Feeling a bit mystical…

Well, it’s thanksgiving. I’m definitely giving thanks for what I’m learning.

The more I live, the more I see how perception is everything. How you perceive God and life determines the life you will live. I see it in my friends’ lives, my life, and in the lives of everyone else around me. How I perceive God and life determines the life I will live. My perception of God and life has evolved radically over the past two years. I’ve always had trust issues. Since Kindergarten. That trust stemmed over into me not trusting God. Not trusting friends. Not trusting possibility fully. But when I went through friendships that dissolved, or seemed to dissolve, and when I went through the hurt, depression, and confusion that followed, something shifted. I began looking at the next chapter of my life as a new invitation God was giving me. And I began to feel his touch and his nudge.

He was saying, “Enter in.”

I went from walking on a incomplete, winding path, a path through a land that I believed contained friends that would never love me as much as I love them, parents that would never be “real” parents, dreaming for the perfect girl and never really seeing her or believing that I could have her now (and of course that sent me into a spiral and whirlwind of confusion), just all kinds of incompleteness–I went from that onto a straight path.

I just looked up Matthew 7:13, which says “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” I have heard so many different interpretations of this verse, but I noticed something interesting. One interpretation I see by looking at the words in Greek is this: “Of thoughts that come into the mind, by means of a straight entrance into any state; for the access or entrance into hell is wide and the way of thinking, feeling, and deciding is spacious that leads to eternal misery in hell, and of thoughts that come into the mind by means of it.”

Now, I know that’s not a clear word for word definition but that’s the English language for you–here’s how I interpret it: “Enter into a way of thinking that is straight; There’s many, many thoughts that come into the mind that will lead you to feel and make decisions that will lead you into some form of misery.” Whether or not this verse is talking about hell after this life or the hell on this earth, we go into some form beginning with a thought that we think, which leads to a feeling, and then leads to us into making a decision based on the thought. Don’t believe your thoughts will lead you into misery? Take some time to monitor your thoughts. I bet most if not all of your thoughts are thoughts centering around you having a lack of something on some level, if you dig deep enough.

There’s nothing in the bible that says we have a lack of anything. We literally have everything. What is everything? EVERYTHING.

What was one thing Jesus was sent to Earth to say? “You have everything in the Father. Change your thinking which leads you to a feeling, which leads you to an unholy decision. A decision based on your belief that you are lacking in something. That you are incomplete. That’s the real process of sin. Do you know who you are? You are a child of God. Do life My Way. You will realize the Fullness, the completeness, of Life, and have it forever.”

I believe that Heaven and Hell is a continuation of our lives here on earth. If we keep missing the mark, we move to misery that lasts forever. Follow Jesus’ way, and we move into Life Everlasting. There really isn’t anything exclusive or us. vs. them in any of Jesus’ teaching.

It’s all about choice. Read one life coach’s article about choice and how we can reclaim our power. It’s about perception. If you feel like reading, read these quotes about changing your perception.

So, I changed my thinking, because the problem rests within me, as self-help teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests. I began to look at God, life, the entire universe, as compassionate. Loving. I began to trust God. I began to accept my life as it were. When you trust God, when you do what Prov. 3:5-6 says, the entire universe will rise to meet you. Things will just show up. Situations become helpful. All situations. “All” means “all”. Everything I come across is beneficial and filled with Love. That way of thinking opens me up to a myriad of blessings. Suffering, trials, all of that–they serve to bring you into a reality where you know God. Where you will trust him and feel him, in every footstep along the straight path.

How do I know this? Because it’s happening to me.

God showed me that he will always provide people to love me, and for me to love. Always. My friend Ben from LT was the first piece in this new revelation. The first wonderful light. And then I went through more trials, and then entered my friend Joel, my brother, and one of the most wonderful lights to shine in my life. It’s that way because my sinful thinking has changed and is still changing. My friends have become beautiful lights instead of people I need to give me my sense of self because I thought I had a lack. When we trust in God, the universe will rise to meet us.

A new light shines on my friends that have been alongside me since college. They have become more helpful and more beautiful me. I changed my mind. I repented. I took up His yolk. His rules. His ways. I began to trust. When we trust in God, the universe will rise to meet us.

A new light shines on my career. I’ve always been a dreamer. I know in every fiber of my being that I will live a big life. Why? Because I’m already living a big life. He’s already given me a big life. The only option is for my life to evolve into something bigger. More grand. I will be faced with more experiences to realize God. Inflow determines outflow. When you have God pouring into you, you have to have him pouring out of you. That’s why you know people who are connected to Him, because of their fruits. Because of what they produce. Because of a part of them you can sink your teeth into and enjoy. It’s complete. I trust him even more with my career, and new doors are opening up because of it, because when I trust in God, the universe will rise to meet me.

I still haven’t found a girl yet, but I am trusting! I don’t need to read another book about being single or about how God has the perfect mate waiting for me and she will be my help-meet and blah blah blah and other muck. This is what I need to know: When you trust I God, the universe will rise to meet me.

A Whole New World

Well, Obama’s our new President. And lots of people have had lots of reactions.

The crowd watching Obama erupted with joy in Chicago’s Grant Park.

People danced.

And Oprah cried on some random guy’s shoulder.

But what was interesting to me during this monumental time was my father’s reaction. I called him when CNN announced Obama’s victory.

“Hi Dad, it’s Taurence,” I said, with anticipation for what he would say next.

“Hey, boy.” He said. That’s all? I thought. No, “Oh my goodness I can’t believe it?”

No dancing? No crying?

“So, what do you think about the election? Don’t you think that’s crazy?” I said, trying to  get more of an emotional reaction.

“Yup, it is. It is.”

The rest of the conversation was loaded with more of his ‘yups’ followed by ‘uh-huhs’.

You have to understand that my father did not believe that this country would choose a man with any droplets of black blood in his system, let alone a man who’s half-black.

My father was born in 1956, right after integration became law. He grew up fighting whites for calling him or a sibling a “nigger”. White football coaches despised him and other black athletes for being more talented than the white guys on the team, so they went out of their way to force the blacks off the team. White adults bombed school busses in his city at the time. I guess can’t blame him for being a bit doubtful that Obama would become the President.

We’d get into arguments during the primaries. Once Obama won Iowa, my father still swore that Obama would not become President. In my Father’s world, that was inconceivable.

In most people’s worlds where I’m from, it’s all about how white people supposedly take care of their own, how whites despise and want to cheat blacks, and how whites are holding them in the same place. Obama’s victory for many of them wasn’t just inconceivable; it just wasn’t going to happen.

Now, they are realizing what I’ve known for a long time: there are some good white folks in the world!

I am not saying that if you’re white and voted for Barack, then you are good, and if you’ve done otherwise, you’re to be hated. Lord knows there’s enough crazy people wishing doom upon Americans because of this election. To see Barack in office means that our country is moving forward, our country is recognizing that we’re in this together as long as we’re humans and as long as we are on Earth, and it means that our citizens in this great country are beginning to really look past the outer, and into the inner, past skin and into the person, past what separates and into what unites. THAT is what thrills me. I never forget how far blacks have come.

The lynching.

The gruesome killing of Emmitt Till.

The beatings, fire hoses, dog attacks. All a part of the freedom fight.

I constantly remind myself at least once a week. I’m a student of civil rights… and I can’t help but be thrilled, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

So, I am excited that my father’s reaction that night was so limited. He was a man of few words that night. Maybe that’s because he’s had to eat all of his words he’d said against Obama in the past two years.

My father, and many people in this country, has been busted out of their doubtful worlds. This is the change I felt Obama was talking about during his campaign. A new change in the world. A whole new world. Let the transition begin!