Freedom

It is a human right to experience freedom in yourself. Bondage to the ideology of the officials in power creates hostility in peaceful people. God is not a politician, not a race, not a sexual being, not a man in body, but a spirit and creator of ALL people. To assign these attributes as better or less than is not of God.

The attributes we can assign to God are love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and justice to name a few. These are the law: Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. To break these are sin. I am convinced of this and there will be justice for how you spend time in your physical body.

Our ideas about the value of people have changed over time with more exposure to the heart of people and education. We are all human. There are evil people but that is not determined by who you love but by how you love. If you love someone by controlling them, putting them down, raping, abusing then that is evil. You cannot both love and despise someone at the same time. Jesus said, if you harbor hate in your heart someone, you have broken the commandment, "Though shalt not commit murder." If one of you causes a child to stumble then you are accountable.

I teach my students the law of physics when we discuss anger and violence. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." We discuss exactly what the equal reaction to hate would be and the opposite reaction. Then we discuss the consequences and benefits to both. They get to choose their reaction. When you stir anger, the equal reaction feels good in the moment and builds pride. The opposite reaction takes longer to find justice but ends in peace.

I say all of this because I am angry. I am angry about injustice everywhere and that it takes so long to understand and love each other. I hate that in other countries they use violence against men, women, and families because of unwillingness to connect. They torture and murder people of different races, skin colors, and religions. In Sudan and countries around the world Christian pastors and believers are imprisoned for years and tortured: ripping out fingernails, castration, regular beatings, etc. In GITMO people are imprisoned secretly for years and tortured without due process. People die from starvation around the world when I throw half of my food away because it's too much.

I feel powerless but I hold onto the sayings of Martin Luther King, Jr. "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." That is what being Christ-like is about.

Recommended movie of the week: "Skin" a story of a South African woman who is a light skinned African born by blood to two white parents. She endures incredible prejudice, even by her own family. Can be seen on Netflix Instant streaming.

Recommended reading: research stories about Near Death Experiences. The after-life is real and the stories are very similar. The message everyone generally gets when they choose whether to go back to their body is to love people and to stop living a life of hate. There are people missing from the afterlife. The people who proclaimed no God and were atheists faced an eternity of void and darkness. Read up on it and discover for yourself.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.