A Reflective Pause

Time In Between

May 25^th 2025

Dear Friends in Christ,

Blessed Sunday! We are at our first bend in the road to the far country, which is nearer than most of us might realize!

We started in Jan, and since that time have gone through a brief overview of a bunch of scripture teachings that are essential to strong Christian living in this life and for our transition into the Kingdom of God, which actually should begin in the here and now.

That is the way I am going. Those who wish to discover these elements and this experience for themselves are invited to walk with me for a bit and see for themselves. I have no method to share, no dazzling knowledge etc. I am just a pointer, like a retriever, but I know where I am going simply by following the Lord’s leading. It’s all I’ve ever done. Biblical research, bible study, fellowship activity, can only take you so far. It’s mostly all social and academic.

There is more, much more. And it is all spiritual ie of the spirit - between you and the Holy Spirit of God, in your life now. And that is what I invite you to discover. That’s what Jacob’s Ladder is about, and we don’t have to wait until I get the text done; just walk with me as I go. Those who follow the path into the Kingdom do not have to die the way that most of the world does, i.e. we fall sick and then lose the will to llive and then die. But we can prepare ourselves to die differently..

This is a good time to go over the stuff we’ve covered because it was quite a substantial overview. Everything is on the blog site, and because these are brief posts, you can read like a month’s worth in an hour or two. No need to make notes as much as seek to come to terms with stuff you might not have thought of before.

The Blog add is dreliatjacobsladder.blogspot.com

And if you would rather I not send posts to you on sunday mornings please let me know. No missionary effort, no church growth effort, no fund raising effort etc etc going on here. I can’t even tell you what it is. It is just the Lord’s leading. It’s all it will ever need to be - a lilke minded fellowship of the Christ consciousness.

2 scripture verses to consider at this point:

1.      1 Cor 15:31

2.      Romans 8:28

Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor has a very limited application in our tradition, mostly reflecting the tradition of  ‘deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me.’ Ok. But what does it mean?

When we deny the old self, it also means that we embrace our new being in Jesus!

There has been no persecution in this life for professing to be Christian for just about the longest time, though there are new interesting events happening in the US and other places that involve different degrees of spiritual warfare for what it means to be a Christian witness.

The cross is not just a symbol of public humiliation and torture and death – it is the symbol of the resurrected life! Here and now; old self dies, new self comes alive, spiritual power energizes body, mind and soul! Not for doing earthly things! Why would it? No place for the so-called gospel of prosperity here. But for doing every weird spiritual thing that is of God’s will, as the Bible shows again and again! It is how the spiritual intersects with all of God’s good earth that concerns us – life, family, community. That’s what it’s about!!  Not talk about this and that or mental or psychologizing beliefs, but making real time, life situation differences! Sure, we weaken some as we age, but cause and effect requires we take good care of the body that we are stewards of. The mind and especially the spirit will gain in strength as the flesh draws near to its earthly end. As I’ve said before, our Christian trad has been pretty useless when it comes to dying well and making that transition!

Remember Jesus’ words, ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’ That is not necessarily a ‘one day the flesh will rise again’ thing. The flesh will disintegrate and return from whence it came, into what it was made from, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But the Spirit – returns to God who gave it at physical birth and goes home at the time of physical death.

But even before, there is interdimensional movement possible, for whomever is caught up in the Spirit has accessed dimensionality and moves between the plane of this physical existence and the spiritual plane of the far country beyond this one. Hence the miracles, from Moses and the sea of reeds aka the Red Sea to Joshua at Ai and David vs Goliath and all of the doings of Elijah and Elisha. And then Jesus comes along and caps it all, repeatedly appearing and disappearing into a place somewhere…a place for us. Just as a movie song called ‘Somewhere’ once prophetically sang,’ hold my hand and I’ll take you there’. 

Once you have gained access to the Kingdom of God in this life, there is a dynamic difference in your control of all things around you. You just have to be focused and work at it consistently; it is possible simply because you are in synch with the Maker of all things!  That is the key to strive for. I can’t tell you or show you how; you must just want this more than anything else in this life! That is the true goal of Christian living. The life changing power of the Kingdom manifest within our lives now.  

And the Roman’s 8:28 teaching is even simpler. That everything works together for good to them that love God – for when you love God, you have entered into relationshio, not a stated relationship that you confess or believe in, but a living ongoing relational reality that is part of your everyday life. You are in touch with the loving Creator Father, and you abide in him, as Jesus told us to. Everything cannot help but work out for the good. Don’t look for it to work out according to what the world says or wants or recommends. That is not the way God works. But God knows our limits and will take us beyond them as needed, in this life. This I have always found. That dynamic enabling of insight, strength, body, soul, and mind…will carry on.

It is the result of that which Israel called the Shema. The 1^st Commandment.  Faith, belief, hope, yes. But more than all of these – Love. For God IS love. And when the love of God fills you, there is always peace, and strength. And we can do this because God loves us! A matter of response. For me, it is how I continually grow through my interactions with others – those who will grow with me, and those who won’t, whom I must leave behind because such is their will to live as they will.

A friend once asked me about the notion that he could leave this earth together with his wife at the same time. And I said, why not? Makes sense to me. But we still have to work on it some, as individuals, as couples. We Christians have always been so powerless about this one, but it does not have to be that way. You just have to do your prep work on it. Not so much a foot in the grave as much as in the Kingdom! Seems like the next ten years or so for many of us is real prep work for this! Sounds weird? Yeah, but God is weird. Always had a sense about that weirdness. God’s weirdness truly =  an energizing love that will sustain you when all else fails! Walk in peace and strength with Jesus and have a blessed week. Much love, G.

The Christ Consciousness

Part II

Spiritual power is relational. Live action in the now. This is why the word ‘abide’ is so significant. For a long time it has seemed to me that too many Christians really want the best of both worlds – hence the success of that sadly distorted ‘prosperity’ gospel notion – simply because it appeals to our desire for material comfort. Our world sends us all of these ‘necessity of material comfort’ signals. But true gospel power brings a differentness that the comforts of this material world cannot give. It’s not about doing without. It’s about looking beyond material comfort. Getting it is cool.  Just don’t stay there.  Jesus made that clear enough. What we need to do is to learn through new kinds of experiences. Then we might truly hear God, and not our own thoughts masquerading as something else… But here and there, Saints, esp. in the Catholic tradition, have experienced a differentness. But Jesus was not talking about the occasional person and the occasional experience. He was talking about each one of us being really serious about entering the Kingdom now!  

And those who do, have learned the wisdom of silence. They will not advertise themselves. They are only passing through. They will not get involved. But they will help the true seekers. And they have learned that we must each work out the next phase of salvation, because God has made each one of us able to do this.  The key result of such fine tuning is that you live in God’s will and do everything in Jesus’ name. You cannot do that unless you have reached a new level. And once you are doing this, your requests are always made within the framework of God’s will for you and so everything you ask for is exactly what God wants for you, and it will happen. This is the key goal in the Christian life. Synchronizing both will and desire with God’s intentions – which are nothing more than to be fully human as created, and vastly capable beyond what we can do now. Very SF.

Being a new creation means spiritual freedom. Jesus says ‘If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.’ (Jn 8:36) And part of what it means to be free is to be able to see beyond dominant traditions, fraught with worldly psychology and religious stereotypes. We must each create our own spiritual growth plan and be responsible for it! If you read your Bible with earnest desire for the Kingdom, the Spirit will show you a great many jump points, not starting points, that traditional interpretation has missed. And you will be shown according to your level of readiness. And that depends on your level of demonstrated kindness in how you act towards others. You cannot achieve spiritual growth for the wrong reasons. It will not happen. It has taken me a lifetime to get past all of the learned traditional habits, and all of my training – the terms of discourse of religious life, its distinctions, the human construct that is ‘doctrine’ – all of these work together to tie us down. The ‘believing’ and ‘’having faith’ conditions are but the first step. And the most critical one?

Everything changes in John Chapter 15. John’s gospel does not have the action of Mark, nor the detailed narrative of Matthew and Luke. But it has spiritual value of tremendous significance that requires regular work before you can get into it. It moves from faith and belief into experience. In Hebrew, ‘knowing’ comes by experience. It is never academic. We see the results in all aspects of our lives. Jesus sets us free and unleashes the ‘prototokos’ experience, the true new creation, and it is to Paul’s credit that he sees this and puts a name to it. The church has not picked up where Jesus and then Paul, in following  Jesus, left off. It has talked a lot about it. Forever, it seems.

This, is new creation. Not just saying it. But being it and demonstrating it. Perhaps the precursor of Nietzsche’s ‘ubermensch.’ Scary notion. The forces that be cannot control this new person who has been set free! Free from fear! Free from the ‘sin-guilt-forgiveness’ cycle i.e. no longer committing a crime against ourselves. What crime? Well, when I think that the Lord is everything and I am nothing, then I will always be nothing. I have set myself up. But Jesus turns that notion on its head!  You will do all that I have and more. Reminds me of the closing line from a marvelous movie called ‘The Kingdom of Heaven.’ -  ‘And if God were not with you, how is it that you have been able to do these things?’ No money is needed. Do not cheapen the Kingdom. The notion that we need money to do God’s work is a very insidious deception. To see spiritual experience as nothing more than a matter of feeling is a likewise deception.

True spiritual experience has very little to do with the human range of feeling. It has everything to do with working things out as they should in our lives! If my knowledge and experience of God is based on how I feel, I have seen nothing, heard nothing, experienced nothing. But I have a lot of feelings. 

What happens when the mind encounters temptation? A thought image takes shape in our minds. We begin a conversation with ourselves about it. The image gets stronger and more attractive. A ‘why not?’ option emerges. It holds out a pleasant possibility. That possibility grows stronger and becomes an attractive source of pleasure. This is how dangerous the mind can be if not controlled. We may not possess a thing, yet we are able to create the experience of it in our minds, as we will. And having done so, we can then choose to make it reality, if we so desire. And the more we desire a thing the harder it becomes to deny ourselves of it. Then we declare it acceptable and rationalize it. And we proceed. Depending on what it is, the process can be slow, even insidious. Or it can roll over you.  We may think we didn’t want to do it. Ah, but we did.

Thoughts cause images, and images evoke emotions. The mind allows these emotions to impact the persona. And the human spirit is soon overrun. Hence Jesus words that ‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ (Mk 14:38) There is a stream of thought flowing constantly through the mind, carrying a hundred and one images. We know this. It doesn’t stop when we fall asleep. But this thought stream is exactly why the verse ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10) is of critical importance to spiritual growth. To be ‘still’ is not only a matter of controlling physical movement, but also of controlling mental and cognitive process. Even the Greeks said ‘know thyself.’ To control your own mind requires disciplined practice. And you must learn this while being in the world. Can’t run away from it. Must stay in it and overcome. This is why Jesus says ‘Be of good cheer…for I have overcome the world.’ (Jn 16:33) But this is where most of Christian community has taken a different route. We celebrate emotional energy in prayer and worship and engage society through our social work and help. But Jesus said ‘you will always have the poor with you.’ (Mk 14:7) The social problems that exist are the responsibility of our elected officials, for these problems come because of the socio-political inequality of the human condition.

Time to start testing out your spiritual abilities. On what? I don’t know. You must assess what’s going on in your life and how you are challenged in ways that have no clear answer. But start small. And start with yourself. Do something good in a situation that you have not been able to do. Make it happen. It is not faith, or belief, or will, but all of them together and more. This is why Jesus says ‘and you will say to this mountain – move….and it will. He did not say ‘pray about it’. Or earn a Degree in theology. Make a thing happen. You do this every day when you  ‘will’ yourself to get out of bed. But the scale must change. And that is what Jesus is saying is doable. It is scalable. As we walk through the story of salvation and what it can mean for us and our world, you must learn how to put it into practice.

Give yourself time. But as we go, somewhere between the mix where the story of David moves into the fulfilment of Jesus, think of small beginnings. It will take us several months to work through all of this . Where did the 3 wise men from the East come from? What wisdom taught and brought them? How did they know to come at all? And in coming what were they acknowledging about their own belief systems? Where did Jesus disappear to between the ages of 12  and 30? Why, for all of the so called research and academic work, has nothing been done to discover this? Why has Jim Wallis correctly written a work called The False White Gospel, so much so that you realize that evangelical Christianity which has anything to do with Christian nationalism does not follow Jesus at all? and why does Walter Brueggemann speak of interpretive and textual hegemony? Working through these will bring us to just about Christmastide! God is not God of the past. That’s a great but old story. God is of the present, and even more, of the future. I am content to know and decide when I will die so that I am ready. And I want both feet already in the Kingdom when that time comes.

So, in the evenings and/or mornings, start with a short period of time. It will lengthen by itself. We do this because we want to. Find a good lead to get started - like Psalm 5:8ff,  that says ‘Lead me, Lord…’ give thanks for all the good in your life, choose one thing most important for the day and lay that before the Lord; Then close your eyes and sit in silence. Learn how to stop thoughts from running all over the place, from item to item. Focus your mind and say the name of Jesus or sing an Amen quietly to yourself. Breathe slowly and deeply. Do this for a little while and then shift from saying ‘Jesus’ to thinking ‘Jesus’ in your mind. Let this be the start of your experiment and be faithful in doing it. Don’t expect too much, better, don’t expect anything. God will choose how to reach out to you, just as you reach out to God. All aspects must come together. No magic in true spiritual growth, but an across-the-board consistency in living a full and wholesome life. This is an ongoing work in process, for everything you think, say and do impacts your spiritual life, and you have to watch these things everyday. But the Lord your God loves you greatly, so be of good cheer and persist with patience. New things will happen! With every good blessing in Jesus, stay well. G.     

 

 

 

Overview: the Christ Consciousness, Part I

 

An overview of The Christ Consciousness, Part I.

We start off with a question –

why is there such a difference- between what Jesus taught and demonstrated and the practice of both the traditional/institutional and modern/’free’ churches? In other words, ‘A’ versus B1 and B2?

We are beginning to work towards the Christ Consciousness. Not necessarily a long process, but a demanding one. It depends. I simply lead as I grow. We will need to relearn the entire story of salvation from the perspective of Jesus, ie moving through the Old Testament story of salvation through the history of Israel into the New Testament. And then a little beyond - the ‘accepted’ scripture and the ‘accepted’ history of interpretation of scripture. And then challenge ourselves to move beyond concept and practice into experience!!

If Christians were to work on this, isn’t it possible that the Church would be truly transformative, as much as Jesus is truly radical in thought, word and deed?  There would not be all of these notions (and academic theology!) about salvation = reserving a place in heaven by means of confessing Christ, observing the Sacraments, confession and forgiveness of sins, pledges and tithing, and so on. Because salvation would then be seen to be a thing that can, that should, that must be, demonstrated! And it may well be that attaining the Christ consciousness might make the corporate Church redundant. I do not have the answer to that one. Small wonder Dostoyevsky wrote a chapter entitled The Grand Inquisitor about Jesus and the Church in his book ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. That chapter is well worth reading. And you can find it in the public domain.

Jesus’ words, remembered by followers, translated into Greek, written into Gospel narrative -  continue to be cryptic and do not lend themselves easily to quick interpretation. The easy way out for too many is simply to bend the text to one’s point of view, so that it suits one’s purposes. This is very often called eisegesis; but it very often isn’t. The result? The selective use of scripture. The actual teaching of the Bible - verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book - does not happen. So the telling of the whole story has not been clear enough.

Remember the Jews? They wanted Jesus to be their Messiah – a political leader who would defeat the Romans and ensure Jewish pre-eminence as a then world power. Perhaps the only world power in their time. They were the chosen people, weren’t they? But Jesus turned that one on its head by saying ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ (Jn 18:36) For Jesus, salvation requires that we are willing to love God with heart, soul, and mind i.e. emotion, spirit, and cognitive ability. And we are to be loving towards all persons – in thought, word, and deed. For all are God’s creation, no more, no less.

The Christ consciousness is a powerful focused ‘power to do things’ experience made up of many spiritual aspects. But the church has pursued other goals. We joyfully accept Jesus as Lord, but what comes after? We are caught in a repetitive cycle of sin and forgiveness that we can never really get out of. We are always repenting over some weakness, and to make up for the burden of guilt we confess our sins, lean on God’s forgiveness in Jesus, and give as much as we can to the ‘work of God.’ We rightfully trust in God’s mercy, but we do not see what we have been shown – the real intent and purpose of God’s love! Let’s look at scripture for a bit – mostly from John again, Chapters 14 and 15.

14:12 ‘Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than I do, because I am going to the Father.’ (so ‘belief’ takes us into the greater works of Jesus. Have we experienced this? We must each look at our own lives, and of those who call themselves church leaders…)

14:21 ‘They who love my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father; and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ (why ‘reveal’? Isn’t Jesus already known to us as Savior? What experiential difference has that made in our lives?  Only that which is hidden is revealed, so this is a new experience, a new level of being in Jesus, a new capacity and capability…

14:23b ‘…and we will come to them and make our home with them.’ ( what indwelling is this? )

15:3 ‘You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you’ (this ‘cleansing word’ is not a printed word anywhere, so no guesses.) But look at John 1, and what THE WORD is, and how THE WORD functions. This WORD IS, as God said to Moses, I AM (or more correctly ‘I cause to be that which I cause to be’, for Hebrew has a causative tense.) It is a power in action – an energy of the Spirit -  spiritual electricity if you will.

15: 5b ‘Those who abide in me and I in them, bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.’ (this is the only reasonably self-explanatory line here, and just requires a good understanding of ‘abide’)

15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, then ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

15:14 ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’ (Jesus is not talking about being disciples, nor apostles, but friends…and this parallels 14:12, 15:3)

Given the above, is there any need to spend as much time in prayer as many seem to do?  Perhaps more meditation and contemplation. What’s the difference? Less asking. More being in the presence of. Why? Because the experience rubs off on you and creates changes in you. And these are changes in your being that result in a different quality in what you do! Less asking is an indicator of a good level of trust and confidence in God. Where are we, each one of us? Must ask ourselves. Jesus says, stay with me. Abide. Peace always, G.

 

 

 

Confidence & Courage

 

Eastertide : Confidence & Courage

This post seems to be very timely. But perhaps these themes are always timely. The world is always in a state of flux. Countries are always in a state of flux. Our human individual lives too often seem to be unhappily unsteady. Interestingly enough, everything the Bible has to say about confidence and courage starts off with overcoming fear!

If you are an SF person like me, you would know Dune, and might remember F Herbert’s classic line from the mouth of Mu’ad Dib as Paul Atreides at the time of his testing by the Bene Gesserit – ‘fear is the mind killer….’ That’s a good line. It is frighteningly true. I never bothered to check the stats on this, but I think there is a very good chance that one of the most common phrases in the Bible is the one that says ‘do not be afraid...’ it runs from the Old Testament entirely through the New. Not much talk about love in the Old Testament. But this thing about fear vs courage is always there. The human condition. If you have not done so, read the book of the same name by Hannah Arentz.

So we begin with a bit of quick thinking about fear. It has a positive side to it. As in the folk rock band America’s song “Don’t cross the river if you can’t swim the tide…” Courage is not about taking stupid risks in life. But it is about taking risks. And that is a very real life challenge! Fear is good when it makes us see a thing realistically. Legitimate fear is protective. Sure it may not be real, it may just be a perception. But it may not! Sometimes the timing is all that matters.

But it’s an emotion. And emotions are difficult to deal with, at best. You have such a range here – beginning with anxiety, agitation, distress, fright, panic, terror……wow! We each have to ask ourselves – what are our personal demons? What is it about our own personalities and psychological make-up that we have to learn how to overcome? And then begin on a course of overcoming, incrementally…

And as we turn to scripture, let me get one out of the way first. Every now and then you will come across someone who preaches or talks about being “God fearing” and “fearing Him who can destroy the soul” etc etc. Can it. Jesus’ words on this topic have been distorted and manipulated. You do not become a Christian because you do not want to go to hell. God is not interested in blackmailing you. The church? Read history. God is love. We will get to love in due course high up the Ladder! Then we will take apart the eros-agape etc distinctions…we are not in Greece anymore..we never were, come to that!

A second stone to kick out of the way – scripture verses will not build confidence nor courage. It’s an old showmanship trick. Only the power of the Holy Spirit in your life will. Words are words. The divine creative Word is not a word but a creative sound (you could say that it comes from a ‘spoken’ word from God – remember God does not speak as we do, and it is inextricably linked to the Holy Spirit – that Word is entirely different, but you really have to read John Ch 1 very carefully.

Ok. Let’s do a quick scripture run through.

Joshua 1:9 Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Context? Joshua inherits the mantle of leadership from Moses. Don’t forget context. It is one of the worst mistakes people make when trying to connect with scripture. It just does NOT ‘generally’ apply. You would have to be in a Joshua type situation that God put you in!

Ps 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom (what?) should I be afraid of? The Lord is the stronghold of my life  - of whom should I be afraid? Answer? No one! Unless you’ve been screwing around. Then you should be afraid, very afraid. No amount of prayer and fasting will take away the responsibility/accountability that you must face, whatever. 

Isaiah 41:10-13 So do not fear, for I am with you……for I am the Lord who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear. The key here is the presence of the Holy Spirit – it does not come automatically – you must seek it actively. Again, I say, it is not about a lot of prayer. There is no such thing. It is your desire to want, to have, to be with the Holy Spirit all of the time….go test that one out. How? Create your own ‘fast’ days. Start with once a week. Go from there. The Spirit will lead you. Not a matter of not eating or drinking water, or being quietly alone. But a matter of spending the day totally in God’s presence – of every word, every action, being in the name of Jesus, so that you are really aware that everything you say and do has God’s approval. This, folks, is the most natural high. The closeness just spins you…

Ps 23: Even though I walk through the valley of deep darkness, I will fear no evil, for thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. When we get to love, we will also talk about sadness, for in human existence there are many valleys of ‘deep sadness” but that, as I say, will come in time. We climb the ladder. If I have not mentioned it before, find the old hymn “We are climbing Jacobs Ladder” and you will know why I decided to call the book thus..it is how the real Christian life proceeds – no short cuts. Same goes for Ps 112:7 – they will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

A quick word about death here. It is not bad news. The truth is that human society worldwide has not yet learned how to live well, much less die well. We have all of this crap about makeup and style and youth and fashion and career…then when you retire, if you’re a millionaire, great. You can fulfill your idea of ‘fun.’ If not, sorry. You’re retired, and you’re waiting to die. Wrong. Work on where you are and where the kingdom is. I think my last book is going to be about death! There is no bad news. Cause and effect will take their turn in our lives, all of us. But the strength the Spirit brings does not weaken us in age. There is much to say about death, but that one is beyond earthly love even! We will get there!

Matt 10.34 is all about angels singing ‘glory to god, peace on earth, good will amongst men….’ Aint happened, as Jesus said, do not think I have come to bring peace on earth, but a sword….meaning? the effect of his coming begins an epic struggle between good and evil before the end of the age comes. And we don’t know when. Jesus did not advocate conflict. Never. Wishful thinking created the ‘in this sign, conquer…’. Human beings are not meant to be conquerors nor conquered. Our political systems have failed us, worldwide. There is no equity. No fairness. Relatives do well. Strangers do poorly. Jesus is saying that those who move towards the kingdom will be in constant conflict with the ways of this world.  

So, in the end, do not be afraid. Of anything. Nor of anyone. Have confidence in yourself, because you are worth the precious blood of Christ. Jesus did so ie gave himself for us. Why? So we could have confidence in ourselves, not in him! Use it! Practice confidence and build your courage. Know what the issue is and where you are clearly, and always seek the Lord’s clarity. When you know you are right, you do not give in, ever. You stand your ground. Then you move forward, slowly, steadily, incrementally. Turn the other cheek if you need to, but keep going. The world cannot stop you. The lord’s protection will go before you. Do not see others as enemies, but rather for what they really are – needy people. Be kind to them. If at all possible, help them to grow. But you are not responsible for them. They have to struggle with their own growth. Not your burden. Your prerogative is to enjoy being a child of the Kingdom, unafraid of the weirdness of this world, and knowing always that the God who walks beside you is the one God for there is no other. Read Psalm 103:1. It will take you through all things. Blessings in Jesus, G.