It's me, mike hillebrecht

Attention: The follow contains language and words that have been deemed inappropriate by someone – not me – who thinks for you. Readers discretion is your choice.

The single most asked question for all of humanity is, “What does this all mean?”

This is a damn inclusive statement. ALL covers a lot of territory, physical and mental, which can only be defined by the person who utters the question. However, I don’t know of one person who hasn’t reached the end of their limits at one time or another and exhaled this plea of clarity into the chaos swirling about them.

My answer to this question will not sit well for many of you. So why offer it you may ask. Because I’m tired of people asking something as obnoxious as this and not truly wanting an answer just so they can play the role of the victim. They seem to need to express their feelings, venture into the womb of despair and seek solace and comfort from any who will pander to their moaning. If that seems harsh, get over it because the answer is worst.

What does it all mean? Who told you it had to mean something? Shit happens. It is the by-product of eating.

Your chaos and pandemonium swirling about the life you’ve constructed is not unique. It is tailor-made by you, for you. It’s entire meaning is whatever you want it to be. So pick something noble, worthy within the bigger scheme of life. Or just forget about it. It doesn’t matter anyway – unless you want it to.

Are you trying to find some cosmic answer to your existence? What would having that answer do to your present situation? Bad things happen to good people just as easily as bad thing happen to bad people. The only common denominator is that things happen, period. Good and bad are simply judgments about the nature of how you view something. In other words, it only a meaning you decide upon.

So what does it all mean? If you’re going to ask, then as I said, make the answer noble. You think you’re the only one grappling with this issue? You’re not. So make your answer one which will help others to deal with the issues. Quit looking for an answer and be the answer. (God, I hate clichés! Proactive BS by all accounts.)

No amount of positive thinking is going to change diarrhea thoughts. You’re better off inhaling straight shots of Febreze and hope you recover from the tingling feeling of mountain freshness than trying to squeeze an ounce of lemon juice from the putrid filth swirling within your realm of perception.

Let’s get this straight: People suffer. Some more than others, but we all do it.
Life is like that, has been like that, and will continue to be like that. Truth hurts. Denying it doesn’t take it away. Accepting it doesn’t make it go away either. Making the best of it, somehow relieves it. Laughing when everyone else is crying, as strange as it sounds, makes it enjoyable for the moment. Hell, if it’s going to stick around, might as well make a party of it.

Jesus stated that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. Adults don’t get it, literally.

Jean Piaget was a renowned child psychologist who told a story about a study of how children process information at differing ages. He classified them as “preop,” the stage prior to being able to do mental operations; “conop,” the stage where only concrete thinking occurs; and “formop,” the stage where the child is able to think abstractly and complete formal mental operations.

Each child is given the exact same assignment where they are presented with a number of beakers with clear liquids. Three of these clear liquids when combined together would create a yellow liquid. The problem the children were to solve was to determine which of the three liquids produced the end result.

The “preop” child will mix a few of the liquids and then give up. The “conop” child will mix three liquids at a time, varying the three liquids throughout the process until the result is arrived or gets tired and gives up. The “formop” child will formulate a plan varying the liquids before actually beginning with a vague plan of how to conduct the assignment.

Which of these three children does the Kingdom of Heaven belong to? Which of these three categories do you fit in? That last one is kind of a loaded question. You’re possibly of an age where you don’t think a description of child development applies to you having graduated long ago from this stage in life. However, these descriptions are not age specific. They apply to the development all of us move through when confronted with a new idea, paradigm, or architype in life.

You ever talked to someone who glazed over when you began expounding your latest revelation? Preop meets formop. You ever listened to sermon that you felt so far beneath where you were at even though everyone else eagerly lapped up the words like a dog at a water bowl on a hot summer day? Preop meets formop. You ever scratch your head after listening to a teacher and wonder what did they mean from all that they said? Preop meets formop.

So where are you as a child of the kingdom of Heaven? Where is the person you listen to every week for guidance in this kingdom? Where are your friends, family, even your children?

Could it be possible that the Law is preop material in the kingdom while grace is formop material? What if the cross is conop while resurrection is formop? What if Love is really a formop matter that we’ve been treating as a preop issue? What if everything that you’ve spent the last twenty to thirty years learning came from people who never advanced beyond preop? What if faith was preop while grace is formop?

Adults don’t get the kingdom simply because the kingdom is a learning process you never graduate from. It is the ultimate continuing education program.

How often when you were growing up did you hear someone – typically a person displeased with your attitude – claim, “Actions speak louder than words…”? “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” was probably your default answer then, even as it is today. We hate it when others try to make us conform to their perception of how we should behave around them.

So, let me make a claim here which will be expanded within the rest of this posting: Grace speaks louder than belief.

A teacher recently said to me that beliefs guide our perceptions and values structure our actions. The trouble that we get into is when our actions run contrary to our beliefs, something he called cognitive dissonance. I’ll speak about that in a moment too, however, I want to explore these two issues of values and beliefs.

Beliefs guide how we see things in life, our perception. Each of us has a unique perspective on how best to live in this hostile environment called life. We focus on certain things while neglecting other items which often are right next to our center of attention. This is pretty common for instance when you’re driving a car. You focus on what lies ahead more than what is going on behind or beside you (except if you’re driving in Los Angeles). Novice drivers have difficulty at first trying to tune out all that flies at them when they get behind the wheel simply because they have never experienced the level of concentration required to propel a vehicle down a road faster than a bicycle.

I’m coming to realize that beliefs are not very dependable. Yes, you read that correctly. Consider these common beliefs: Santa Claus; tooth fairy; leprechauns; and the Easter Bunny. Before you dismiss any of these, realize that each of us clung to these as children. They guided the perception of our little world. Now that we’re older though, rarely do we permit them to influence how we navigate through our life.
Beliefs change with age or with greater knowledge. Today, we don’t believe that the sun orbits around the earth, yet it has not been too long since that was the prevailing tenet of all science. What beliefs do you presently have that could use a serious review? Probably many, yet, the uncertainty which comes from the examination keeps the vast majority of people from ever considering that there may possibly be a better belief to guide them.

I’m amazed at the number of people who feel compelled to ask one another what they believe. What difference does it really make if, in the course of living, a belief can change? One day you believe that you’re sitting on the top of the world, everything is going your way, and the next day, after you’re laid-off from work and hit a car leaving the parking lot, your top-of-the-world-life is in the gutter. Beliefs change like the leaves on the trees. What…don’t believe me?

Notice at this precise moment I have challenged a belief! How I look at something and how you look at something. Which is right? Both can’t be right, right? Can both be wrong? Can one be right for the wrong reason, or, wrong for the right reason? After all, aren’t beliefs just words anyway? Yes, Virginia, beliefs do employ words to describe what they are about. But what speaks louder than words?

Do you think that you’re very trustworthy? Is that a quality that you look for in others? How about courteous; are you one to open the door for others? These are two of the twelve characteristics of Boy Scout as defined by the Boy Scout Law. Believe what you want about the benefits of this organization, there is fundamental truth in the values which the Scout Law promotes. For those of you who do not know what the Scout Law is, it reads as follows: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. This list of twelve characteristics are the values which have defined who a Boy Scout is for over one hundred years. These values structure how a young man is to conduct his life at home, in school, on the playground, with friends and adults. Are these missing values in society today? Yes. Does it take an organization like the Boy Scout to instill these values into our children? If the family can’t do it, the schools won’t do it, and the church doesn’t think of doing it, and the media makes no money from it, then probably yes.

When I see how you handle yourself as a customer hands to you a $1,000 in $50 bills which are intended for your boss, then I’ll know you’re trustworthy, despite what you believe. When you let another driver enter into your lane to make the turn off without getting all up in their grill, then I’ll know that you’re courteous. When I see you respect the environment by picking up the napkins off the floor of a fast food joint, then I’ll know that you’re clean. This is how values work. We are hard-wired to them.

Do you find any value in family? As strange as that question is, there are some people on this planet who find there to be no value in a family. They’ve been abused, ostracized, humiliated, shamed and ignored by the very people who brought them into the world. They don’t like being around people like you because they see how joyful your family is and they’ve never experienced it. Your life is cognitive dissonance to them. Astoundingly, their life is cognitive dissonance to you too.
What do you value? Vague, I know, so let’s start here. What do you value in a friend? A great meal? A memorable vacation? A partner for life? In your children or parents? For each of us the answers will be different; however, we all have an answer which we are certain of, no variance, no shifting opinions. Values are like that. Stable. Solid. Unwavering.

We are attracted to those things, people, places, or communities that we highly value. Conversely, we tend to stay as far away from those same things if they have little to no value to us. Or at least we like to think we do.
Consider the person who places a high value on family yet spends 12 to 14 hours a day pursuing a career while missing meals with children and spouse, and weekly special events at school or with friends. Consider the person who values personal integrity but is consistently late to appointments. These two events are examples of cognitive dissonance, the psychological stress of acting one way when your values, and even your beliefs, are another.

Here is a prime example of cognitive dissonance for religious folks. Most value morality while having a low value on immorality. Grace is another high value item. However, no one likes the truth of the high value found among the immorality of grace. No, you didn’t read that wrong. Grace is immoral and it has the highest value of anything you’ll ever experience.

Morality is a human construct. It is the code we attempt to live by as a societal being. We use that code to define transgressions against the fiber of our social systems or to promote exemplary behavior within those systems. Our entire justice system is derived and evolved from this code of conduct. Morality adheres to the code while immorality abhors the code. Grace doesn’t even care what the code is, period! This makes grace immoral and religious people hate that. Sure, they’ll extol the amazing nature of grace and all that it has done for and to them, but when they are confronted with a liar, an embezzler, an adulterer, an addict, a pedophile, a murderer, or any other person who has been defined by the code as a transgressor, and they admit that grace applies equally to these types too, cognitive dissonance kicks in. When you realize that God is not moral, is not bound to adhere to the code of mankind, cognitive dissonance kicks in. When you understand that Love is immoral, cognitive dissonance kicks in.

Here is the granddaddy of all cognitive dissonance. Jesus said that we should love our enemies. So how is that working for you? Probably not so well, and for a good reason. Let me bring in another statement. Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. A whole lot of people have difficulty loving even their neighbor simply because they don’t love themselves, just how on earth does Jesus expect us to love our enemies then? It might be better to understand that our biggest enemy is our own self. We somehow think that we can ignore the conflict swirling around ourselves while trying to love someone else who we are not particularly fond of.

If you want to learn the high value of grace, trying learning to love who you are. The actions required to minister grace to yourself pale in comparison to those you’ll offer to another. You may believe that you are a child the King, and yet cuss yourself out for dropping taco sauce on your pants while you drive down the freeway. You may believe that you’re healed, but that 102 temperature you’ve had for two days says otherwise. You may believe that your blessed in your coming and goings, but people who prefer that you bless them as you keep going are speaking a language you’re too deaf to hear.

Before you jump on the faith bandwagon here trying to tell me this is how you live your life, let me pronounce your claim to be pure bovine excrement if you catch my drift. Don’t come at me with that “faith of Abraham” shtick because it only shows me that you don’t have a clue. First off, that entire eleventh chapter of Hebrews was not written for you unless you’re Hebrew. Second, all of those people who it seems had great displays of faith stood on the hope of a future event coming to pass, which just so happened in Jesus. For you to confess that your faith is just like theirs is to ignore the simple fact of Jesus 2,000 years ago. It doesn’t take any faith to believe for something that has already happened. This is why your faith has no real value if you’re going to claim it is just like the heroes of Hebrews 11.

Let me go one further on the value of your faith. Consider just how valuable it is since God had to give you His. You don’t even get to depend on yours – you experience the reward of the faith of Jesus. Honestly, you walk in the sight of what His faith secured, period. Quit hoping for that day to come when you’ll receive the blessing of your faith in Jesus. Finished! It means today what it meant then.

Notice how I just questioned the value of your belief, your faith. I’m not questioning the validity. I’m trying to get you to see how it shapes your actions. You can believe one thing and do something that is in complete opposition to its underlying tenets and its present reality. Grace, however, is precisely what addresses this cognitive dissonance, which is how I can claim that grace speaks louder than belief. If you don’t like the way you act, change the value of the belief that says you need to respond that way. Only grace builds the bridge you need to get from one course action to another. Only grace, given to yourself as well as to others, will allow change to happen.

Grace, in all forms of its immorality, is a life style that people recognize long before you spout off on your beliefs. Does it affect your beliefs? Most certainly. It will change you in ways that only immorality can. This is a value you need to seek after with all your heart.

What do you believe? What keeps you moving throughout the day when pressures hit you from all sides and you’re longing to just make it home to the security of your warm bed? What makes you believe that your bed will be warm? What makes you believe that your home is secure? What makes you believe that the pressures you’re facing are for your demise rather than your benefit? What belief do you have that tomorrow will be better? What belief do you have that says all of this is worth anything?

As a child, did you believe in good days and bad days? Do children today have good days or bad days? When did you first recognize that a particular day was different from another day? As a child did you eagerly anticipate the arrival of a bearded fat man, dressed in red, who broke into your home, stole your food, yet left toys as a payment, and then departed without even waking up your parents? What made you believe this was a good event?

Also, what made you believe that a tiny, winged humanoid would visit your room at night, reach under your pillow for a recently rejected tooth, and exchange it for a token of commerce? Did you ever believe that you could exchange all your teeth at once just to acquire the latest action figure? When did you stop believing in this merry little denture nymph? Did it happen when you came to see the return on investment in a root canal outweighed the void in your mouth and the token you’d receive in return?

How many of the things that you believe, things that you hold dear to your heart, were simply beliefs handed down to you by parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, bosses, even, yes, preachers? How do you know if these beliefs are as valid today as the day that you received them? Where would you be today if just one of your beliefs changed? Is it possible to change a belief? If it is, how come we refuse to do it? If it isn’t, why are we so eager to adopt them?

Is it possible to live a good life believing something that isn’t true? In this instance, is the definition of “good” attached to what is true, or to the belief in what is really false? If believing in something which isn’t true creates a life of opulence, fame and notoriety while believing in truth creates a life of bitterness, sorrow and depravity, does it matter to us, or to our friends and family what we believe? Do we believe for our sake, or for the sake of those we seek to impress?

Do you believe yourself to be a good person? Do you believe you are a bad person? Do you believe that you are both good and bad? Do you believe that the difference is only in the circumstances? Do you believe this to be true for others? Do you believe people, good or bad, are always just good or bad? Do you believe that can love a bad person? Do you believe that love can change a person to become good or bad? Do you believe that believing in the goodness of a person makes that person good when they are around you? Do you believe that believing in the badness of a person makes that person bad when they are around you?

Do you believe that God cares about how good or bad we are when we’re around him? Do you believe that God doesn’t care about how good or bad we are when we’re around him? Do you believe in God being up-there, out-there away from your daily routine, or do you believe God is down-here, in-here among the events that confront us? Do you believe that God doesn’t love you because you don’t feel his presence? Do you believe God loves you because he is in everything that surrounds you? Do you believe that the grace of God is the only thing keeping you going in life? Do you believe that the grace of God is who you are for those in your life who find it hard to keep going?

Are you a believer? What defines you as a believer? Do you trust what you believe? Do you trust who you believe? Do you believe “in” someone, or, do you believe “on” someone? Do you believe in someone for who they intrinsically are, or, for what they actually have done? Do you believe that we can only believe one thing about someone?

Do you believe truth always prevails? How would I recognize this belief in your actions around others if they are deemed to be bad people?

Do you believe that dead people can live again? Do you believe in an eternal life or a life after this life? Is your belief in God predicated on death or life? Do you believe this life matters? Do you believe that the life we live determines the rewards we receive in an eternal life? Do you believe that the life we live determines the judgment we receive in an eternal life? Do you believe more in reward or judgement? Do you believe that someone can take on your judgement? Do you believe that only you can experience judgement? Do you believe that you can receive the reward of another? Do you believe that only you can receive a reward? Do you believe that someone can die for the sake of the life of another? Do you believe that this has already happened?

What would it take for you to believe that our Eternal Father, loved you and I, separately and collectively, so much, even before there was a world for us to inhabit, that he decided to give us all the goodness he possessed by creating our world, coming down to share it with us in the form of his son, Jesus, who lived a life just as we all live, died at the hands of persecutors upon a cross, was buried and rose to life again, imparting his spirit of life to all humanity, and continues today to pour out his love through the multitude of people in your life, all of whom have been made in the Father’s image and likeness, despite how they act around us? If you believed in Santa and tooth fairies, why not believe a truth which knows no lie?

Agendas. We’ve all got one, maybe even two. They are what give our life meaning, purpose, the drive to get out of bed every morning. Mine: To live grace thoroughly.
Now to some people that may seem like an easy thing to do. Looks are deceiving.
Consider: When was the last time that you were able to let people just be who they are?

Allow me to illustrate this from a couple of recent examples in my life. The other day I was completing my weekly task of grocery shopping. As I entered the store there was a rumbling running throughout the place centered upon a haggard looking mother and her four children. She was pushing a cart filled with more children then groceries, each whose mission it seemed to torment the other in more incessant ways. One of the children, a young girl, would scream every few minutes for no apparent reason other than to hear her shrill voice reverberate from the rafters. The other customers, myself included, obviously agitated by the ruckus, gave this family a wide berth through their meandering. Eventually, I became the sole person left in the presence of this unruly crowd in the back corner of the store. It was here that the peals of screams, were joined by the guttural shouts of a young boy crammed into the cart.

Shift now to the day prior. My wife, daughter and I were out to eat lunch at a new restaurant in town. After waiting almost an hour to be seated (yes, the line was that long), our server came and took our order. First appearances, particularly in the food service industry are critical. He was adorned with the standard company uniform, yet no one had apparently explained to him the importance of the “first twelve” rule – the first twelve inches your customer sees (your head), and the first twelve words you say. This young man who sported a trim hair-cut also donned a trim man-bun only it wasn’t a bun more than a spurt of hair waiting for the day it would graduate into a bun. Additionally, his lazy eye expression and speech made you wonder if someone really was at home in the shell before you. We took our time in conveying our order so not to confound him, if you catch my drift. During the meal, he dutifully returned to make assurance that our meal was satisfactory, which I expected. However, there were two instances when he did this right at the beginning of the meal. The second time was about three minutes after the prior event and from all appearances, it was as if he completely forgot that he had just been there.

Okay, these might seem like trivial matters, and honestly, they are, unless you’re trying to live grace. To bring a sense of context to these stories consider that at one time in my life I would not have put up with any of these things. I would have complained about the woman’s inability to control her children in a public place. I would have stressed my displeasure to the manager about how, after spending so long waiting for a seat, I’m bothered by a waiter who didn’t understand the craft of waiting.

Living grace breeds quiet trust. It lets people be who they are, warts and all. We’re all a hot mess at one time or another throughout the day. Some people catch us at our best, more often when we’re not. People, you and I, do the best with what we have and who we are in any given moment. When we expect results that our moments aren’t able to attain, stress is the internal achievement to an outward process gone haywire.

Yet, living in grace, there is a peace within that doesn’t need to be expressive. It brings an assurance that all truly is well regardless of the conditions swirling about you. When you operate from this platform, it causes others to experience it also. This is the reciprocity of grace I’ve spoken about previously.

Life is full of strange habits. We like to keep people from invading our preconceived expectations of them through rules and values we have created. Rules that say this is how you should act, what you should be in any given situation or even become to experience life with us. Rules are an agenda. You have one, just as I do. Mine might seem simple. Living grace breeds quiet trust. The acronym says it all. LGBQT. How do you live grace?

God is immoral. That is what a lot of people think but they don’t have the guts to admit it. It’s true. He is.

Morality, the notion that there is right and wrong in the social structure of humanity, is the fundamental building block of all human interaction. Laws, and the governing apparatus required to enforce those laws, stand as a testimony to the morality of our world. God doesn’t care.

We humans have a long history of seeking equality among people groups through layers of laws. Granted, it hasn’t been a very successful journey, but, day by day we attempt to move forward so that there is a better lifestyle for people today then yesterday. Whether it be on the front lines of race, gender, or sexual equality, we humans have been seriously striving to make everyone’s life equivalent to each other. Yet, God doesn’t care.

The Judeo-Christian principle of governance in this nation has been our guiding value to life and liberty. It has enabled us to keep offenders of our justice system separated from the society of law-abiding citizens. It has produced social labels that provide immediate identification to individuals who knowingly disregard the value of our legal system. From thief to pedophile, rapist to murderer, drug pusher to tax cheater, we have set a very high standard using these labels of what it takes to live and properly interact within our social construct. And yet, God still doesn’t care.

God is immoral simply because He doesn’t abide by our laws. He is amoral, outside of our laws. His grace is outside of our laws too. At no time did He ever consider our laws when He accomplished his act of saving all of humanity by His grace. He never asked for your opinion or support. He never once thought about how it would be greater for someone versus another. He applied it equally to all humanity throughout all the ages regardless of the labels we assigned to people. It is truly the only governing decree that makes everyone equal. Male, female, young, old, white, black, red, yellow, brown, heterosexual, LGBQT, murder, rapist, pedophile, drug dealer, banker, lawyer, waitress, janitor, president, congressman, senator, judge, military, civilian, rich or poor we’re all equal.

Many of you will have a difficult time believing that you’re equal to someone who has done something horrible, like a pedophile or murderer. Welcome to the immorality of grace. Your moral indignation to this statement is a witness to the importance you and the faith you place in the law to determine your worth rather than a single act of God to determine your worth. Hard to admit, I know, but admit it we all must. Failure to do so will mean a lifetime trying to live up to a standard that can, will, and has been altered by mankind only to find at the end how you’re no better off than you were before.

This is the very matter that tries the heart of the religious elite. “Greasy grace” has become their siren song for this truth. People can just do anything and get away with it and grace will cover it all. Yes, Virginia, that is true…with God, not with man. Cause and effect are not suspended in grace. Your still as stupid with grace as you are without it. The issue has never been what can you get away with but what has God done to bring us all back. It’s not greasy, it’s not easy, and it clearly is not cheap. It is immoral to the notions that we hold to what is right and wrong. But it applies to all, equally. Yes, Virginia, even you.

“We’re only having hamburgers.” Only. It was that one word which arrested the attention of William as he formed the ground beef into patties. Sure, he heard it uttered from his youngest son, Westley, as he directed his friend, Brian, through the house to the backyard to play catch until dinner was ready, but “only” was not a proper word to use in William’s thinking. There is heritage in these patties which this boy knows nothing about.

William’s grandfather and father had both been butchers. While William, or Billy boy, as they used to call him when he cleaned up the shop after school, never aspired to the honor of the trade, instead opting to head towards college and the professional life, he never forgot the family recipe for the best ground beef the neighborhood flocked to every week. Westley never witnessed the care that William took in selecting the choices cuts of chuck, brisket and short rib, embellished with just the right amount of marbling which cast a perfume of living on the open range when you smelled the searing meat on the grill. The care to grind the meat in their individual portions first before combining them together for a second course grind and the need to chill another day before passing through the final medium grind never entertained a thought in the mind of his boy child.

Heritage of this caliber had kept William’s household from the onslaught of fast food burger joints around the community much to the consternation it offered his offspring who pleaded to partake of the fare their peers enjoyed weekly, even sometimes daily. He stuck to his principles, having himself indulged for a brief period of time when he was working as a crew member in a concrete company during his college years. His daily intake of single and double cheese burgers, fries and ice cold cola while working on a particular project which lasted for over a month, across from a national burger chain, pushed his appetite clearly away from anything that would ever again resemble the notion of a manufactured meal.

Wrestling back the memory blitz of cardboard tasting burgers and stale business lectures of economies of scale, William offered the first patty to the flickering coals of the grill. The sound of searing meat sent a hush across the yard of juvenile delights. Transfixed by its sound, the boys sauntered over to the grill to pay homage to the male ritual of offering meat to the gods of appetite. Closing their eyes, tilting their heads back, deeply they inhaled the intoxicating aroma of the smoke which swirled about them as rendered fat dripped onto the white-hot embers, flashed into a small flame and sent smoke heavenward. “Oh man!” came the guttural cry of Westley and Brian frozen in a primordial trance of appreciation to their good fortune. “When can we eat?” Brian excitedly asked.

“In few minutes. You guys need to go get washed up,” William proudly responded as once again the heritage of family pierced the hollow shell of modern industry. Within moments the efforts of his destiny would rest between the comforts of a split bun, caressed by a slice of cheddar cut from a block, not one wrapped in plastic, slathered with ketchup, mustard and mayo, and adorned with pickles, tomatoes and lettuce. Eager hands would reverently lift the creation to mouths wide to the anticipation and at once feel the liquid explosion of juices trapped within the seared patty seeking to vacate its natural domain before the inevitable bite.
“This is the best burger I have ever had!” Brian mumbled around the chewing. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. How did you do it? My mom needs to know how to do this,” he excitedly exclaimed preparing to delve into another bite.

“It’s a family secret. Stick around enough and maybe you’ll pick it up,” William beamed with pride as he looked at Westley. “After all, it’s only a burger, right?”

In these days of pre-packaged sermons by slick franchised gospel purveyors, the taste of authentic grace, not chemically fortified to fit your anemic spiritual appetite, is what is most needed to lift you out of the malaise and drought of religiosity. You need a grace that bites you when you nibble at its corners, one that slaps you with sloppy kisses when you least expect it, and ultimately shakes you to your very core when it’s immoral nature bursts through your frustration. You need a grace that leaves you (yes leaves you, as in good-bye, adios) just so you know that what you’ve thought to be grace truly was just a mythical aberration of your creation. Then and only then will you experience the fullness of grace, not of your creation, your hopeful meanderings, your wishful thinking’s but His grace with a past rich in gratitude and reverential awe. Hopeful you’ll be able to distinguish the difference between the two. Then, and only then, will you be able to pass it along to another.

Low self-esteem is a direct result of a loss of identity, who you are, who you’ve always been. This claim sounds in many instances trite when viewed on a surface level. Regrettably, most of humanity functions on this level. There is however a higher plane, a deeper level which a select few chose to operate from. Yet notice the word “chose” for it truly is a choice consciously made to rise above.

Identity is not about what you do. You are not a worker-class person first. Your role in the commerce of a region is not who you are. IF it were, you would have been that from your birth. Your present wage-earner model is a result of decisions made to satisfy an economic demand you have encumbered yourself with. Your job pays the bills, period. Your bills are not who you are. People who don’t comprehend this live in the constant threat of losing their identity to marketplace fluctuations. Low demand for workers, reduced pay, layoffs, out sourcing are all seen as attacks on identity rather than changes in economics.

Every single person on this planet has as set of basic core needs that define who they are. Two of the main needs are love/connection, and significance. We are not independent individuals moving through life. We are dependent inter-dividuals trying to learn the dance of living. Each of us seeks to be loved, to give love and connect with others as a result. This interaction with others establishes our significance, or our self-worth. There is no worth or value being alone, isolated from people. People establish our worth/value, not us. An inflated ego is no different than low self-esteem simply because they are a result of our perceived over-comparison to other people influenced by our deficiency of love/connection.

So who are we; what is our true identity? The paradox is we are the same, yet different. As a child we thrived in the love and connection we were nurtured in. Much of this may have been a mystical experience which we never even realized we were taking part of. Many I have talked to speak of “God moments” as a child where they were closer to God than at any other time in their lives. They often speak of some type of veil which came between them and God which moved Him further away from them. You must consider that these people, as children, had made no profession of faith, adopted a doctrine of atonement or prayed for absolution of sins. These formalities came much later in life. However, prior to this moment where the veil appeared, they say that they felt at one with the Father.

Jesus made that his last prayer request for all of us. Being one with the Father, a child of God is our identity. Consider the passage which declares that God is love. The Creator, the supreme being of all that surrounds us is the one thing we all need and seek to possess. Love, not as an act or as a characteristic, but as a being, is the anchor of our identity as a child. This connects us to Him in ways we haven’t even begun to tap into. All of our significance rests in His love for us inter-dividually. We are all one with Him.

If your desire is to be more at one with God, my questions is just how do you expect that to happen? Do you think that praying more, reading your bible more, worshiping Him more is going to bring you closer? Are you trying to pull yourself up to Him of draw Him down to you? As weird as this might sound, do you think that your favorite pet experiences these same things with you? Do they feel compelled to become more dog-like or cat-like in order to experience your love? Do they read their pet manual to the Human Deity as a way of being closer to you? Do they wail and moan in adoration to receive attention and acceptance? Of course not. Why then do we? We’re obviously not God’s pets but we sometimes act really mule-headed out of traditions designed to “ushering the presence.”

If you’re experiencing a sense of detachment from God, you’re not as close as you were as a child, then maybe you need to go back to that place where the veil was placed between you two. Sit in the presence of the One who never left and pull back the veil of who you thought you have become to see who you’ve always been. Re-experience Love and connect with the divine nature of your significance within humanity’s dance. You are greatly loved and there is not a thing you can do to change it – ever.

What if I was to write or say something that was contrary to your beliefs and values. Would you feel compelled to respond? This is a social platform, right? Response is a requirement of its use, right? Is thought a social medium or a personal one? If I pose a challenging thought, is it social to respond that you’re thinking about it? What if the thought isn’t challenging enough, is a response required to affirm the static level of a competence? Is it possible to challenge a belief with rhetoric and see it change? Does a personal value change simply by attacking an assumed weakness? What if our greatest strength, silence, meant the end of a social forum designed to express opinion, would people prefer weakness instead? What if all forums of public opinion required the user to openly admit that the opinion being expressed had been approved and verified by three of their closest friends before it could be posted, would people care more about what they say? What if no one liked or responded to these questions, should I care less about you? If I care greatly about you, am I required to socially respond to those thoughts since silence appears to be disliked? Just some thoughts…

I have just finished reading a passage from the book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg, which dealt with the issue of the justice as represented in the books of the prophets. It seemed rather timely considering the events swirling around our nation these day. What follows is a paraphrased rendition of this passage followed by my thoughts.

When I mention the word “justice” to you, what do you imagine? Mr. Borg categorizes the term into three distinct forms: criminal; procedural; and social. One word, three separate, yet distinct, meanings offers us a great opportunity to create confusion and unrest.

Criminal justice is the manner that most of us are most familiar with. Our entire system of laws and the enforcement of those laws is what this form of justice represents. How a person is determined to be guilty of an offense, how that offense is to be compensated back to society, even how the laws are to be created and implemented are a form of this type of justice.

Procedural justice is an extension of criminal justice. It ensures that all laws work equally for all people regardless of race, creed, color, religion, or position of influence.

Social justice is insuring that the systems of any society, the manner in which people are able to function, move, work, play and worship within a community are balanced and fair.

Our nation was established under the mantel that all men (and that is a term I recognize will cause some people groups to protest claiming a gender-neutral term is required) are created equal. This means that justice, in its three forms, is afforded to all, everyone, everybody, not one exception. (If you proceed down the path of the “created” aspect, you will again offend another group, so I’m going to forego that for brevity sake.)

To a great extent, the mood of this nation by certain people groups is sharply focused on what I would call the social justice paradigm. They talk about it socially on every network they belong to or watch. There is a great unrest on the social consciousness of our people because they feel that the system is out of whack. It would appear that everyone has an opinion as to how the system should be made just and fair for all. That is the issue. All, as in liberty and justice for all.

Fear is not liberating. Inciting fear through rhetoric, spoken or written, is a right under the free speech amendment this country was founded under, and there are laws which insure this liberty, just as there are laws to define when this becomes a crime of hatred.

It would seem to me that the vast number of people who have an issue with the actions taken by our government in recent days are looking at the social justice of the matter while missing the other two forms of justice that was in operation. The matter of procedural justice had to be followed because a criminal justice statute was on the books. This matter wasn’t a last-ditch circumventing of procedures to create a new form of crime. The entire matter was already in place, decades ago, before some of the people complaining the loudest were even born.

What I find interesting in this whole matter is that people within the elected body of our nation, representative of our choosing, are either blatantly trying to persuade us they are intelligent regarding this matters or just plain ignorant. I opt for the latter. Their actions telegraph the fact that they haven’t a clue about the very laws they enact and are responsible for overseeing. They seem intent on making sure that the social justice of their actions remains true in turbulent times even if the criminal and procedural justice they created isn’t followed according to their own rules.

As I see it, the great legal mind that I am, the administration acted according to the law as it is written. Could it have been handled differently? It would seem that there are as many ways to handle it as there are protests. Did it cause social injustice? Seriously, there is not a time that it wouldn’t for those trying to enter the country. This is temporary though, and restrictions are a fact of life for immigrants. That is a part of the procedures they are required to follow. If they refuse to, they, according to the law, have committed a crime, and if found guilty, will be criminals. Justice for all, in this country, citizen or not. That is equality.

In case you didn’t notice, I took this entire subject and didn’t once mention a religious position. The reason is simple. This whole matter has never once been about what form of God you believe in. It has always been about where you’re coming from, not Who you come from. Nationality, not identity.

One word, three meanings. Which one do you feel got violated and are upset about?