Populie: We’re Only Human… November 26, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2425)

A mite of monkey

A little lion

A bit of bird

A teaspoon of turtle

A cup of camel

A dab of dog

A pinch of perch

And a dash of dinosaur.

Human beings. That’s who we are.

We are the storage warehouse–the culmination of all evolution–and the art museum for the Creator’s masterpieces.

Yet “we’re human” is used as an excuse instead of a motivation.

Politics loves the populie, “we’re only human,” because it provides an adequate excuse for the latest scandal.

Entertainment extols the virtue of our limitations so as to look on the darker side of our appetites, providing for a more venial outlook on our progress as a species.

And of course, religion feels the need to make us look as weak as possible in an attempt to maintain the strength of the Almighty.

We get sucked up in it.

We begin to believe that we are just part of the animal kingdom, even though Jesus jokingly, tongue in cheek, told the disciples they were worth “many sparrows.”

If we do gain a moment’s breath of spirituality, we’re encouraged to seek false humility in our attempt to worship God instead of seeking the “Christ in us,” which is the hope of glorious things happening.

Here are three things about human beings. I would ask you to place them deep in your memory banks and make sure, the next time you’re feeling sorry for yourself, that you recall these ample axioms:

1. We are created in God’s image.

If you’re an atheist, you are still aware that going into business with what you perceive to be your nearest relative, the chimpanzee, would certainly make for a failed project. We are unique by creation. If you do not believe in such a thing, we at least are unique by design.

2. We can feel, pray, think and do our way into or out of any difficulty.

There is no other species which has ever lived on earth with that quartet of possibilities.

3. We can choose to love.

Other animals mate, have bonds, maintain connections through offspring, but never really get the choice of loving.

These three things, combined, grant us an inner aura of divine nature, which can either be tapped or drained. The choice is yours.

But do not allow yourself to become part of a culture which, in an attempt to do away with God and personal responsibility, degrades the human being down to the level of porpoise instead of uplifting us to purpose. 

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Populie: The Longer You Live, the Better… November 19, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2418)

Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody’s in a hurry to get there. Even the more bitter and pessimistic souls around us are not anxious to exchange “streets of crime” for “streets of gold.”

It is an open contradiction.

So what do we desire? A superficial form of immortality called longevity.

People work the first forty years of their lives to save up money, so they don’t have to work the last thirty-plus. Very few people ask the big question: how important is the quality of life?

So we create the populie. We applaud people who reach their ninety-fifth birthday without ever asking what is propping them up and whether they are dreading the daily pains of life.

Entertainment works both spectrums on this issue–sometimes portraying that “old is mold” and other times insisting that “old is gold.”

Religion extols the promise of long life because therein lies their piggy banks. Yes, it’s true–young people don’t give as much to the church as old folks.

Politics tries to garner a huge block of graying voters by playing to the fear of these souls, while reflecting back on the nostalgia of what they consider to be “better times.”

But if we’re looking for good life and all we get is time spent, then there’s the danger of ending up in a prison of disappointment.

For instance, if I drove over to a retirement home today at lunch hour, would I hear laughter, conversation, gaiety and feel energy in the room? Or would I encounter disgruntled human beings, who thought they were going to enjoy their “golden years,” and now find the whole experience sullied by too much concern, too much worry and too much pain.

There is a very simple three-part mission given to human beings, which, as long as we are actively and joyously pursuing, makes any age in life feel like twenty-two. You don’t have to go much further than the beginning of the Good Book to find it:

“Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the Earth.”

Can we all agree that when we stop being fruitful, what we feel is rotten?

The lack of multiplying subtracts purpose, and doesn’t add up in our thinking.

I, too, am getting older. So every single morning I get up and ask myself a question: am I still fruitful?

In other words, can I do what I’ve always done to some degree, and still do it well? Maybe there will be a drop-off due to age, but I still should be peddling towards the second mile.

Secondly, am I multiplying? Am I taking the energy I have for living, and helping others do what they do well?

One of the things you will discover as you get older is that your greatest value is not self-obsession, but rather, self-awareness in blessing those around you.

And finally, am I replenishing? This one is simple. Am I still giving more than I’m taking?

Each one of us has seasons of vulnerability, where we must draw from our account instead of making deposits. But if that season continues, the will to live slowly dies in our being.

It’s not about living long. It’s about living well.

Candidly, if I were told tomorrow that the next fifteen years of my life would be spent breathing, but my talents, joy, good attitude and spirituality would be dimmed in the process, I would choose to go.

I might be reluctant, but I would be fully aware that to be truly human requires fruitfulness, multiplication and replenishing the earth.

 

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Populie: We Are Blessed… November 12, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2411)

Three billion people in the world live on less than $2.50 a day. That is nearly half.

46.5 million people in the United States live below the poverty line. That’s 15% of adults and 21.8% of children.

Yet we still continue to persist in the popular belief that prosperity is determined by blessing and that the evidence of sin, iniquity or evil is accentuated by the curse of being impoverished.

It is the populie:

• If all is going well, God is with me.
• If I face my share of adversity, God has abandoned me.

This populie is spun by the entertainment industry, which places physical beauty above the bounty of spirit.

Politics wholeheartedly believes that money is the proof of value.

And religion teaches that the prophets of old suffered persecution, while publicly insisting that a gospel of God’s favor being shown through prosperity.

But the spiritual rate of exchange in the universe is good cheer. Let me relate a story.

When a Christian adoption organization went into Central America to attempt to raise funds for the children, who were ravaged by inadequacy and financial desperation, all of the pictures of the little ones were peppered with smiles. They finally had to teach them how to frown in order for the cameras to convey the desperate message to the hard-hearted Americans.

The reason the children were so delighted–aside from the fact that this was the way they had learned to live–was that one of the camera men had wrapped a large rock in duct tape, and the children were suddenly blessed with a soccer ball.

America has become both paranoid and neurotic over its own greed. Because we have made beauty and money the center of our consciousness, we are incapable of being satisfied with anything less.

Even though good cheer is the only true way to overcome all circumstances and to react to all benefits, we allow ourselves the luxury of being depressed when confronted with difficulty and produce a phony sense of joy when we win the lottery. Yet a followup on most lottery winners shows that it fails to bring contentment, but rather, conflict and destitution.

So the fact of the matter is, it is impossible to attain sanity without eliminating craziness. And if you believe that the sun coming out on your wedding day means approval for your union, and rain falling on the same occasion might be an omen from God of pending disaster, then your next stop will probably be medication for your depression or ending up in a loony bin.

The only way to truly be blessed as a human being is to receive what is provided, find a way to work with it and maintain a sense of balance and good cheer.

If I were to look in the mirror to determine my value, I might end up suicidal.

If I ascertained the presence of God in my life by my financial take-in this year, I would probably believe myself abandoned.

But this has been one of the greatest years of my life–because the trial of my faith has taught me patience, which has allowed me to learn how to have good cheer in all realms.

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Populie: Good People Vote … November 5, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2404)

It is quite possible for something to be good but handled so poorly that it becomes bad.

This is how ideas that are popular can be infested with a lie, and end up being a populie that brings dissension and even destruction.

This is obvious to me on the issue of voting.

Entertainment, which has something good to work with and often handles it poorly, ending up with mediocre or bad results, loves the issue of voting because it’s so easily twisted into either a civil responsibility or a sense of frustration over horrible elected officials.

Politics, which takes something good–governing and taking care of people–and handles it so poorly that it becomes something bad–loves voting because it gives the illusion of giving power to the voter, while stealing the real decision-making away from them.

And religion, which is something good to bless the hearts of people, and is poorly handled as mere ritual and greed, loves voting because it gives us another way of expressing supremacy and proving that we’re patriotic.

I will become a firm believer in voting when it actually begins to matter, and is not the victim of the electoral college, gerrymandering, the 24-hour news cycle intrusion, PACs, and incessant polls elections by smearing manure on opposing candidates.

I refuse to accept something which has become evil through the cheating and lying of manipulative individuals and call it good, simply to fall in line with some holy patriotic march to commonality.

Right now my vote does not matter.

That makes me mad.

Even if we could take one or two of these perversions and demand that they be changed so that the vote of each individual American IS counted as valuable, I would be pleased.

If we would just do away with the electoral college and forbid polls to be taken daily during elections, this country would be stronger and the politicians would be responding to the people instead of their parties and the pundits.

I won’t even deal with the gerrymandering which segments districts based on demographics or the intolerable negative ads which permeate the television screen in an attempt to prove that “my political dog is better than your political dog.”

Stop stumping for the power of the vote. There are simply too many interferences in the democratic system.

• Voting is good.
• The way it is handled in this country is horrible.
• Therefore the result is bad.

Take your vote and use it to change the voting process in this country, and you will really achieve something rather than goose-stepping your way to the polls at the bequest of the system.

People are not avoiding the movie theaters because they hate movies. Their emotions and spirits are starved by entertainment which is both repetitious and uses too much sensationalism.

People are not leaving the church because they hate goodness. They are departing because form has overtaken reason and intolerance has been thrust forward instead of the love of God.

And people are not indifferent to good government–but they do feel they’ve lost the power to initiate change.

Good people vote–if good people have secured the path to make sure their vote is not interrupted by corruption.

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Populie: The Holy Land … October 29, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2396)

Land: a retreating of the waters, leaving behind soil which is available for living and planting.

Holy: promoting, initiating and welcoming a sense of wholeness.

These are truths.

So what is the populie? Calling some region in Mesopotamia “The Holy Land.”

It is neither conducive to growing much of anything or welcoming wholeness. Even though it’s only the size of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, it has fostered more death, destruction, bigotry, selfishness, greed and lunacy than any other location on the face of the earth.

Yet the entertainment industry loves to make movies about the Crusades and supposedly deep insightful, flicks focusing on the conflicts between the Jews and the Arabs.

Politics certainly enjoys spouting the term “Holy Land” because it welcomes certain constituencies into the mix for large donations.

And religion adores the idea that this space of property has magical powers or is ordained by God to be the prophetic source of spiritual renewal.

The Holy Land is not. I have never had a desire to go there, nor will I ever, of my own volition.

It is occupied by inflexible souls who mysteriously continue to fight a battle among each other to honor their traditions instead of dealing with the realities of our time.

It is evil in the sense that it pulls down the rest of our brothers and sisters living with us on this planet, because supposedly Abraham said something thousands of years ago, which Moses confirmed and Mohammed contradicted.

They are quarreling brothers who bang on our door in the middle of the night because they’re fighting again, and somebody punched somebody in the nose, and we’re supposed to decide if we’re going to call the cops or just make a big pot of coffee.

I must tell you:

• Jesus found nothing holy about that land.
• Matter of fact, he prophesied that it would be left desolate.
• He told them that even though they believed they were the “children of Abraham,” that he existed before Abraham, and therefore trumped the patriarch.
• He warned them that their holy temple would be torn down.
• He told his disciples to begin their work in Jerusalem but to get out of there as quickly as possible and take the mission to the more receptive parts of the world.
• He explained that true worship of God would not be in Jerusalem, but would be achieved through spirit and truth.
• And even though we try to make Jesus Jewish and connect him to the Holy Land, he made it clear that he wasn’t called to those who thought they were righteous, but instead, to those whom the righteous considered to be sinners.

We must begin to call this desolate, angry, self-righteous location the dark place it truly is, and stop trying to revere it as a special piece of turf. If not, we will perpetuate the myth that if we just send one more army in there on a crusade, we can finally win back God’s holy land.

For if Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut suddenly decided to start squabbling over land and spiritual heritage, we would go in there and tell them to shut the hell up, get it right or we would close off all supplies and sanction them from our country.

But even though we contend that God is no respecter of persons, we in the United States continue to treat Israel preferentially and look at the Arabs with a jaundiced eye. They probably won’t be ignored, but we need to stop giving them so much of the human stage.

It is not a Holy Land. Stop planning trips there, thinking you’re going to “walk where Jesus walked.”

Because true holiness is where God is.

And the Spirit of God always dwells where there is liberty. There is no liberty in the Holy Land. Even Israel, which claims to be democratic, has restrictions on spiritual expression and prejudice against their neighbors.

Go where there’s liberty, and there you’ll find the Spirit of God. Forgive me for a little bit of flag waving–but that’s why I’m glad to be an American.

And for me, today, as I travel, the Holy Land … is Roanoke, Virginia.

 

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Populie: The Battle Between Good and Evil … October 22, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2389)

Sometimes I believe that the promotion of “good” is merely permission to be pious and the elevation of “evil” is just a bunch of geeks from high school, who think it’s neat to scare people with their darker side.

It ends up promoting this popular lie–populie–of “the battle between good and evil.”

Religion is enthralled with the concept because it allows for an all-powerful God to flex His muscle against a strong Luciferian army which is doomed to failure, but in the meantime frightens the world with all sorts of dastardly deeds.

Amazingly, entertainment is obsessed with the notion because it welcomes witches, demons, flying dragons and all sorts of apocalyptic paraphernalia, to keep the audience on the edge of its seat, wondering if any glimmer of goodness can survive.

Politics learned a long time ago that it’s a lot easier to motivate people by getting them to hate something than to love something.

So if we hate evil and those who perform the nefarious deeds, we can don the cloak of righteousness and represent purity to the world around us.

So the original Soviet Union was not deemed to be a dumb government complexity, but rather, must be referred to as “the evil empire” in order to create a devilish enemy.

I am weary of it all.

I am especially weary of those who tell me that I can’t believe in God unless I believe in Satan. They insist that because the Bible proclaims that this fallen angel exists as a real creature of festering fussiness, that I must embrace the ideology that surrounds him or else deny the validity of the Holy Book.

Yet when the storyline plays out in the Good Book, the saner writers tell me frankly that every temptation comes from my own lust.

I am told that God doesn’t tempt me, nor does He desire for me to be tempted.

Matter of fact, Jesus said, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

So what is evil?

Evil occurs when the good that humans could have accomplished is delayed or tabled in committee.

Good transpires when evil is stopped by humans who are thinking ahead.

To me it’s just that simple.

Every evil that has happened on the planet earth since the beginning of time has human fingerprints. There are no claw marks left behind, nor cloven hoofprints. It always has something to do with someone who just failed, in some way or another, to love his or her neighbor as themselves.

We are drawn away by our own lusts.

Love is available to us but it does not allow us to dominate or destroy, so instead, we pursue lust.

• It is the source of all iniquity.
• It is the source of all evil.

As long as we believe that we are the pawns in a gigantic chess game between God and Beelzebub, we will fail to take responsibility for our own deeds and instead, act helpless when we’ve been given the power of a sound mind instead of a spirit of fear.

I know there will be many people who disagree with me, and since I do not hold the golden key to universal truth in my hand, these detractors may be right.

But I don’t think we become better people by blaming an outside force for our own damned laziness.

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

 

The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!

 

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Populie: Third World Country … October 15, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2382)

Poverty is bad.

This is an assertion which is popular.

Therefore, poor people are bad.

This has become the populie.

Even though we would insist that we don’t tie the quality of life and character to the amount of money in a bank account, we definitely attribute more value to those who are in the black as opposed to those who live in the red.

To further reinforce this, we look at people wallowing in squalor around the world and shake our heads, wondering how they got that way.

Politics loves this because it gives us the chance to prove that America is exceptional and the rest of the planet is being punished for not being like us.

Religion is overjoyed at the prospect of third world countries because it give us a hovering horde that we can evangelize with the gospel, while feeling self-righteous.

Entertainment leaps with joy because it can tell stories of depravity which some soul emerges from, to overcome his or her circumstances and win the day, perhaps ending up on Wall Street.

This is probably one of the more egregious sins of the American culture, causing us to believe that we do not need to deal with our own iniquities because at least we’re not as miserable as those poor souls in the third world countries.

Let me give you a list:

1. Access to clean water.
2. Adequate shelter
3. Nourishing food
4. Supportive friends

These are what I call the four blessings. If you have these opportunities you will find yourself benefited and granted the human dignity to proceed with a burst of confidence.

Remove these from your life and you are left wallowing in self-pity.

Case in point: New Orleans and the Eastern seaboard quickly became third world countries when they were struck by hurricanes, and the people wandered the streets aimlessly, as if they were refugees.

For you see, it isn’t so much that some people are born better than others, but rather, that some people have water, shelter, food and friends.

Just think what would happen in Chicago today if clean water were suddenly removed from the populace.

What if these same Chicago folks found out that all the food had been stolen, or was tainted?

What if their homes suddenly became uninhabitable?

In less than forty-eight hours, Chicago would look like a bomb site if these necessities were removed.

Yet we continue to look at other nations which do not have these four blessings and shake our heads in disbelief that they live in such pitiful conditions or that they’re raging in war.

We have plenty of advice. We have plenty of weapons to sell to them. We will gladly ship them Bibles. But the four things they require–access to water, adequate shelter, nourishing food and supportive friends–we withhold and only offer to those of our own kind.

There is no such thing as a third-world country. There are human beings who are just like us who are forced to live … in aggravation.

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

 

The Sermon on the Mount in music and story. Click the mountain!

 

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