Ama Greeun

This post was originally posted in October 2005. I think it was my third post ever. I am leaving onThursday for Charlotte NC to compete in the USA T&F National Championships. I have a ton to accomplish before I leave.......... sorry for the re-runs, but there are lots of new readers that were not reading back then. Have a great Tuesday!
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I learned about Ama Greeun last night.

First though, a test for you. Just to see what you know:

1. Is Ama Greeun a small town in Syria?
2. Is Ama Greeun my friend’s aunt in Austin?
3. Is Ama Greeun an Irish ballad written during World War II?
4. None of the above.

The answer is #4, none of the above.

Here is how I learned about Ama Greeun last night.

I was watching the Yankees play the Angels on television. My wife was snuggled up in her customary little ball beside me. Her head was propped against my shoulder.

Did you ever notice the way the female gender can place their entire body on the couch in these tiny little packages, feet tucked underneath them, arms folded up and all that? How do they do that?

Seven: “I don’t know why, but I just don’t like the Angels. It’s something I can’t explain. I’m cheering for the Yanks tonight”.

Brown-Eyed Girl: “Yes, there is something about the Angels, I don’t like them. I don’t know what it is”.

Seven: “Sweetie, I just said that! You said the same thing I did.”

Brown-Eyed Girl: “I know. Ama Greeun with ya”.

She is from Texas.

Seven Calls His Momma

A Talk With Seven

Text to Video

Some have said they can’t see the video below this post, so here is the text that goes with the video. I read it a little differently than it was written, but the message is the same.

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An old woman sat on the edge of my bed last night. I awoke to the sound of her rustling white dress. She whispered these things to me.

“Fear not Seven. It is the Creator’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Fear is the great enemy of all men and women. Fear is an invented attitude. Because you have invented it, it can be converted into something else. Fear is the opposite invention of faith. It is also the result of lack of faith.”

“Fear flows from a mental invention that creates limits. Those limits deny the possibility and the willingness of the Universe to give you the good you so greatly desire Seven. There is nothing wrong with your reaching for all things good. The Creator is more fully expressed through the man who lives largely than through the one who lives meagerly.”

“In the midst of plenty humanity lives in want, because of their fear. To overcome fear is the ultimate test of the mind of man.”

“The relationship between you and the Universe is one of reflection. What you imagine for your life, He also imagines for you. And so you see Seven, it follows that the very mental condition which creates bondage could as easily create freedom.”

“You can sit in the shade or move into the sunshine. While sitting in the shadows you may not really believe that there is any sunshine. And yet, you can now understand Seven, the sun would have been there all the time.”

An Old Woman Sat On My Bed

Barney Fife

Okay, I‘m not too often pissed off when I write to ya, but I’m back on my ride about this spirit of law vs. letter of the law thing.

I went to workout on the track this morning (Monday). In your imagination, or imagination(s) if more than my one friend happens to be reading, imagine a major University in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Now imagine that you are pulling up in front of a large athletic complex. A football stadium would be a very accurate way to imagine this.

The parking area next to the athlete’s weight room and locker rooms will park about 50 cars. These spaces are a short distance from the main parking area for the stadium.

Imagine now that there are 3 other cars, which of course means there are 47 empty spaces. The reason for the empty lot was that it is 7:30 am and there are only 3 university athletes or coaches actually awake, not to mention there are no classes being taught.

I get donor parking privileges in this lot and I have swipe card access to the facility, including the athlete’s weight room. (Thank you university track coaches) However, the 2 donor spaces are occupied by a university pick-up truck with a trailer containing a lawn mower hitched behind.

Seven parked in one of the 47 open spaces and headed to the track. After the track, I went to the weight room. Lift Lift, Lift, get sweaty, look in mirror at handsome muscles. Finish, and head toward my car.

As you may have guessed, under my windshield wiper is a PARKING TICKET! There are still 46 open parking spaces. The adjacent stadium lot with thousands of spaces is empty. And I have a *$@*$#(*$@()(@( PARKING TICKET!!!

Dear University Police Officer,
Let me explain this to you. The parking law at the university is intended to protect students (when school is actually in session) from being unable to park at peak times if unauthorized vehicles are occupying the spaces. If the spaces are unoccupied, school is not is session and all athletes are asleep…….I am NOT CAUSING A PROBLEM……..YOU FREAKIN BARNEY FIFE !!!!!!!

This patient and cogent discussion of the philosophy of ‘letter of the law’ v. ‘spirit of the law’ has been brought to you by a retired law enforcement veteran, and card carrying donor to your university with a donor sticker on his car!!!

Thank you for listening. Peace and Out, Seven

Mianus and Uranus

200m Xavier Carter 19.63

Ya'll all know 7 be down wit da track thang. Here's the 2nd and 4th fastest times ever run by any human bean over 200 meters of track. Dig it. Seven can watch this like it was Denzel Washington in a cop show. Over and over....u wit me? Speed kills, peace and out.

In The Rhythm

Searching for the heart that beats in the rhythm of a better world.
Looking for the act of another to close the circle started,
The circle begun in my own acts of giving.

Wondering if those acts return to me, often thinking in the negative,
Feeling I give more than I receive,

Always the sun rises on the darkness of my misunderstanding,
Revealing the good acts and charitable love shown by the ones that surround me
Giving back to the circle of giving
Giving in love and readiness
Giving me strength to give back while accepting the return

Searching and hoping for the heart
That beats in the rhythm of a better world
Closing all circles that flow in unison across a universe of larger knowing

Thank you FATTY for such a heart,
Beating in the rhythm of a better world.

Young Australian Chicks Rule

Yes indeed, it is a new template. And I owe it to the very sweet and hyper brainy Miss FATTY!

Young Australian Chicks Rule! At least I'm sure the notorious FATTY does!

And I promise to do a more meaningful and articulate salute to her when I am not up to my neck in 'make a living' work.

The photo of lush greenery was taken by FATTY herself in Argentina. San Carlos de Bariloche up in the Andes in January!

Because I train so hard to compete in track and field and since it is important to my everyday life I chose a cheetah for additional symbology. What is faster and prettier when running than a cheetah?

Have a studly Thursday!

Busy Doing Community Services

I don't have time to do a proper post, nor an improper one, so you are stuck with this in-between nothing of a post.

I'm really busy this week writing a technical specification for a Bulgarian television station. Enough out of the normal that it makes me out of sorts. At least 'out of sorts' used to be a meaningful term, maybe not any longer?

Working in the European construction zone means I have to research European products and write all technical specs in metric. It's not so hard as it is a 350 millimeter pain, I think that is the proper size?......But, if you ever work with metric you will soon wonder why we continue to fool around in our overly complicated and somewhat bizzare imperial measurements.

But anyway, lets talk about something else. See that photo above. Thats me. I'm pushing a shopping cart full of starting blocks at a track meet this weekend. And no, I am not a hunchback, that is a backpack! So all of you that wrote me snarky e-mails about my 'servants' comment in the recent 'selfish' post can just smooch my weary metric sized selfish butt.
See.....this is community service to my fellow athlete! I am pushing those blocks up the track so fellow competitors can try to beat me using them (they didn't) but that doesn't matter to my point. See, I am a service oriented guy. Or maybe a homeless fellow with a fetish for starting blocks. Take your pick, I have to go learn Bulgarian.
Out, 7

New Delhi Interested in Naked People

Google Labs has a new test product in place. The rapidly growing and innovative company is showing us data from their search engines in a new form. If you go to www.goggle.com/trends you can input specific words and Google will tell you what city in the world has searched for that word most frequently.

I can’t explain why but this became an obsession for me this weekend for about 2 hours. Maybe it is my love of words or just goofy curiosity but I did learn some interesting things.

For Example:
Brisbane, Australia appears to be one very curious city. Or perhaps Brisbane is peculiarly interested in the words or phrases I randomly selected. Maybe I should be living in Brisbane? In any case folks in Brisbane (Brisbaners? Brisbanians?) show more curiosity than anyone in the world over the following words:
Freckles
Terrorists
Butterflies
Seven

St Louis shows several odd tendencies as well, leading the world in the following search categories:
Midgets
Lunatics
Baseball
Beer
Midget lunatics interested in baseball and beer perhaps? You know what they say about Missouri, the home state of former US Attorney General John Ashcroft, who put curtains over the bare breasted statues in the Department of Justice and once lost the Missouri governor's election to a dead man.

Speaking of bare breasts……The folks in New Delhi, India are sure interested in naked people, leading the world by a large margin in Google searches for:
Nude Beaches
Nude Photos
Nude Women

Ever wondered which city is most curious about circuses? Easy, it’s Winnipeg, Canada. I just don’t know why. Maybe they do?

It appears New York City, Atlanta and Dallas are owners of more ‘pains in the ass’ than other places in the world, finishing 1, 2 and 3 in searches for proctologists.

For a moment let’s go back to Brisbane. You may have noticed that the word ‘seven’ has been searched for there more often than any city in the world. I’m relieved. I changed my name to Seven recently because I was being ‘stalked’ or ‘hounded’ or ‘pursued’ (I’m not sure which word is most appropriate) by a lady in Portland, Oregon. She was able to piece my posts together and eventually zeroed in on my snail mail address and email address. Ms. Portland, I will not be able dodge you I guess, but maybe by changing my name I can avoid other incidents.

As far as Ms. Portland goes, the nude photos are interesting and really I don’t want to try the chocolate chip cookies, (no offense Ms. Portland it's just that I don't own a cookie-sniffing dog)

So I am relieved that Portland is not number one in searches for ‘Seven’ but then I discovered ‘track and field’ is the number one search in Portland. Uh-Oh, worried again!

So maybe I should direct Ms. Portland toward St. Albans UK which leads the world (easily) in searches for psychiatrists. And….oh yeah….one of my favorite places in the world, Austin, Texas is seventh in that category! ‘Keep Austin Weird’ is the local slogan there. Maybe they are trying to find them in Austin in order to avoid them? Let's hope.

Have a Happy Monday

I Love You Because You Are Sooo Selfish

Enemy of the Republic wrote a thought provoking post this past week. (July 3^rd) She rained a heavy rain of questions about relationships. When do we know when a relationship is not good for us? How do we know when trust in another is appropriate? What do we do with the disappointment that others can bring to a relationship?

All of us have experienced the relationship gone south. You know that gnawing, twisting sandpaper on our psyche type inflammation that asks “why do I care or put up with these people, when they don’t even care about me?” I know I have been there. In a funny twist of sorts it’s likely the person I was thinking about was thinking the same of me.

So I’ve been thinking about the concept of selfishness. Oh yes, selfishness. But I don’t think about the problem perhaps as you might think I should. The conventional response would be that because we are all selfish, or at least our friends are all selfish, then that is the reason we have these difficulties. Or put in another way, how can they pay attention to me if they are always thinking only of themselves?

I think maybe the clue lies 90 degrees from that conventional thinking. It is important to be selfish.

Yes I think so. But I want to redefine the sort of selfishness I mean. I’m not talking about self absorption or pompous behavior that denies the existence of all others around us. I’m not talking about greed or malice normally wrapped around our definition of selfishness.

I’m talking about a type of selfishness that I want to re-define right now in this little essay just to make myself less confusing. Let’s call my idea of this trait ‘self-awareness.’

In most western spiritual indoctrination we are taught to practice self-denial, abstinence of pleasure and denial of our individual importance. I saw a ground sign at a church this week that read 'Servant's Entrance.' It was pointing to the main entrance of the sanctuary.

Practice of that doctrine sets us up for certain failure in human relationships. Only by understanding self can we hope to bring good relationships and friends to our open doors. Only by using every resource available to create our internal awareness can we summon the love required that will transform our feelings from mere acceptance of others to love of others.

How should we interpret the spiritual teaching that “the kingdom of heaven lies within?” By understanding that we must love ourselves before we can hope to love others we smooth the way for the use of the Creator’s natural law, and bring the powers of the Universe and Creator to our personal relationships.

In my mind we need always understand that we must love those around us in order to receive love in return. No one is more toxic than the individual that does not like herself and leans ceaselessly on others for emotional support and negative absorption.

Within this idea lies the paradox that we must first love ourselves before we can gather love to us. To love ourselves requires a great deal of inner awareness, a glimpsing of the kingdom of heaven within. The paradox is that this selfishness of looking inside for our truth, or our ‘self-awareness’ is exactly what frees us to love in a way that draws love back to us.

There are toxic people among us. Some of our husbands, wives, friends and relatives may well be toxic to us. This becomes the largest challenge we face in relationships, the question of how to separate ourselves from the toxic individual and continue to love self.

Separating yourself from the toxic individual does not necessitate that you feel bad or become sadly grim. We only need continue to love and let that toxic individual learn at their pace; if they will. But they are not meant to be our burden. Instead, our job is to find the selfishness to accept the love at our core and then set it free around us. This includes showing that love to the toxic without accepting their poison.

We should search for a degree of love of self and inner awareness that can withstand the tug and strain of those that do not love themselves and therefore sand away at the relationship you offer them.

We must separate ourselves from the toxic individual, continue to love ourselves and find our own inner-awareness. Without inner-awareness and love to project, nothing will return to us and we become the toxic one.

We cannot love ourselves by depending on others to do the task for us. This is the myopic approach of the toxic. They say to us, “please love and nurture me because I don’t have the strength to do it myself.” There is a key to life and happiness in exercising a degree of selfish behavior. Turning the phrasing of a famous song writer upside down, “Don’t be looking for love in all the wrong places.” It lies within, and when we find it then it becomes a light we can shine for others. Then we become the best friend anyone could have. We become a friend that needs nothing, except another selfish friend.

Embrace the paradox.

Sunni or Shiite?

I was reading this mornings newspaper and came across a story about the booming business of fake ID's in Iraq. In the US my idea of fake ID's is about underage kids wanting to drink before their time.
Not in Iraq. Apparently, as most of us have been told, the Sunni's and Shiite's don't care for one another one bit. They have an unsettling problem however. They can't tell one another apart by sight.
That fact alone is surrounded by a pasture full of thinking room isn't it?

Apparently they can distinguish one another by name structure.

So....there are now fake ID manufacturers to give the customer a Sunni ID and a Shiite ID with exactly the same picture, but different name. That way if they are questioned by the opposite group they can pose as one of them.

Now if I made this up....you wouldn't believe me would you?

I could write page after page on this one, but you will be spared because I have to earn a living.
Nevertheless I would like to hear your thoughts. The closest analogy I can find in the US is if we had Methodists murdering Presbyterians. Or Catholics trying to 'off' all the Baptists. But first of course you have to determine who and what they are so you don't kill your own.

Wait a minute though, didn't Hitler try this type strategy? Seems he didn't like Jews, but had some trouble distinguishing exactly who they were? Then he used their names?

My Brain Is Tired...Could Be A Rough Landing

I don’t like flying too much. I’m not the type to get petrified and require medication or anything like that; it’s just that it seems strange to fly at 30,000 feet when there is so much air below that height. And I would replace those little tiny wheels with great big inflatable bouncy bumpers. Other than that I ‘m cool about it.

A buddy of mine that works in the airline industry tells me the airlines are considering new ways to beat the high cost of fuel. They are going to open new gates where customers are taught to mentally project themselves to the location they want to visit. Very mystical stuff. Soft weird music and you think real hard about being in Rome even if you are in an airport in homely Midland, Texas. They don’t actually have to fly any planes that way. The problem with teaching this to people in Midland or other ugly parts of America is they may never come home, setting up a real challenge for the airlines reclaiming the gate where their bodies still sit. This type traveling is called ‘Astral Projection’.

I decided to get a jump on the airlines by practicing by myself this weekend. That way I don’t need to pay them or go to the airport. I can simply travel from my living room. I have been practicing with limited success. So far the only place I have been consistently is to the Tylenol bottle, recent warnings aside. This projection concentration stuff is hard.

I have some questions anyway. If I managed to actually ‘astral travel’ to say …oh….beautiful Sweetwater, Texas…..and then I got brain tired….you all know how we can get bored or over stimulated when we concentrate too hard……well I mean what if I get too mentally tired to get home! How do you get a hotel room if you are really in your own living room? I mean there are details to work out dude!

OK…you got me. I’ve got nothing today, so I’m just making s*** up.

Thanks for traveling along though.

(and it would save fuel)

TTYL

Two Year Old Professor

A child’s laughter lights up a room. It bounces around the walls in a happy vibrant music that stretches smiles across the most hardened of adult faces. It’s a laughter birthed in innocence, produced in grand delight and its delightful sound can disarm and swallow us whole.

You’ve heard this sound. It’s the sound of our children, our nephews and nieces and our grandchildren. It’s the sound of a child emerging from behind his peekaboo fingers to look at the face of a playful adult, cackling in laughter time after time, and we are left to wonder at the child’s remarkable innocence.

There are times I have been certain that the Creator shows us some of the keys in ways that may escape us. Or maybe it seems it escapes me and I catch on late in the game. Tonight I am sitting here thinking about a child’s laughter and innocence, yet also viewing it through the prism of a man in his mid fifties, certain I have witnessed the majority of my earth time. It can be foreboding to know this fact and if I dwell too long in the thought………..but when I think of this remarkable innocence in the children, the innocence that produces that clarion signal of delight embedded in the “there is no tomorrow, only this moment” laughter I see something I have perhaps known but quickly forgot and failed to capture into speech, like a lightning bug that shows us the light for an instant and then is gone. When I have known it, I have not known it very long. And when I knew it perhaps it was as short as the blink of my eye or the time it takes a smile to cross my face and disappear again.

I’m thinking tonight that the Creator wants us to understand that the child’s innocence is pure faith. It is faith perhaps born of ignorance, but faith in the big people that surround them and fascination in the universe that amazes them.

The adults sit and wonder at the child’s ignorance and delight, knowing that too soon these children will know our truth.

As I look at my life and even toward my earthly ending I speculate if this might be one of the signals so easily missed. Is it one of the secrets ignored, stepped over as though it were transparent as we look in our adult wisdom in all the wrong places?

I want to be ignorant. I want to know that tomorrow doesn’t exist and that today is all that I know and will ever know. I want to be a child again.

Any man my age would know this is impossible at 55 years old. We would surely be committed and forced to 24/7 medication procedures.

So I concentrate on a philosophy that suits me. I’m conjuring up my vision of this new-found key. It’s a belief and philosophy that the Creator returns us to childhood when the day arrives for us each. Full circle, if you will allow such eastern expansion of thought.

I gaze out into the darkness of the night sky contemplating the death that will certainly visit me, imagining that maybe the Creator smiles knowing he will return me to childhood. Return me to ignorance and faith that worldly toil, pain and years have concealed from my soul. Consider it a cleansing shower, washing away the world of burden until we are clean enough to laugh in simple uncomplicated delight; a rebirth.

I’m sitting at my computer listening to the sounds of such laughter right now. My grandson will be 2 this weekend and he flew to his Rickpa's house this morning all the way from St. Louis to spend the weekend. He has now made 7 full flight running circles from the living room into my office and past my chair, chasing the family dachshund and cackling with the delight I have attempted to describe. I’m grinning wide at his concert of cascading giggles.

He’s 2 tomorrow, and already he is helping me become ignorant again and filled with faith. Maybe I will not have to wait on the Creator for deliverance. Maybe I will be fully and delightfully ignorant by Monday when he leaves.

Only 2, but he has already taught me so much.

I’m staring out my office window into the dark Texas sky. I have always known my soul is eternal, but now I’m hoping it’s childlike too. If that’s alright with the Creator he may feel free to fill my prescription. I’ll just do my best while here to live in the present and remember how to have faith and to laugh, without 24/7 medication.

Now I Get It.... ...Maybe

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Do any of the rest of you have to do Continuing Education Credits for your profession?

The Architectural Board in Texas demands that I become increasingly smarter, as if it were actually possible.

GAAAAHHHH !! Government and bureaucratic BS brings out my sour side! I mean continuing ed courses that I read for credits are usually just ignorant. It feels like a freshmen class. Deja Vu at State U.

Or as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s Déjà vu all over again.”

However I ran across some stuff on color yesterday that was half-way interesting. It’s still disarmingly simple, but in a happily simple way. I am giving you some of the lowlights below. Give yourself a ½ CE Credit in architecture when finished. My flippant comments are in maaaroooon.

Color Memories and Emotion:

Often our relationships with colors are based on our memories of colors. We remember pleasant experiences, pleasant people and pleasant surroundings. These colors make us feel those same pleasant emotions. In contrast the color of vomit can make you sick.

Color Associations:

We often relate to colors because of their associations. We think of gold as a rich luxurious color because it is the color of a precious metal. Apply that color to another object and the association is transferred to the object to some degree. Men should paint their penises gold?

Color as Therapy:

Blue – Promotes physical and mental relaxation, inner security and confidence; used to stimulate healing, relieve pain and lower blood pressure.

Yellow – Bright, happy and stimulating; improves memory, judgment and the capacity for decision making. And you thought Grant was attracted to yellow women because of their cute booties….

Orange – Frees emotions, promotes self-esteem and the capacity to forgive. Men should wear orange shirts when girlfriend/wife or both are angry. Fights depression and cultivates good humor.

Effects of Lighter and Darker Colors:

A small home appears larger with the use of light coordinated colors of similar values. Light colors can, however, make crowded houses look even more so and can make large houses appear too luminous. Paint your little house white if you want it to appear larger. Put white shingles on it if you want it to look really really big. Put a white fence around it and we’re talking castle.

A large home appears less bulky and less imposing when dark contrasting colors are used. If you are ashamed of your big house, paint it dark gray. If you are very proud of your very big house; paint that mother white!

Yes, I actually took a Continuing Ed test on this stuff. and it went on like this for 72 pages!

Like I said, GAAAHHHH !!

Friends, July 5, 2006

Not My Fault

I have t-shirt designs on my mind lately. I don’t know why, because my favorite t-shirts have nothing on them at all, much like the inside of Molly Ivin's brain.

Still, I like to read the words and phrases on t-shirts because sometimes they are funny, sometimes crass, and often stupid and sometimes I don’t get them.

For example I kept seeing the t-shirt “Vote for Pedro” while watching Red Sox games and I thought they were made special for Pedro Martinez, until I actually saw the movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. The movie left me grinning like Bill Clinton at a divorcees convention. And of course after seeing the movie, then I ‘got it.’ Now I actually want a ‘Vote for Pedro’ shirt, eschewing my normal attraction to blankness.

You’re still imagining President Bill at a divorcees convention aren’t you?

Some of you know, but new readers will not that I ran on a gold medalist 4x100 relay team at this years’ Penn Relays in Philadelphia. (I try to mention this as often as modesty allows, approximately every five minutes) Naturally I was a little nervous since I was running at Penn for the first time. There were 39,000 spectators and I had to hand the baton to a teammate that is widely accepted as the world’s fastest human over 50 years old.

When the race was complete I was feeling very relieved that the task was over and the victory belonged to Houston Elite. Do you know that feeling where something has gone well and you had been very nervous beforehand? We always breathe that big bundle of fresh air of relief and say something like “thank goodness that’s over?”

Well that was the feeling I had that day afterward and also of course some happiness.

After all the photos with teammates and clothing reps I headed off to a restroom. Right behind was my teammate Mark Hastings who had run the first leg on our team. While standing at the urinals, Mark looked over at me with a wry smile and issued the following remarkable phrase………”well, we won, but it wasn’t my fault.”

I began laughing so hard while in mid pee stream that the patrons adjacent to me began to hurriedly zip and back away from the urinals. I will leave the sight of a full grown man collapsed into giggles at a full bank of urinals to your imagination. I think it was the release of the tension that had been building for days before the race.

Mark was making reference to the fact that our other two teammates are enshrined in the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame. Both hold World Records in the sprints. Mark and I are on the team of course for good and fast reasons, but compared to our other two teammates we would be considered the ‘less than Hall of Fame’ members of the team.

That is what Mark was addressing and what made the phrase so funny to me.

Now, unless I rearrange this little t-shirt joke of mine I suppose it is probably not funny to you. I have also sworn off discussions of politics here, because frankly it's just too easy.

So, here’s the deal. I have found the perfect application for this t-shirt. And it tells you nothing about my politics because it fits and it is funny. (To me)

Have a great day of American Courage.

Powers of Focus

And just in case my post from late last night was too heavy for ya, I wanted to let you know that my remarkable geeky powers of focus resulted in me memorizing the address of Lois Lane yesterday. I saw the new Superman movie!
Should you need Miss Lane you can find her here:

Ms. Lois Lane
312 Riverside Drive
Metropolis

You're welcome.

What Lies Below The Ocean

Do you believe in miracles? Can miracles and something less occur each day? That’s the statement I told you I wrote and then on reflection laughed about. Which part was I laughing about? That miracles occur each day? Or, instead that something less occurs each day? Neither statement taken alone is funny really.

I laughed because the statement is contrary to what I hold as guiding spiritual principle.

I have come to accept the fact that all things come from a source that represents the beginning of all things, operates universally in natural law and is wholly good. We each have a name for the source. Many refer to God, others to Creator and some refer to this power as simply the Universe. I will use Creator throughout this post.

I embrace the thought that the Creator empowers us with choice, what many of us call free will. I also believe that the Creator has given us a framework of natural operating law. I believe the laws provided have always been in place and are irreversible and that the Creator gives us free will as to how to implement the law of the universe.

I accept that the law of the Creator works whether we do or do not acknowledge its existence. The law works in a cause and effect manner. In all that we think and believe the law will work in our favor or against us.

The effects of our actions and thoughts are caused by the application of the universal law. Since all truth flows from the central source it cannot be any other way, now or ever.

Imagine it this way. We can see waves on the ocean, one after another for as many thousands of years as we may care to stare. The waves are an effect of a greater force operating below, which in turn is being operated upon by an ever increasing set of universal forces. Or, imagine electricity for a moment. We still struggle to understand its original source, knowing it is the natural product of a larger natural order, and yet we do know scientifically that it follows a prescribed set of operational laws. We have learned that we can use the effect of electricity to improve our lives even though we do not fully understand its origin. Such is the use of the natural law given to each of us by the Creator.

When we are able to accept the natural law as irrefutable and irreversible we are free to leverage the effects in our search for the underlying cause.

And once we have learned to create effect we can use the law for our advancement and personal peace.

We achieve our higher good, the ‘effect’ of the law by understanding that ‘what we believe we indeed bring to pass.’ The Bible uses the well known phrase ‘we reap what we sow’. There is nothing in our world that has ever been created unless one of us first thought it possible to create. Nothing destroyed unless we first believed it possible to destroy. The slow process of understanding that 'what we believe we bring to pass' leads without fail into the realm of faith in the laws of nature and creation. These are the laws of the Creator, the ones he wishes for us to find and use with care and wisdom.

Faith is the key to the lock on the door leading to the law.

When Jesus went to the tomb of Lazurus and raised him from the dead, was this a miracle? When he turned a minimum of fish into a multitude of fish, was this a miracle? Convention says, “yes, of course.” The leaders of the church would likely admonish me for disagreeing. I don’t like the word miracle you see. I find it confining and limiting.

Jesus was able to do these things because his faith in the law was advanced beyond what any of us have known in our own lives. Son of God? Certainly. A son of the Creator, filled with a level of faith in the law and an understanding of the law that none of us have known. To say it was a miracle suggests the idea that you or I are not vested with a similar ability if only we had the remarkable faith of Jesus.

The faith Jesus demonstrated is the faith and power available to us each. It is the same law and can be no other way. I have seen bumper stickers and church entrance signs proclaiming “I Love Jesus.” I find the phrase to be both anti-spiritual and anti-intellectual. I think it is a limiting phrase. It is not enough to mindlessly go about loving the power of Jesus. We must search for the matching faith of Jesus. This is the charge of the Creator. I believe the Creator wants us to see the perfect application of faith in universal law demonstrated by Jesus and learn to apply it for ourselves, and not go about in robotic symbolic worship that merely waves hello at real personal effort, applauding Jesus as though our work was done.

And so I find the word miracle to be limiting. All things that we think and believe are operated upon by the law and the promise of the Creator. We simply lack faith in the bountiful and rich yield promised when we truly believe in our power. This is our challenge.

No, I don’t believe in miracles. I believe that what we call miracles, such as the remarkable recoveries from cancer or the lifting of a car from the top of an injured child are possible to anyone that has a faith large enough.

I’m looking for and believing in a day when what we call miracles are deemed insignificant compared to what we have learned we can accomplish through faith.

No miracles for me. I want a bigger word. Or better yet no word at all. Maybe just a blank t-shirt stuffed full of a human with enormous faith and limitless possibilities.

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Miracles and Less

I promise to keep you up to date on the really bad haircut situation. Right now, I’m thinking since it’s a holiday weekend and I don’t have to show up at any biz meetings for at least 4 days, I will see if the hair can grow enough to look less like, well….a complete doofus.

But today, I want to talk to you about my book. Well, of course, just like all other bloggers I am writing a book! No kidding. No one will publish it, but at least I can join all the rest of you knuckleheads in saying “Yes, right now I’m busy working on my book.”

Last night I was working on Chapter 3. It was late and frankly I was getting tired and my attention was dimming. I stopped after one particular sentence and stared at it. I re-read it. I stared at it. Then I burst out laughing in a perfectly quiet house at 3 am. I guess that is considered normal since no one bothered to get up and ask “what’s so funny?”

In the middle of some text of great thoughtfulness and serious reflection (that is my way of writing you know) I had typed this sentence.

Miracles and sometimes less happen every day.

After the proper amount of reflection and study described above, I realized that the sentence surely was one of the STUPIDEST thoughts to ever come out of my keyboard. OK, I guess it may be the most stupid thought to come out of any keyboard anywhere. Unless we include Molly Ivins and Maureen Dowd.

Combined with the haircutting incident of the day before I figure I must have entered the ‘what in the hell is WRONG with you’ period of my life.

You know. That time when your wife and kids talk behind your back to the rest of the family? They say things like, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with him, he is doing and saying the strangest things you can imagine!” Or in the everyday shortcut language of my son, “What’s the deal with Dad, is he going retarded or something?”

Which leads me to believe I better hurry up with finishing the book. At least I can steal speell at this point.

But undie turd, I also had an immediate “ah-hah” thought when thinking about my totally ignorant sentence. I’m thinking t-shirts.

That’s right. T-shirts. There is always a moron in the world wearing a T-shirt with an inscription they believe is profound. Given the recent SAT exam scores I’ve seen I’m figuring the young kids will snap this right up thinking they are in the midst of a philosophical new age. Maybe Molly or Maureen will want one.

Would any of you like distribution rights in your area?

More t-shirt ideas tomorrow. Yes, that is a threat.