Happy Easter from Eddie Izzard

I couldn't find the clip of the convo between Jesus & God:
God: Jesus, you've got to go down there, start a new religion.
Jesus: Awww, Daaaad...what's Mum think of all this?

Jesus: I said, "Take this wine, it is my blood."
God: You said what? Why couldn't you just say, "Take this wine, it's a merlot?"

Hahahaha Happy Easter, everyone! Going over to Pioneer Sister's for an egg hunt. YAY!

Day of Rest

Pictured above is the collage I did on my 2006 planner/calendar: a couple poems I wrote, a couple phrases lifted from some friend's emails that inspired me. A rock wall from Sedona, a sunrise, my first Hand of God painting, still my favourite. A picture of Shiva, Parvati, & baby Ganesh~a Hindu trinity of sorts. Many people think they have a monopoly on God and then try to impose their version of God on others. They create God in their own image and then get mad when others don't agree. Silly humans!

Jerry Stocking says that the definition of love is inclusion. I think that's the nature of an enlightened experience~feeling included and at one with everything. We are in this world to experience, to learn, to grow, to love. That's my belief, what's yours? We find evidence or lack of anything through our belief systems. Is your God a loving God? Is your God a wrathful God? Is your God indifferent? Is your God non-existent? Is the world a playground or a war zone? You'll find evidence for all these, depending on what belief goggles you're wearing.

When you try on a different pair of goggles, you'll begin to see a different world. Colin Tipping says that when you have the willingness to do something, you create a space for it to manifest. You open the door to allow whatever it is, to show up in your life. What are you willing to have a new willingness about today?

Grey in a Black and White World

I once had a Jehovah's Witness guy come to my door. He was standing there with his sweet little boy, about 8 years old. He was smiling and we stood on my porch and chatted. He asked me if I feared the devil because there was so much evil in the world. I said, "When your heart is full of God's love, there is no room for the devil." He said, "You must be a Christian." I smiled, "You think?" Then I told him he was on a street with mostly Catholics, so good luck with that.

I think it's human nature to have a tendency to put Panacea Blinders on and think that if everyone _________ (fill in the blank here: became Vegan, went to the gym, learned Reiki, became a Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/whatever) the world would be a better place. And it would, wouldn't it? Or not.

I was watching an interview with that great philosopher Larry David. He said that he got criticized because in one episode of his show, he was making fun of his father-in-law's religion. He replied, "It's a comedy!" It's not real, it's a show. And then he went on to say:

"Your religion SHOULD be made fun of. It's quite ridiculous, isn't it? Think how people spend their lives. They have no idea. They go around as if this is a fact. It's so insane, you know. If I really believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself lest somebody think I was out of my mind."

The beauty of this world is that we have free will. We are all branches on the same tree. What good does it do to argue the value of one branch over another? But we will. Reminds me of the days shortly after 9/11 when I had a friend who left NYC to stay with us. She was a v. strict vegan and we were out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Her first order arrived and it had meat in it. Then came the anti-eating-innocent-animals rant. She sent it back. The second order she said the enchilada sauce had meat in it (it didn't--but was followed by another it's-wrong-to-murder-animals rant). In the meantime, her starving husband ordered french fries. Finally her food came. During the course of the conversation, she said, "If I were a man and my country called me to serve, I would."

I said, "I find it interesting that you think it's wrong to kill animals, but you're willing to travel to a foreign country and kill people you don't know."

Now, this is not against anyone serving our country. Far from it. It's not anti-vegan. This is not against anyone's religious beliefs, either. But they are just that: BELIEFS. Beliefs are our filters and we will experience the world as we believe:

The world is a beautiful place. Or not. People are basically kind. Or not. God is a loving God. Or not.

It's all in what you believe. And it's not like we are even conscious of our beliefs, it's all programming, as Bruce Lipton points out in his book, The Biology of Belief. The problem is that we then create rules and then we SHOULD all over ourselves and others. We cast judgements and dispersions against whole populations. We try to convert people to our side. Like we know. There's a Sufi saying, "Take responsibility for sweeping your own porch, and all the porches in the world will be clean."

On the eve of Valentine's Day, the ONE day greeting card companies and flower shops have reserved for love, perhaps we can make room for other people's ideas, opinions, and beliefs without judgement. Personally, I think God can handle a difference of opinion. Of course, that's just a belief.

Day of Rest

I woke up this morning saying, "God did not put me on the planet for this." The "this" could be any number of things. And then I heard:

God put you here to shine your light. How you do that is entirely up to you.

Oh. Could you be more specific?

You get to choose where, the circumstances, with whom and how brightly you shine.

Hehhh...This is where I put my cowgirl hat on and say, "Dang it! Dang that free will!" It's all very Conversations-with-God, don't you think? When you shine your light, the darkness disappears and Truth is revealed. And the Truth shall set you free.