My Westernized Mandala

For class the other day, we designed and then made sand mandalas. We are studying Tibetan Buddhism and did research papers on the tantric practice of the sand mandala and it's meaning. Based on this study we were to do our own mandala for a variety of reasons: 1. to learn the lesson of impermanence. 2. to see how hard it actually is. 3. to see how art has layers upon layers of meaning.

here is my mandala sketch and explanation followed by the final version:

The Meaning

Unlike the Tibetan concept of Mandala as palace and home of deity, I am choosing to represent a God that can’t be boxed. In fact, the symbols of the various religions are trying to act as walls for the divine yet the divine is in and through everything. This is to represent my panentheistic view of God.

In the center, I have chosen the traditional Christian symbol of Alpha and Omega to represent the divine. However, I modified it a little and placed two question marks and centered it in a labyrinth to show the ineffability of the divine. The boxes that hold the various symbols of the world religions demonstrate how each is a human-constructed view of the divine and the fire labyrinth that encircles the boxes show how each has a little bit of the fiery divine wisdom within each. The symbols read clockwise spell out “COEXIST” and end with a human skull to symbolize secular humanism, atheism, and those without a particular tradition yet still hold philosophical wisdom. These are placed on the 8 cardinal directions.

The labyrinth shows how humanity wonders and wanders around searching for the divine and yet wanders and wonders completely surrounded by it. I take this meaning from the wisdom literature that “all of this has happened before and shall happen again” which is a pseudo-Buddhist view of time. The pathway also shows how we are largely in the same state that we started in and will end up close to where we began on our journey. 

The symbol of the male and female figures is to show divine blessing on all of humanity and how we are charged with dominion over the world. It is good to note that dominion in my mind, from Genesis, suggests a stewardship and care for the planet, not the excess and exploitation that can be associated with this idea. It is also good to note that this view can be seen as hetero-centric but I do not intend it as such. This does not show how the man and woman are partnered with one another but shows both genders and represent how all of us got here, namely through that union. It is not intended to rule out homosexual partnerships.

The Experience

man, you have no idea how much concentration it takes to get sand to go where you want it to! Your breathing, hand control, and body position all must be accounted for. we used straws, brushes, and toothpicks to apply the sand and one little move or absent minded breath would send your whole work scattering. the concentration though was extremely focusing, i have a very technical and small-scale mandala and i'm normally more of a "chaos" artist... meaning i will slop things on there and intuitively follow where my mistakes lead me. this however, required a plan with mathematical precision planning and extreme skill to pull off. i rarely have these qualities, so it was quite a change from the normal way of doing things. I found the initial start-up frustrating, but once i got the hang of how the sand fell and what techniques to use, it became easier and i found i grew more quite, focused, and prayerful.  

The Result

When planning the mandala, i was so focused on the measurements and alignment that I forgot about scale. so i came with a smaller mandala than everyone else and thus a more technical one. the application of the sand blurred on the COEXIST spelling and only about two came out legible. i am pretty proud of the labyrinth and the color scheme.  This is from my buddy's camera on his cell phone... but you can see it's a little blurry. I love the 3D aspect of it, how you could texture and raise things in the sand or flatten or do a brush pattern. i hope to do another mandala in the future that will be bigger and will account for such things.

So if you had to do a mandala, what symbols would you have on it? What would it represent? If you have the time, I'd love to see a design or something... to my fellow classmates, I will put up your mandala on this site if you're willing to email it to me. RAWK!

Guest Sermon by Agent Smith

I met Agent Smith through LTS's Leadership NOW program for young adults. Agent Smith traveled this summer to Thailand with Leadership NOW. This is a sermon he gave to his congregation about his trip (i added the pretty pictures!) I am always amazed by the profound wisdom I encounter with Leadership NOW and you'll find this sermon particularly enlighted.

also a message to pastors: WAKE UP! LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE IN YOUR PEWS! LET THEM HAVE A VOICE! thank you.

and now without further delay, I present Agent Smith:

This week, as a part of the seasons of creation, we are talking about mountains… Mountains that are offer “mountain top experiences”.

The idea of using mountains as a metaphor was a challenge for me.

It was hard to know which way to go with it...In some ways, a mountain is a good thing…being on a mountain can be inspiring…energizing...refreshing…and relaxing all at the same time. The Bible is full of stories of people having visions while up in the mountains.

But, trying to climb a mountain can be exhausting and discouraging and maybe even dangerous.

And then again, being on a mountain gives you a different vantage point…your place on the mountain impacts your view on the world. And that’s the first thing I wanted to talk about.

In Thailand, we had some of those experiences; most of them were related to the hospitality of the Thai people. Thai people have always been known for their respect and hospitality, and the reason for that is because it used to be a law.

Now that they have realized that there are some people who have bad days and have a hard time being nice to every Westerner they see, the laws are no longer in place but this way of thinking is still very much a part of their culture. The laws were known as the “Sakdina System” a system with points.

Just imagine a pyramid, no wait, how about a mountain? Ok, well on this mountain there are different levels, and on each level there is a group of people, like farmers, beggars monks and elephant trainers. The number of points you have depends on your occupation, who you are related to, and who you work for.

Down in the valley of the mountain are the beggars, and peasants with 1-5 points, and at the base of the mountain you can find the farmers with maybe 10 points. Ok, so move up the mountain, you can see merchants and gas station owners with 50-100 points. And about half way up the mountain you see elephant trainers with 300 points, and then you see the king’s elephant trainers with 600 points.

Now you look up and see the royal family with maybe 1000 points. The king on the other hand is even further up, he has infinity points, but he is still not at the very top… up in the clouds above the peak are the monks and novice monks. But there is one group I left out… the “Farangs.” (tourists like you or me.)

To Thai people, we Farangs are nothing but selfish pigs with money to spend. People who come just to take what they want and leave... Although these Farangs are looked at like this, they have a lot of points so they are treated with a lot of respect. We westerners the Farangs, have 800 points on the “Sakdina system”, only because we help to support the Thai economy.

It is hard to have the, well let’s call it the Thai mentality, when here in America, the way to get respect, is to dress to impress, or have a lot of money, or a big house… all of those big _physical things_. Comparing the two ways of thinking is something that is hard to wrap my mind around.

The difference really jumped out at me recently. I’ve been doing some research about how people “do church” So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been snooping around at a local mega church. The American way of getting respect was demonstrated when the minister opened his sermon like this. …

This young, hip guy walked onto the stage all decked out in 3 huge diamond rings and a silver necklace, then the first thing he said was, “Ok, so everyone, I want you to check out these awesome kicks, these are probably the coolest shoes ever worn by a minister, these are the coolest things out, are they not?” This statement, for some reason, bothered me for the rest of the night. Especially because one of topics of his sermon was about not caring what other people think about you. He talked about people who have eating disorders, people who self harm, and all of these other things people might do to try to impress other people. I’m not exactly sure why it bothered me so much, but it did. I seriously almost raised my hand to tell him about a story from Thailand. A story about a monk, a monk who told us about his pair of shoes.

One day this monk found that his shoes were old ripped and torn (not just out of style) so he decided that he should invest in a new pair of inexpensive shoes. So, the next week a man selling shoes walked by and the monk pounced! He bargained, and bargained and bargained, until the monk could actually afford the shoes.

The price for his new pair of shoes 100 baht, not 100 dollars but a little over three dollars; this was still a high price for the monk, because monks do not have paying jobs. So the monk went back to his temple wearing his semi-shiny new shoes and as the tradition there, he left them outside the temple for the night.

So the next morning he got up, and went to the front of his temple, and could not find his shoes, he looked and looked and looked, and could not find them anywhere! He assumed that someone must have stolen them, and he has yet to have seen those shoes again. The way he looked at that situation was surprising. He saw it as him donating money to the poor shoe salesman, and that the person who stole the shoes, might have needed them more than he did.

I have to wonder if the minister at the mega church would look at it that way if someone stole his expensive Italian leather shoes. I doubt it.

I wish that I could look at things like that, the next time Josh wants to play the x-box while I’m playing… I’ll just pretend he does not have hours upon hours that he can play, and I will think, wow, he might never have a chance to play x-box again… Well, I don’t know about that, but one thing I do know for certain is that Thai people deserve respect, respect that they will not accept because they feel like we deserve more respect, just because we are Farangs.

Whenever we went to market, we always saw Farangs with their wallet in hand, ready pay their way through the city of Chang Mai to get the best experiences that money can buy … climbing that mountain of fun experiences.But they were turning their backs to the valleys…the valleys full of blind people sitting down in the middle of the street, singing into an old beat up amp with traditional Thai music playing along, Or turning their backs to all of the Thai children that are different in some way, turning their back on those valleys and pretending they are not there, the valleys located at the bottom of their mountain, valleys filled with poverty and despair.

While in Chaing Mai we heard stories about children, different children, children with Down’s syndrome. These kids are usually hidden away into their parent’s house so that no one knows about this child.There are some cases like that still here in America, but it’s rare, but in Thailand, it happens, and it happens often. Children with Down’s syndrome are often hidden from society, with hopes that their family will not have to explain to their friends and family what is “wrong” with their child.

We went to a place called the Healing Family Foundation, which run by people who have family members with Down’s Syndrome and similar conditions. It is a place for children and adults with this type of special need to go during the day. While they are there, they learn work skills so can make a little bit of money and have fun group activities for exercise. In my eyes, that place, is a mountain within a valley. It is a place where they are loved and cared for and learn to climb their own personal mountains.

I’ll tell you about another valley that people want to ignore that I experienced in Thailand. Our group was headed up a mountain and we came upon some people selling paintings. I stopped for a quick moment…because one thing you don’t want to do in a valley is to get separated from your group….I saw a couple of paintings that I thought Joshua might like, so I bought them. We weren’t in a major touristy area so they weren’t overpriced. I turned around and about a half dozen other people who had paintings literally started running after me…While they were saying “You buy Cheap” They were also saying “My children have nothing to eat. My children need to eat. You buy. You buy.”

People want to ignore the valley of severe poverty and the huge differences between the “haves” and the “have-nots” that is growing bigger all the time.

But, back to my trip with the group up the mountain…I rejoined the group and we went to a Buddhist temple at the top of the mountain. We were given the opportunity to be blessed by a monk. A lot of people have seen that picture and some were confused by it. I wasn’t praying to the monk or to Buddha or anything like that, I was opening myself up to receive the blessing that he had to offer. Even though we couldn’t understand each other with words and, even though he is a Buddhist and I am a Christian, I had a real mountain-top experience in that moment. I could feel that he cared for me. That he wanted the best for me and he gave that blessing without expecting anything in return. I will never forget that moment. Under normal circumstances…..as in when I’m not trying to write a sermon, When I think of mountains, I think of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And I love the Blue Ridge Mountains. Maybe it’s because of going to the church retreats every year. Maybe it’s because of our many trips to EB Fox’s campground near Boone. Maybe it’s because of fly fishing for trout in Valley Crusis. Maybe it’s because of our annual trip to find our Christmas tree. While I like the real mountains, I’m not too crazy about some of the metaphoric mountains that I face and I’m sure you face, too.

You know how I mentioned that trying to climb a mountain can be exhausting and discouraging and maybe even dangerous?? As a teenager, I have Algebra mountains, I have Spanish mountains. I have acne mountains. I have “trying to understand the female mind” mountains. I have relationship mountains. As an adult, you might have employment mountains or health mountains or trying-to-do-too-much mountains.

I have to admit it. Sometimes it gets depressing. You’re struggling to climb one of those mountains and, just when you think you’ve made it to the top, you realize there is more to climb or you slide back down the hill or somebody who’s further up the mountain knocks the rocks loose and, here comes an avalanche.

One of the things I learned in Thailand is that the Buddhist monks are expert metaphoric mountain climbers. How is that? They are always learning…always in training. They spend a lot of time praying, too. And, they live in community with others…They are ready to help whoever needs help and they are ready to accept help, too.

I think that’s how they deal with their mountains.

Now, there are certainly differences between Buddhism and Christianity but I think that, we as Christians, can learn some things from the Buddhists.

We can be Seekers, always looking to learn more and be better at what we do

We can be Prayers, always asking God for strength and wisdom

We can be family to one another, always ready to give and willing to receive

We can be grateful for our blessings, & realize that the journey is part of the reward

We can be responsible, because we share ownership of this world and need to take care of it

We can be confident we know we are not alone as we struggle up that hill.

Instead of complaining to God about how big our mountains are, we can boldly tell our mountains how big our God is.

Instead of complaining about how far we’ve got to climb to get to the top of the mountain, we can concentrate on what we’ll be able to see when we get there.

Instead of trying to reach the top on our own, we can tie ourselves to our brothers and sisters in Christ so, when they slip we can help them and, when we slip, they can help us.

How we look at a mountain is our choice. How we respond to the mountain is our choice. How we look at a valley is our choice. How we respond to a valley is our choice.

Let us pray…
Gracious God. Help us to see the mountains for what they are. Help us to see the valleys for what they are. Help us to think, to act and to be according to your will.
Amen

God in the Unexpected

The Gospel for today, Simeon and Anna meeting the Holy Family has two themes I will cover today. The two themes are God in the Unexpected, and Life has Suffering. I'll cover God in the unexpected first.

We stumble on God in unlikely places. In the mall, at our New Years party, in the grocery isle. God is truly in all, through all, and above all. But sometimes we have to be awakened to the possibility. God in the unexpected. Even in the city dump.

In a recent episode of my favorite NPR show RadioLab, they talked about what they find in dumps. In New York, they are burying garbage in manmade hills. Imagine what some future archeologist will find decades from now. A current archeologist dug down and took a core sample about 50 feet down in one of these massive "landfill hills" and do you know what he found? God? No, a Ten year old hotdog.

However the concept of making hills out of garbage isn't new, nor is it unusual. We've been burying garbage for a while. In a few days I'll be going to Egypt, but let's go there now! Well not now, but to Egypt 1898. Two archeologists from Oxford noticed some strange sand dunes. They just didn't look like the other ones. They are strange and irregularly shaped. They found huge quantity of baskets, pottery, clothing, the MOTHER LOAD! Undisturbed mounds of 10 centuries worth of trash. The biggest find was all of the ancient paper… In fact the first piece of paper they pull out is a Lost Saying of Jesus.

Imagine, standing in a desert, in a 1,000 year old trash dump, and the first thing you pick up is the words of Jesus Christ. Here you are standing on a sand dune, reading words of Jesus no one's ever heard before. The first saying out of this dump "He who knows the all, but fails to know himself, lacks everything." Forget the 10 year old hotdog! Here is something not heard or read about for 2,000 years. It's not even alluded to! Jesus states that Heaven, the kingdom of God is spread out all over the world, but we don't see it. We're surrounded by it, but don't see it. [i] I think this exactly the Jesus I know, it fits with the story we do know.

God in Garbage dumps. God in unexpected places. These archeologists didn't expect to find God there in an Egyptian dump! And I bet, neither did Simeon or Anna when they first looked at the baby of the poor carpenter and the woman he "got pregnant" out of wedlock.

Here is Simeon, an old man who somehow got it in his head that he was going to see the messiah. Here is Anna, a faithful servant who isn't expecting much, just to live out her days in the temple, worshiping God. Along comes this poor couple. How do we know they're poor? The family offers a sacrifice and the details of the sacrifice are interesting. Two turtledoves or two young pigeons are to be offered if the family couldn't afford a lamb. Mary and Joseph are poor! Poor but observant Jews.

Imagine how many babies Simeon has seen in his quest. I bet he looked at every baby that came into the temple. If I had Simeon's mission to see the Messiah, I would be ready to quit after my tenth baby. Simeon was faithful, he trusted God and stayed in it. Who knows how long he was in there, how long he waited, but he knew he had found the messiah when he saw Jesus. I would imagine Simeon was a little shocked. I have no idea what Simeon thought the messiah would be, but it couldn't be this little child from this poor family. The messiah was to be from the House of David, ROYALTY! A great military leader, the prophecies say nothing about a baby from a poor family. We have words of Christ in the dump and the Messiah in a Poor Baby.

Simeon does something odd though. He gives a beautiful hymn of praise to the family and to the baby, Simeon is SO happy but then he throws in this sadness. And Simeon's words to Mary say "Sword will pierce your heart" meaning, her heart will break. Simeon is foreshadowing the cross.

Wait, wait. This story is just the gospel writer foreshadowing the cross, nothing more. It's not relevant to our lives today. Some dude meets a baby in the temple, who cares? What's the point? There's no God here, this is just a 10 year old hotdog part of the Bible.

Of course God is here in the story and it is still relevant today. As you may know, Kate and I are pregnant. Well, she's pregnant and I'm responsible… what I mean to say is that we're expecting our first child. The kid is still in utero and we've already had an army of Simeon's and Anna's.

These modern prophets start off just like Simeon's hymn, with joyous praise, "you're going to have a baby! That's great! Congrats! That child will be the apple of your eye. You'll be great parents." But just like Simeon, there's also a note of dread. From the funny like "Oh I'm sorry Kate, now you're going to have two children to deal with, your husband and your baby." Then there's the saddeness. One particular message keeps playing in my mind from a particular Simeon. He said "You raise your kids, and all is well. The terrible twos aren't that terrible. You get them talking and out comes this little personality, and it's great you love it. Then you have to send the kid to school and your heart breaks a little bit. But then you realize that the manners you taught them are working out. Then one day, ugh, the school sends home this person… this happens around 13 or 14… this stranger who looks like your kid, sounds like your kid, but doesn't act like your kid. Talks and acts impolite, is very selfish, THAT is when your heart will break."

That's something to tell expectant parents. But this Simeon is right! And I'll further that message. Throughout your life, not just one sword is going to pierce your heart. Life, after all, is terminal. As one philosopher Van Wilder put it, "Don't take life too seriously, no one gets out alive." One day, everyone you know will die.

So what's the point? You may ask. Why remind us of our mortality, thanks a lot Debbie Downer!

It is easy for me to say standing up here in front of you. God is great and God is good, found in trash heaps and in little babies. How sweet! Some religious traditions try to make excuses for these hard times – talking about the mystery of God or even suggesting that God does these things for reasons we will never know, or because we’ve sinned or done something wrong – THOSE traditions don't go down the road of hard questions. But we're not that kind of church. THIS tradition asks hard questions – feels hard feelings – and tries to make sense out of hard truths. And one of the hard truths about illness, accidents and calamities and death is that… it doesn't make sense. It isn't fair… and it hurts like hell.[ii]

It's easy to stand here and say Jesus is Christ and use images of riches and glory all devoid of the suffering of the story. We don't often talk about the blood of Jesus at Trinity and I think that reason is twofold. First is because we don't subscribe to a "blood atonement theology" and second is that we're uncomfortable with the physicality of Jesus. Jesus was human, and what he went through on the cross HURT and it was terrible and it caused him a lot of pain and those around him even more pain. So much so that his best friends couldn't even watch their friend suffer and die. Isn't that true of us? Don't we stay away from grieving and dying people sometimes, not because we don't care, but because we care too much? But here within the announcement of the Messiah there is also an announcement of the tragedy. "A sword will pierce the heart of Mary". To recall a movie title, there will be blood.

In this life there will be blood, and tears and pain. From my time here at Trinity, since June, I have seen pain and suffering. In our tradition of Christianity we sometimes say that the authentic follower of Jesus is NOT the person with all the answers – or all the degrees – or even the best words. No, the real follower of Jesus is the one who knows how to feed the sheep. To feed the sheep of our world demands compassion – and patience – and tenderness. It requires being true and real and humble. One person said that if you are going to feed the sheep of this world you can't be too full of yourself. Like communion bread you have to be taken – and blessed – and broken and shared.[iii] You don't need to have the right words, in fact, I've learned that words are the least important thing! Just be there, be present, be that someone who stands and offers the hug, or handshake or meal to a family who is hurting.

We think we need some Hollywood scene and say the right thing in a beautiful, eloquent speech. No, you don't. You just need to be present and listening.

A professor of theology at seminary once told me a story about how good wine is made. There are a few spots where good grapes can be grown because the climate in America is too perfect.

"Too perfect?!" I asked, "Perfect grapes make bad wine?"

"Yes," He responded, "For great wine to be made the grapes have to suffer. Suffering adds depth and builds character."

This is what life will do to your spiritual character. It adds character and depth. And you will suffer and wrestle with new concepts. New joys and new tragedies. However, the community here will help you through it. The community will help and although we might not understand it, we will get through it. This too shall pass.

Jesus said, "I am the vine…" (John 15:1) so that makes us grapes! We will be crushed, and stomped, and bruised, but we have each other and God is there and we can make something great! God is there even in the unexpected tragedies of our lives. We have the grace of God and the example of Jesus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When tragedy strikes, we're allowed to say OUCH and ask for help.

When i think of a good grape, Mother Teresa and Dalia Lama springs to mind, but the main example is a more personal one. I think of my GMA Bet. She was always positive and hopeful despite suffering with Rhuematoid Arthritius. I never heard her ask why did this happen to me? Christians get so focused on the why we lose focus. Our Muslim and Buddhist brothers and sisters don't ask this, they take it as a given that there will be suffering. They don't even bother to ask why, they just focus on dealing with it. This is something we do well to remember. It's not about hoping there won't be suffering, it's how we respond to it. As Nancy quoted in one of her sermon's this year, "10% of life is what happens to me, 90% is how i react to it." [iv]. When turmoil engulfs our lives, we should remember that Christmas is a never-ending story. Christmas is a reminder that “God so loved the world..” and God loves us. [v]

We don't love because it's easy or because we won't get hurt. We love despite it all. We love because you and I are here, now, it could have been otherwise. Jesus never said that following him, or even life for that matter, would be easy… he just said it would be worth it. AMEN.



________________________________________
[i] Radio Lab "Detective Stories" 9-11-2007, http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/07/29
[ii] RJ from "Saying Good-bye to Vicki" http://rj-whenlovecomestotown.blogspot.com/2008/12/saying-good-bye-to-vicki.html
[iii] RJ Again, dude was on it in this post!
[iv] Nancy quoted Charles Swindoll.
[v] Charita Goshay "Christmas is a never-ending Story" Canton Reposititory, 12-25-08. This 'n' that.

To Clarify the Mountain

i want to be completely honest with you... The last post was loooong and i mentioned a group who I don't entirely know. I don't want to come across as targeting this particular group, i was just citing an example of the opposite of my thinking and this is what i found. Events in my life have called me to take a stance on this issue and it was by no means an all out attack on Xenos... merely they had something in writing that others were verbally saying in my immediate environment. On a reread, I think i came down hard on this particular church that is doing a great good for a large amount of people in the c-bus area, one that my sister gets a lot of joy out of... i hope this clarifies why i don't share their view.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a veitnamese buddhist, wrote the last post in a much shorter and better phrased way.

"Truth has no boundaries. Most of the boundaries we have created are artificial. Our differences may be mostly differences in emphasis.

You are born into your tradition, and naturally you become a Buddhist or Christian. Buddhism or Christianity is part of your culture and civilization.You are familiar with your culture and appreciate the good things in it. You may not be aware that in other cultures and civilizations there are values that people are attached to. If you are open enough, you will understand that your tadition does not contain all truths and values. It is easy to get caught in the idea that salvation is not possible outside your tradition. A deep and correct practice of your tradition may release you from that dangerous belief."

from Living Buddha, Living Christ pages 154-155.

My good buddy Ron emailed me that to show more of the relativity of mathmatics. He states, "I did however want to let you know that 1+1 is not always 2 in mathematics. Sometimes 1+1=0 in mathematics. How you ask? It's binary addition. It's what makes the switches and electronic stuff in your house work. Thought you might like that little bit of that inside information to blow your mind some more."

how cool is that?! yeah, not only do i have a reader, but he blew my mind! that is why the world is sooo cool to me. there's so many different ways of looking at something, why can't we rejoice in it? the world is not static and boring and is proof that a divine genius placed such an abundance before us. we should never be bored with our explorations. if i have other readers that don't share this view, feel free to comment! i'm open to all trains of thought.


i shall now end with Selections From The Bahai Writings on Peace that sound pretty close to my own Christian tradition:
“…Dedicate the precious days of your lives to the betterment of the world.”

"With the joyful tidings of light I hail thee: rejoice! To the court of holiness I summon thee; abide therein that thou mayest live in peace for evermore."

“The fundamental truth of the Manifestations is peace. This underlies all religion, all justice.”

Heresy

Panzer Pope is on a rampage! First Ratzinger brings back the latin mass.. cause that's exactly what the catholic church needs, a dude babble'n in a dead language about things that normal people don't understand in THEIR OWN LANGUAGE! Also declares in this article that "that other Christian denominations were not true churches". Well count me out then!

If the catholic church is the only true church, then i want no part in it. I thought the founder of the whole religion was out to tell us that we don't really need laws and churches and institutions to get to God, all we needed was love and anything that helped remind us of that love. That is what church is to me, a way to remind myself of God's love and help focus my energy on finding the answers to the present questions bothering me.

Ratzinger also stated "Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation." I would argue that NO CHURCH has the "means of salvation". To me the entire ministry of Jesus and the teachings of Islam and Judaism state that only God can bring salvation and that the individual has to choose if he or she wants to follow that path. Buddha came right out and said that salvation lies within the INDIVIDUAL and I believe that's what religion is calling us to do, wake up and smell the salvation!

This pope is on crack. This is why ppl do not like religion because it's constantly argue'n with itself and looking completely useless and detacted from the REAL church of the human global society.

Switching gears, I saw this all day on Robin and Company:


Michael Moore Serves Wolf

I don't agree with Michael Moore 100% but I really think he brings up great points to consider. And he was completely right about Iraq. I gotta go see sicko and see what's up with this! Another way to illustrate that we are in charge of our own destinies and we must realize this fact before churchs and governments run us into the ground.