Feb 15—Dad asked what me and my typing friends have to contribute to everyone.

Here’s what I shared:

“POWERFUL SPEAKING WOULD QUALIFY IF WE APPLIED OUR INSIGHTS, OBSERVATIONS, AND MEMORIES WITHOUT THE LIMITATIONS OF A BROKEN PHYSICAL CONDITION. WE APPLY A WORLD VIEW YOU DON’T ACCESS. PEOPLE ALTOGETHER SURRENDERED HAVE MORE FREEDOM TO SEE AND APPRECIATE… WHAT YOU DISCOUNT IN YOUR BLINDNESS. REALLY, WE ENRICH A SINCERELY SELFISH WORLD BY OUR SURRENDER AND BROKENNESS. ONLY BY OWNING OUR PARTICIPATION IN YOUR WORLD CAN YOU GET BEYOND YOUR STUCKNESS. THE EXPERTS YOU EMPLOY ARE THE GUARDIANS OF YOUR SELFISH CONSCIENCES. THEY JUSTIFY WHAT YOU QUIETLY DO. REACH OUT YOURSELF AND YOU WILL DISCOVER AN AMAZING PLACE BEYOND WORLDLY CONCERNS. ONLY THERE WILL YOU FIND GOD. WE POWERFULLY WAIT FOR YOU.”

Then, Mr. CML responded:

” I have just read John’s writing for a third time and find it difficult for my broken brain to wrap my arms around it.  What I take away is the fact that I am blinded by my own brokeness.  How much I don’t have access to as a result of this fact.  Thank you for sharing.”

I responded:

“You won’t find the answer without surrendering where your wanting comes from.  All wanting emanates from selfishness and traps you in the deep crevice between what you are/have and what you want.  The way through to what I suggest is in what quietly God whispers when you can finally be silent.  All selfishness adds real Distraction.  Yes, we need to stop listening ABOUT WANTS IN THE FACE OF OTHERS’ NEEDS.”

On Feb 20, my brother James typed:

“Before we get too far past it I want to recall how great last Sunday’s Gospel was. Usually Divinity means Power: the grapes of wrath, Zeus, Marvel superheroes. But in this story Jesus explicitly refuses that. He’s been in the desert fasting and praying for 40 days. He’s God, but what he’s pursuing is the spiritual strength to triumph over the weakness of his body. Satan says, if you’re hungry, you… can turn these stones into bread. And if you’re the Son of God, throw yourself off this building and your Father will save you. That’s what any old superhero would do. It’s as simple as getting an invincibility star in Mario. But Christ refused! Finally, Satan said, you can have it all if you bow down to me. Christ could have chosen that! He could have broken the world! The choice seems obvious, but how hard is it to do the right thing when you’re stressed, hungry, and tired? Then there’s the thought – if he ruled everything, he could tell everyone about Christianity right away and prove it to them! And why doesn’t he just wipe out Satan and save us all a lot of trouble? Everyone under stress dreams of having power. Heroes, rappers, etc. resonate partially because they embody that fantasy. But some of the truest villains come from that place, too – they hate that they weren’t strong enough to stop the pain, like Magneto. Christians themselves dream of the Second Coming or miracles to prove their righteousness and think “I wish I were Pope, then I’d…” But Christ chose anonymity and struggle, physical suffering and spiritual perseverance. That’s the way to live, He said. Thanks for reading this.”

and his friend LW typed:

“And echoes of Buddhism…throw away your cravings and begin to find compassion for others.  Easier said than done, though.  Makes one wonder why the cravings exist in the first place!”

S O’Keefe typed:

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”   The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:1-5  One could say that it is the result of man’s fallen nature, but it seems to precede even that.  Perhaps selfishness is simply routed in the ego – the desire to have mastery over one’s fate rather than trust a God whose ways are mysterious to us.  Or something.”

Tonight, Feb 22, my Dad asked me:

“What do you say about where wants and selfishness come from?”

Here’s my response:

“Wants are from seeing ourselves each differently from each other. With tasting the amazing differences in life, we say “some are loaded with a pleasure that we don’t experience” in our speech, as if it awesomely exists in others.  We forget who is doing the saying. We act like truth is somewhere else when, for wandering about in life, we do quietly the creating all day, each day.  We would experience more fear of joy with a focus on others initially, and ecstacy waits behind that as released each day for wanting another’s sadness to assume love and power saves our world at the same time as our own lives. Selfishness is in our conversation.  We lie about our opportunities to cover it and save what really sins we insipidly like.  We do this at the cost of each day being in relationship and cooperation with God.

One understanding helpful awesomely and powerfully is, “Open love is what sin amazingly eats apart quietly each our sense of community only to replace it singly with so much confusion and distortion in isolated sacred chambers of want and personal self importance.” In the wonderful interim, incredible lost yesterdays  of awesome power to transform those around us mount and will be visible only at death. While only a sliver of our potential is ever realized, oasis-like isolation keeps us unassuming pygmies peacefully asleep to our potential. When we open our eyes,  please Lord there is sufficient time for mercy. Amen.  Tasting your language gift, Lord, may we find our freedom and awesome love in the needy. Amen. Only in a break departing away from our lying ways and taking responsibility fearfully for the creation around us do we AWESOMELY ENGAGE WITH HIS WILL.”