Enough Stuff… January 6, 2013

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There may be nothing more frightening than seeing a child or a teenager in the possession of great sums of money. Since prudence has not yet arrived on the scene and wisdom is somewhere in the distant future, money can often be the vehicle to disaster rather than the key to peace of mind.

We all know this. Yet for some reason we still persist in the notion that possessing more THINGS will free us from the burdens of poverty and set in motion a miracle of happiness in our souls.Since I have decided to become a child in 2013, I need to realize that my greatest requirement is not money.

Children need security.  Your immediate question, I assume, will be, “Well, what is security, if not money?”

Since a child has no bills in his or her name, no mortgage to negotiate nor car payment to fret over, to a child, security is to live in a worry-free environment. As I have traveled around this country and even to other lands, I have noticed that joy has very little to do with circumstances or the quality of the enclosure wherein you place your bed. Joy is the by-product of being content with your present layout without complaint.

So I have seen children in Haiti playing with a ball that was made out of mud, dried and hardened in the sun for better tossing possibilities. They were squealing and clapping like they were on some American Junior Soccer team wearing $100 uniforms, having paid a $200 entrance fee, nibbling specially purchased granola bars and sipping exotic waters at $5 a pop. The Haitian children felt secure … because they were worry-free.

So is it possible to have enough money but still be nervous about losing your position, and actually make your household a place of miserable uncertainty? Absolutely.

You know what I’ve learned? We in America have enough STUFF. We just need to learn how to spread it out and use it better.

Children need security in a worry-free environment. So how do we make it worry-free? Keep it simple. Your vacation should not look like the travel schedule for the President of the United States. Your weekend of planned family activities should not cost more than your monthly electric bill.

Don’t get cheap–get creative. Children want to enjoy themselves in a worry-free environment where they feel secure. It is not old-fashioned to think that you can still take your family out into a tent in the woods, sitting around a fire toasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories and have a roaring good time. You may have to turn off the cell phones and the I-Everythings–and just absorb the available giggling possibilities.

We have enough stuff but we still don’t feel “stuffed”–secure–and because we don’t feel secure, we worry, and passing worry onto your family complicates the lives of those who are nurtured by simplicity.

So I am going to stop chasing the American dream because before my eyes it has turned into a nightmare. I am going to cease to pinch pennies only to suddenly and extravagantly spend too much money on nothing, but instead, disperse my funds more evenly, to create the greatest blessing for dollar value.

I am a child of God who needs security by living in a worry-free environment that is kept simple. No wonder Jesus said to stop thinking about what you eat and drink. After all, we all know where our next meal is going to end up. And whether you spent five dollars on it or five hundred doesn’t really matter when it reaches its destination.

• Enough stuff.
• Enough worry.
• Enough complication.

Enough said.

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god-awful … January 4, 2013

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Sticking ones head into a book brings a very limited scope of possibility, even if it happens to be the Good Book.

I need to realize this on my 2013 quest to become more childlike in my faith. One of the worst ways to believe is to have a screwed-up concept of God. You would actually be better off having no God at all than having a god-awful one.

A childlike faith tells me that above all else, if I’m going to continue to believe in God, I need to understand the importance of disregarding anybody who wants to make Him awful–and that’s by either definition–awful in the sense of “filled with mystery and wonder,” and also awful in the aspect of having a really bad attitude and not liking anyone.

Here are the three things I know about children in relation to belief. Children require comprehension. You can tell them stories, but you’d better be prepared to answer questions about your little tales. The minute you tell a child that there’s a God, he or she will ask you three quick questions. (1) Where is God? (2) Who made God? and (3) Why doesn’t God do more to make things better?

Even a six-year-old knows that you are confused and avoiding the issue if you answer each of those questions with, “We don’t exactly understand–and that’s why they call it faith.”

So in my childlike mind for 2013, I answered those questions–really simply.

1. Where is God? Everywhere, especially in and around those who are ready to meet needs and have needs.

2. Who made God? God is a Spirit, and therefore, He blows toward the next point of need, so probably somewhere along the line, God made God because there was a need to do so.

3. Why doesn’t God do more? We return to our premise–God is a Spirit. He has a heart and a soul, seeking out people with minds and bodies who are willing to become God to the people around them.

The second thing I need as a childlike believer is to know the difference between Jack and Jonah. Jack and the Beanstalk and Jonah in the whale sound very similar to an eight-year-old mind. I do not try to explain to myself why Jack climbed the beanstalk and destroyed the giant. I also do not try to explain to anyone whether Jonah actually spent three days in the belly of a whale. The message I got from Jack and the beanstalk is that magic beans just bring more trouble. And the message I get from Jonah and the whale is that running away from the needs of your fellow-human beings does not eliminate the pain.

The reason we’re losing young people to agnosticism is because we want them to laugh off Jack and the Beanstalk, and revere Jonah in the whale. Good luck with that.

And finally, children need to be told that faith in God is the pursuit of an earthly heaven. Keeping a child’s mind in the clouds is an invitation to making him or her lazy, indifferent and non-productive. My childlike faith demands that I understand and apply that I am here to see God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.

So to review my three notions:

• God is a Spirit.
• I don’t plan on debating whether Jonah lived in a whale, but rather, intend on retrieving the powerful message of the tale.
• And finally, I will not wait for heaven to see heavenly things done. I will use my life here on earth to simulate my own desire.

There you go.

It begins with rejecting all religion and theology that is god-awful. Get your head out of the book, start looking for the Spirit of God, don’t argue about the Bible, and bring a little bit of heaven down to earth.

You will become a child–ready to romp and play in the Kingdom of God.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity