christopherhildreth

Quit asking for polls and opinions and begin to propose solutions. I your life, and mine, there are ample opportunities to hear how other people want things done. Advice is on every corner and in every in-box. Though there may be shortages of some things in our world, there is no shortage of other people offering their reasons as to why you should do things their way.

We can become weak in our abilities to make decisions and stand for positions we agree with. Having an unpopular opinion is not the same as having The Plague. The easy route is to find the “pulse of the people” and follow it’s every whim and movement. The difficult route – and it has always been the difficult way – is to believe in something and stand for it.

Whatever you believe in, one day it will not be popular. One day your ideas won’t be en vogue. One day you will have to choose to maintain the course of your belief or change course based on someone else’s belief.

Stay your course and be a person who offers the way – who offers solutions to others problems. Be the person people go to when they don’t know what to do. Propose a solution, and I promise you’ll find people following you. I know this because people who propose solutions are rare individuals – be a rare kind, disregard popular opinion and offer solutions. 

At our church we have a saying, “Truth is truth wherever you find it.” This comes from a sereis we did a few months back where we looked at the sacred texts of other religions and stated that when the Buddah says to love everyone, or the Tao says to love all, that those statements are truth. God is large enough for His truth to be found within other religions and in the conversations of those searching for Him.

In essence, when you search for truth you are searching for God. As you search He is big enough to find you where you are and communicate to you in whatever way you can best hear about the unending love He has for you.

When we tend to think about communion we think of a time of deep thought and prayer centered around the sacrifice of Jesus and the last meal the disciples and Jesus shared. We think about the sacrament in the church that is a religious ceremony involving the eating of a small wafer and the drinking of either wine or grape juice, depending on religious faith.

I want to look at the interpretation of the word “communion” and our need to turn a choice meeting of Jesus and His disciples into a rote ceremony. I think the first thing to examine is the fact that the original “communion” was a meal, a dinner shared with friends. When we take time to eat together we develop relational bonds that go further than just superficial exchanges.

Another aspect that I want to focus on is that in the sharing of a meal we do two things:talk and listen. There is a give and take in  the dialogue and both parties lean from the time spent with each other. The next time you experience the rite of communion in your given faith, think about the sharing of intimacy between each of us and God. This aspect can enhance the meaning given and give relevance to an activity that generations of those following Christ have participated in.

Why do we seek religious experiences? Is is so that we can revel in feeling something other-worldly or mystical? Is it because we are in fear of the “regular world” and need a fix of something sublimely different?

I think that in our constant search for an Experience, we become distracted from the real void that exists in our lives. In seeking an experience we also are seeking validation – ultimate validation, if we are honest – from God Himself.

We look around and feel lacking in some area, so we go to the Supreme Power of the Universe to get His take on our own feelings of impotence. We figure that if He at least says we are OK , we can deal with the rest of the world’s oppressive comments. We try to form a spiritual allegiance with the Godhead so that we can what? Feel good about ourselves? How twisted is that?

Instead, if we are seeking, why not seek to know ourselves better. In learning to know ourselves and accepting ourselves we will find, I am sure, that the God who dwelt among us will become the God that dwells with us. In other words, there are so few people actively trying to figure themselves out and really live life, that God is compelled to check it out.

No this isn’t Keats or Longfellow or Kant, but I do think it is true. Even Jesus said, “The Kingdom is within.” Why do we search so much in the exterior when the real action is in the interior?