Jonathots Daily Blog
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1. STOP insisting America is better than other people of other nations
2. START promoting equality between the genders and among the races
3. CONTINUE growing in tenderness and appreciation for the application of freedom in the lives of all citizens
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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Freedom.
It is the best America has to offer.
It is the finest export to the world around us.
Because it hearkens to the freewill the Creator gave every human, it is the voice of God in a world of devilishness.
It is slightly weakened by the application of democracy. Although the voting concept seems intelligent, it still concludes that the majority rules. The assumption that the majority is always right–or ever right–is historically erroneous.
So freedom, which is a purity hatched in the heavens, is tainted by democracy, which allows for the sheer brute force of numbers.
For that reason, democracy does not work in every country. Freedom, which has a universally healing effect, can often be destroyed by inserting democracy into nations which are ill-suited for the process because they are surrounded by intimidating forces.
And then there’s politics. Politics is what democracy produces in an attempt to create balance, which ironically, actually imbalances everything. It no longer is an issue of what’s right or wrong or what might be a valid issue, but rather, what your political party supports and how you can also support it.
In no time at all, we lose the individuality of having one stance on a single issue and a different angle on another. Just the removal of politics would make democracy work better, and democracy would work beautifully if it kept its eye on freedom for all.
241 years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a piece of rebellion. It wasn’t a country and certainly wasn’t based solely on freedom, because many of the inhabitants of that nation were thought of as inferior.
It was a piece of rebellion.
It now becomes our job to turn it into freedom that can function as a democracy without the burden of politics.
The good news is that God loves freedom.
The better news is that if we will commit to good reason, we will never miss politics.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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If you tell us we can’t, we’ll do it more
Tell us we can–why bother?
Surround us with love, we might prosper
Surround us with hate, we just might discover love.
Give us less and we start nurturing abundance
Give us abundance, we are drained of the energy to excel
Preach a sermon, we go to sleep
Produce a vision, we wake up prepared
Tell us we’re great and we’ll develop an attitude
Tell us it’s impossible and we just scratch the itch
Steal our heart, we fight back
Mess with our mind, we get revenge by thinking
Steal our soul, we create God
Laugh at us, we push harder
Believe in us, we may bring you along
Our colors don’t matter
Our nations are just land
Our religion is a process of hope
Our dreams are ever-changing sunrises
Ours is a family–a race of becomers
We are human
It’s up to us
We can’t walk on water
But we sure as hell will try
We have the power to welcome or deny our Creator
We are cast to Earth but not destined for mere mischief
We are …
What we are willing to be
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He sat on a talk show elaborating on his present idea while hawking a new book. He is respected and popular (which in America has become the same thing).
In relating a story about his own life, he explained that at one time he trusted an employee to be involved in his finances because this woman had mouthed many of his convictions and he later found out that she was embezzling money from his coffers. His conclusion from this personal fiasco was that he had “given her the benefit of the doubt”–that she was who she said she was–and in the process, he learned that this was an outdated concept.
His conclusion was slid in so quickly that if you weren’t listening, you might just nod your head in agreement and end up throwing away some better portions of the Golden Rule. After all, that is what our society wants to do.
Nobody really wants to get rid of God. God makes a profit, even if there aren’t any prophets to truly speak His message.
No one wants to get rid of church. After all, we do need a common site to marry and bury.
What we would like to get rid of is the Golden Rule. We would like to join our Jewish and Arab brothers in the consensus that being nice to one another is only plausible when nicety has previously been received. In other words, NOT “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but rather, “do unto others WHAT they have done to you.”
It’s quite the different concept.
You would think that someone would be intelligent enough to notice that this dynamic of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” has historically proven to be ineffective. But I continually hear verbal jabs against loving your fellow-man, while simultaneously there are massive screams for freedom and liberty.
I believe that the black man and woman in our country received the beginnings of liberation because they followed that Golden Rule. I believe if the gay community pursues a vindictive approach, they will fail to retrieve the liberty and justice they so desperately desire.
The Golden Rule works. It just always temporarily looks like it’s going to fail.
It’s similar to watching a football game and seeing a team dominate through three quarters, only to blow their lead in the fourth quarter and lose the game. You see, it doesn’t really make any difference that they won three-quarters of the game and it certainly doesn’t make any difference that revenge, retribution and retaliation appear to win the day initially–only to be stomped to death in the last quarter–by the Golden Rule.
The nations that are still prospering on this planet are the ones who have given place to that precious assertion. The countries which have tried to stomp it out through bigotry, anger and nationalism have been erased from the face of the earth.
It is not outdated to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I will agree there may be wiser ways to do it than turning over your entire bank account to them, but when you’ve been granted a voice of reason and you use that instrument to promote the notion of frustration and fear instead of unity and the repair of human hearts, then you are not only squandering your opportunity to make a difference, you have become part of the problem.
I’m all for technology. You can twitter your life away–I don’t care. But when you come after the Golden Rule, I have to stop you.
It is the only way we can keep from destroying one another before we really find out what benefit we could be.
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Just about 4% of the population of our world is American–living and dwelling within the boundaries of the United States. That means that in a room of a hundred people from all over the world, only four of them would have any interest whatsoever in Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
It is an issue of perspective. We have made a dangerous decision in our country, to make the world view of other nations–their cultures and their governments–an object of disdain or unrealistic admiration. Yes, as we always do, we have turned the necessity for having an understanding of our fellow-man all over the globe into a political juggernaut.
It is the responsibility of those who have spirituality to instruct our political leaders and our society into acquiring a comprehension of a wider scope of vision and a more accepting attitude towards others.
Instead, we choose up sides. The more evangelical Christians in this country have a zealous patriotism, often to the detriment of other parts of the human race across the earth. The more liberal or mainline denominational Christians take the position that the rest of the world is “just as good as everybody else,” and that in some ways the United States is actually inferior.
It creates conflict. Conflict does not lead to resolution. Our twenty-four-hour news cycle generates controversy under the illusion that such heated debate will lend itself to better appreciation. Nothing could be further from the truth. What does lead to resolution is the ability to ask the right question. Until you ask the right question, the inquiries you come up with are bent in the direction of confirming your own philosophy rather than discovering the truth that will make you free.
Those who claim to be very patriotic and believe that America has a destiny to rule the world–politically if not militarily–look at the other countries on the earth and their practices and turn up their noses and ask, “Isn’t that strange?” It’s very difficult to believe that reconciliation can be achieved when you start on the basis of thinking that something is “strange.” Even when we make lame attempts to address the cultures of other worlds at Christmas time with our children in school, we portray them as having “odd practices” while our decorating of an evergreen tree is completely normal.
Yes, conservatives tend to address the rest of the world as if they’re strange. Here’s a clue. Most human beings do not like to be considered “strange.” They even find it offensive. And since their particular form of spirituality does not prevent them from hurting people who offend them, we create a natural jeopardy for ourselves by insisting that the rest of the world is hampered by virtue locale.
On the other hand, the more liberal parts of our framework peer at the rest of the world and say, “Isn’t that better?” In the pursuit of what they would call justice, they become hyper-critical of our own society, our own culture and our own process, while lifting up often-obscure parts of other nations’ practices and extolling them as superior. This, of course, infuriates the conservatives, who feel that it’s anti-American, which further cements the liberals in their position that conservatives were basically born with half a brain.
So we play this dangerous game of–shall we call it–American roulette?–where we put five bullets in the chamber, hoping that when we whirl it around, we’ll be lucky enough to hold the gun to our head and be blessed with an empty slot.
It is dangerous to live in a world of diversity and fail to acknowledge that diversity–or at least try to understand how it came to be. It is also absolute foolishness to look at the record of mercy of a country such as the United States, which has attempted to help the world in so many ways, and purposely criticize it because we may be presently struggling in certain areas.
There has to be an understanding. The world is neither strange, nor is it better. It consists of people. Jesus came to give us a message that has world-wide appeal and application, not simply suited for white Europeans.
It is time to reevaluate. If we are only 4% there is no way we will ever be a majority. There is no way we will ever be the loudest voice. And honestly, there is no way we will be the predominant force–unless we find a way to understand the needs and desires of the other peoples around us.
Would you allow me a chance to take the next few days to discuss what we shall call The Path? I do believe there is a road that will take us towards better understanding without rejecting the love of our own country, but I contend that at this point it is just a tiny, winding path through a quagmire of misunderstanding. But if we can identify the path, then we can possibly clarify how we can remain loyal Americans, but gain a world view. I don’t want to just have a world view by criticizing my country, and I certainly do not want to extol my country to the exclusion of billions of people who do not possess our citizenship.
Would you join me? Can we take our 4% and use it more effectively in the world community? I think we can.
Let’s see if we can find The Path.
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A voice writing in the wilderness
Jonathots Daily Blog 