonder when if it ever reminds people of the man instead of just you have entered the black part of town.).

So I think my brain has been broken for a really long time.  It sees my life at times like a movie where I just watch things happen knowing that in the end nothing matters.  I think of my colleagues and few friends.  I think about their lives.  I listen to them. Unfortunately, I both see and hear.  I listen to other lawyers recounting some long ago legal victory or loss and I think, “Is that it? Is that the sum of your life? Some case that no one remembers or cares about?”  I do not want that.  Yet, I am there too. I built my house on sand without the bliss of ignorance.  I know that it is on sand, and that specific foundation will cause my life to be devoured and forgotten like last week’s meal.(stop thinking about what you ate last week and pay attention…fucking nuerolinguistic programming.).

I know my brain is broken.  It does not see happiness.  It sees only sadness and futility.  Intellectually it knows everything is the way it should be and that I have reasons to be happy in the moment.  It knows it, but refuses to allow it.  Instead it wakes me from slumber with anxiety and worry.  I worry about problems that do not exist.  I create problems by ignoring those that do even when I have more than enough skill, training, and intellect to solve most of them quickly and efficiently.  Procrastination, nay avoidance and procrastination, have become my bed fellows.  My own inability to find the spark of life, that joy of living, makes living more of a chore than a pleasure.  Work. Sleep. Repeat.

I admit that I never understood suicides.  Until now that is.  Now I understand.  Life grinds you down and when it does not, your mind may get stuck in an endless loop like mine and perceive that it is all worthless and harsh and unfair.  The truth. Or at least my truth. The only relief, when not tortured by dreams of failure and plight is the sweet escape of sleep. Sleep the living death.  The pain stops when you are sleep (I heard that pain only exists in the mind).  Well that and play videogames (ever notice how much better that fake life full of fake adventure is and how easily people decide to live there instead of facing the suckiness of real lives here? -End tangent.).  So we find suicide as a pleasant alternative.  (imperial “we”). When I was younger, I thought suicides were just weak minded individuals without the backbone to suck it up and deal with life.  Now I know better. Each day that someone does not attempt to escape is a good day and takes bravery and strength because deep down they know that tomorrow will not be any better than today. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

That is how I see life.  I wish I did not.  I wish that I could escape into the bliss of making the San Diego Chargers season the high point of life.  And when that was over move into celebrating the Celtics.  But I cannot.  I see beyond the red pill.  Those are kids games used to divert us from the fact that we do not live our lives.  We endure them as workers in the capitalistic machine.  We are given sporting events to quell the rage that would result if we were forced to understand and accept that our lives are ours and not just for two weeks in June when we are on vacation or for two days a week when we are “off”.

I have wished that I could escape into movies. I admit that I am getting better at this.  But it is still all dross and distraction.  I know that we sit as fat couch potatoes watching people pretend to live adventures that we could only dream of rather than engaging in the adventure ourselves.  Reality television is not even real. It is made up and scripted with producers who may not hand out scripts but work situations and events to make them more dramatic and create tension.  They cut the scenes to hint at things which may never have occurred all to help sell you products during commercials that you do not really want or need. Your want and need are manufactured.  Work. Consume. Work. Consume.

Commercials.  Ah…marketers and spin masters. And what is the selling point? The point is that you need things to make you happy.  Buy this car and you will be happy.  I own the car and am not happy because happiness cannot be found in a car.  If only you had this “easy button” life would be “easy”.  I pushed the button.  Nothing happened.  I was no happier. We were all sold the American dream of home ownership, yet most of today’s homeowners do not own their homes. The bank does. The system provides you a 30 year mortgage and you lap it up. You sign up for mortgage slavery that says for the next thirty years you will work to pay 3 times the purchase price of your home. The fine print says that you’ll probably die before you own it.  Mort=death. Blue pill.

I wish I was not so smart. I wish my brain was not broken. I wish it was broken more….

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