One is all, and all is one –Full Metal Alchemist

I have realized and continue to realize that everything is connected; the entire cosmos, right down to the microscopic cells in our bodies. Everything is one.

The other day I stood by my front door watching a bee. If anyone knows me, I hate bees, however, this time I was able to admire it. I saw the beauty that it held in its colors. I saw the life that it held while collecting pollen. I saw the beauty of life that was the bee. I saw how the bee’s work contributed to the entire worlds’ life. I saw the grand scheme of the cosmos in a single bee.

The previous day, I had viewed one of my favorite television series, The Legend of Korra. It is a continued series of its predecessor, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Within parts of the show, elder benders teach the younger benders about life and spirituality, and the teachings usually stick with me. This time was different. The teaching did not come in the form of an elder, but another character; a hedgehog looking spirit. This spirit, within the show, is new to the human world and brought along some nature from the spirit realm. Korra, the main character, was conversing with the spirit trying to learn how to move the spirit vines that had grown in the city. One of the replies of the spirit struck a chord with my heart. It stated that the vines and the spirits are one in the same.

Now to me, the vines represented the human realm, and the spirit, well, the spirit realm. In some religions the vines could can be known as the world, the physical realm, the flesh, mother nature, the universe, and the cosmos. The spirit realm can also be known as heaven, spiritual enlightenment, the spirit realm, godliness, holiness, spirit man, and god(s). What that scene had taught me was that there is no distinction between what is spiritual and what is secular. There is no distinction between godliness and human desire. There is no distinction between the world and heaven. There is no distinction between the flesh and one’s spirit man. There is no distinction between humans and the cosmos.

You see, that bee showed me a map; a map that traced the entire cosmos into one life form. That bee showed me that we, as well as the world around us, all do our part to contribute to the universe in which we live. We all play a vital role. That role is summed up in being you. If that means you are a bee, then go roll around on flowers and collect pollen. If that means you are Payton Smith, then go discover what it means to be Payton Smith. Don’t separate yourself into two halves; a spiritual half, and a human half. See yourself as one being, a being that is profoundly spiritual and profoundly human. See how those two mesh together and create a being that is profoundly you. Like the hedgehog spirit, see how you are connected with the universe around you. See how the universe is connected to you. Like the bee, enjoy being yourself and know that you, the universe, and the spiritual are all connected. 

Being Bad

The idea that we have to be bad to receive Jesus makes no sense to me anymore. I don't understand why you have to be bad, suck, or sinful to know Jesus at all. Many people defend that idea using the Bible which seriously frustrates me. When you say that you're bad, you're undermining God's greatest creation and the whole point of the gospel. You! You are the point of the gospel. You are the reason why God created the world. You are the good. God wouldn't create someone or something simply to cast it aside and burn it. He loves you and you're his greatest desire and creation. He created you with part of himself. You're united with him. There is nothing wrong or bad about you. You are complete and good!

Listen and Accept

What that I found that people need more than prayer or to be told that they need God is for someone to listen to them and accept them. I see this in my life and my friends around me. We all want to be heard. To feel like we belong. And it starts with listening and accepting one another.

Rediscovery

2013 was a crazy year for me. I moved out on my own, broke my leg and tore my acl at the same time, moved back home and rediscovered Jesus and myself in a whole new light. It was very interesting yet amazing!

 I moved out on my own in March of 2013 to live with my friends who are married. We had been in a band together and hoped that by living together we could accomplish more. I also enjoyed their church, IHOP (International House of Prayer), which was focused on 24/7 worship and prayer. I was tired of the church I was attending at home because I wasn’t receiving anything new from my pastor. It felt as if he was restating the same sermons that I’ve heard the three years of being there. I was ready for something new. So I moved in with my friends and started a new chapter with Jesus at IHOP. It was so different from what I was used to. They had worship 24/7 and each set lasted an hour or two, which was normal for me, however they incorporated prophesy by individuals of the congregation or spontaneous prophecy sung by singers that were stationed at the side of the stage. This was unique to IHOP as they wanted to share Gods’ heart with the people in the building and prophecy to the city or town that they were located. Each worship set focused on different things that people felt passionate about or God told them to focus on. I auditioned and eventually was put on the same set as my friend and his wife. This was a blast for me. It was honestly my first real time of doing “professional” worship for any type of service. After a few weeks I started struggling with sin again. I felt as if I couldn’t get away from sin and was constantly messing up. Since IHOP was extremely focused on prayer I felt as if I was never doing enough for God. It seemed like I could always be doing more. Not to mention the people attending IHOP were always trying to get us to log in more hours. They ate, breathed, and lived IHop. It seemed to give purpose for doing something for Jesus. So what did I do? I did more. I tried to attend more often but not too much because I was working a factory job that sometime scheduled me ten to twelve hours a day.

 Around this time my band fell apart (I now believe this was due to a lack of seeing good in each other and the pressure of religion to do more). We tried to start numerous other bands and failed until one day we jammed and finally found a style. It was a mixture of hardcore and pure terrible noise. The point of the band was to suck, tell people about Jesus and claim violence. It was fun at first. But then I realized that I had way more potential than sucking and I didn’t support the violent attitude towards people. I wanted to do something different, unique and share love but they just wanted to be violent and suck. They convinced me to stay in the band and that this is what Jesus wanted for me. During the time that I wasn’t having band practice, going to IHOP, or working I enjoyed resting or going skate boarding at the local skate park. Skating was such a freeing feeling for me. I went skating to build friendships with the youth in the community, to use that friendship to minister to them about Jesus and for the sheer pleasure of skating.

 Around March, my long time best friend Martina and I had started romantically talking and a few months later we started dating. She posed a lot of good questions about Jesus, herself, and life once she went to college. I was puzzled by these questions. A year earlier I had been a part of the group she went to that met on Monday nights. After a while I stopped going and was convinced that it was a “false grace” message due to me being lazy to not read my bible anymore. Pretty much I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for Jesus. I felt like had to earn or do something for Jesus to have favor, to love me or to get into heaven. Me deciding that this was a “false grace” message didn’t stop my heart from longing for that intimate worship with Jesus were it talked about our goodness or union with Him, or wanting to hear a message of joy and goodness of our selves. So from what I heard between Martina and what I had learned about Jesus so far and hearing a wonderful message of grace, left my mind confused. How do I reconcile this all together? I wanted one thing but religion said another. I wanted to hear that I was good and had union with God but religion said that I was a sinner and needed to do more for God.

I eventually hurt my leg and had to live with my parents again. During that time I looked up a version of the bible called The Mirror Translation (Bible) that an old friend had mentioned to me. I read the introduction to the book and it blew my mind and heart. So much now made sense. Everything that he said connected with my heart. I realized how good I am. I found a deep connection with my heart that I didn’t realize I could have. I fell in love with Jesus all over again. The thing I was looking for by moving and going to IHOP was now found. My heart had been searching for me to know my goodness. I realized I didn’t have to do anything to please or satisfy Jesus. He was already pleased with me and loved me deeply. I learned that everyone was made by God, it wasn’t limited to belief in Jesus. Everyone was on good standing with God. He was never mad with anyone. This revelation just completely wrecked everything that I knew about Jesus. Everything I knew was now being retaught to me through the lenses of love and grace. I rediscovered Jesus and myself in a totally different light. Since then I have come to countless new revelations and have truly learned what it means to be human. I have seen the truth in other religions where Jesus is speaking to people and quite secluding myself from non-believers. I now desire to hear truth from non-Christians rather than Christians. I don’t want to go to standard church anymore because they will preach that old message where Payton sucks. I now want to have gatherings with anyone of any religion or belief and share truth from our daily lives and encourage one another of our awesomeness. I have rediscovered Jesus and myself and knowing that I am good is a wonderful feeling.

Quote from Jim Palmer

This is a quote from Jim Palmer; a very awesome, encouraging man that knows what being a human is all about. It has been wrecking me a lot lately and I hope it does the same for you.

 "...Jesus was special not because he was more divine than the rest of us, but because he was courageously more human than most."

You're a good person

I recently heard someone say that one of the scariest lies that someone can believe is that they are a good person. This completely shocked me but at the same time i wasn't sure why I was so surprised that religion had said this. I believe the scariest lie you can believe is that you're a bad person. You are designed with so much wonder and amazement in the eyes of God. You’re beauty captures his gaze at every twirl of your dress or ray of your glory. There is nothing you can do to become bad or gain goodness. You are designed as a good person and that is simply the truth of the matter. So, think positive about yourself and others and know that there is good in everyone and everything.

Being Human

Being Human is something that I’ve had to relearn. Something that I forgot once I became “saved” or “reborn” and just this last year I’ve relearned what it means to be Human. You see, I was stuck on “hyper Christian” mode and got caught up in having to do things for Jesus that I forgot how to be myself. I probably made a lot of people mad by trying to be controlling of their “sinful” lives, annoying them about Jesus twenty four seven, and ending friendships that I now know I could easily have kept by simply being Human.

Jesus came to show us the greatest thing about ourselves and remind us of who we are. We are human. We understand hurt, and try to help one another. We understand love, and share it with one another. We understand sadness, and try to comfort one another. The list goes on. We are human; a term that blows my mind just thinking about it. We were created with a greatness that we, ourselves, or other people sometimes diminish and destroy by calling ourselves bad or sinful because we haven’t yet discovered the beauty of our true selves; our Humanity.

The Bible talks about us battling “the flesh” or “sin nature” or “dying to ourselves”… I believe this simply means to stop believing the lies that we are bad and that there is something wrong with us. God created us as HUMANS. The “flesh” (our bodies) is so complex; it has veins to send blood throughout your body, a nervous system to send signals to make different parts of the body function, a heart for loving people, animals, the earth and ourselves and a creative mind for dreaming magnificent things. So believing that our human design (aka flesh) is bad or flawed is preposterous. God created me, us, all of humanity and called us good. He fashioned all of humanity in the womb, gave us characteristics that are only unique to ourselves. He spent all of forever coming up with the idea of us and how incredible it would be to live with us, and in us, and KNOW us. He created us and knows us so intimately; in such a way that he wants us to know our own goodness and see how beautiful we are, simply because he believes it to be true.

Jesus came “in the flesh” to show that we are divine as human beings. When he created us, he made us as humans and blew his breath into us. Another term for breath is spirit or wind or Jesus name, YHWH. It’s the sound of breathing, the very sound that we create everyday of our lives. He gave us everything he owns and wants us to act on our inheritance as Sons and Daughter of the Most High. He gave us His divine qualities; things that we sometimes just pass off as simple gifts and not of us but of God. No. Being able to raise the dead, heal the sick, walk on water, turn water into wine, etc. Those are qualities that are unique to us and God. He designed us with the ability to do these things. He fashioned us with the ability to supernaturally heal peoples’ bodies to take care of one another if we break a bone or severely harm our bodies in some way. But he also blessed us with knowledge to deeper understand the body and perform surgeries to fix a body part. Both a form of healing; God designed us with supernatural abilities as well as knowledge to understand the complexity of ourselves… We as people are divine as Humans. There is no separating ourselves from being divine, spiritual, and human. We are all of these qualities whether we know it or not. But being “spiritual” doesn’t mean praying or reading a particular religions’ “holy scriptures”. It could, but also means just enjoying life. Enjoying life is going on a walk through a forest, or walking your dog along the sidewalk in your neighborhood, or enjoying the company of friends and family. Being spiritual isn’t having a “monk-like” state of being. It’s just being yourself, loving the great good being that is you and loving the fellow beautiful Humans around you. 

Being human is a balance of knowing we are divine and knowing how to be ourselves with the people around us. Being human is about comforting those who are upset about a tragic life event and being able to help them in a way that has no agenda of sharing a “religion” but simply being there for the person. Being human is about sharing the experience of being a human with the rest of Humanity.