From Me to You!

                                                                   

If I were sitting across from you today, just us in a quiet room with few distractions perhaps watching the steam from a beverage lifting between us, I would begin like this. I’m not one to tell you how to live your life or what you should believe in, nor are there any places to sign on the terms of my love for you. It is with this in mind that I speak boldly because my intent is pure. There is a matter looming but still so out of view that it can’t be seen with eyes dilated on todays cares. Some have figured it out, but have not been ones to shout it on the street corners wasting it on the roads of hurried minds. Most cannot hear above the whisper of  their cell phones, tablets or laptop computers. The call is light but strong, like a hitchhiker thistle that grabs the jeans without permission in the middle of field and won't let go. The minds that have heard this quiet tap  know of how mighty it clings once its heard.

Your opinion of me matters, but, not to the extent that my silence is required; that would abort my purpose and lay my truth in the dust where NO truth survives for long. This is a certain singular risk for me because the idea hugs the curves of eternity's autobahn and just might make or break this nation. There is a storm that has landed on the shores of humanity, it's deadly. This storm is not in the waters of the sea, it’s in the ocean of our people and encompasses the entire world and its population. It has come as lava inching down the mountain to Pompeii with no force of man or nature able to stop it. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can feel the breath of its heat crawling down the skin of their mind and their souls each day. It wants to evaporate us in our place!

Today we’re just sitting here having a conversation. For a very brief time you're picking up my thoughts to look them over in consideration. No, I’ve not reached my point. You may be tempted to move onto something more entertaining since I haven't, and that's okay, move on if you must. The point I am going to make is not for everyone. It is not for the hurried minds bent on worldly gratifications. We’re always searching for that more important thing to come along. More interesting person, book, movie, youtube clip and idea when the true value of life is in the moment, right now. If you've stayed with me this far you're not thinking about the million things you need to do and all the stress in your life. Your mind is quietly resting, yet, keeping cadence with my words. This moment, void of entertainment, with only words weaving their meaning one strand at a time and holding their breath in the hope that your beautiful soul  will ask them to dance in the auditorium of your heart.

I’m not going to line your mind with sketchy ideas and senseless concepts, what I’m about to say has teeth that can shred complacency with one mighty swipe of the paw. We are designed to know truth! It can be felt as sure as bare feet softly rubbing against our understanding. We have got to make a change, each of us. Not as preppers building an arsenal of food, tools and weapons, but, instead, as people who see the poison of division rise in the waters of this country. What is the message you constantly feed your mind with in your: news, music, movies, words, books, friends and idols? Do these messages uplift, challenge and encourage you--others , or, do they lower your potential to that of being the victim of your circumstances. The world needs more from you to turn this next page!

Those choices won’t always be easy. They will require that you strip from your lives people you care about but who do not support this need for change. There is at this time in our country a great effort to divide us along the lines of race, religion, gender and ANYTHING considered "other"—it’s in our face daily. Please don't let it drag you back from a place you have long been liberated from. I’m not falling for it. And I’m not taking the fall for any crime I cannot own. A house divided cannot stand so how much more a nation of people divided cannot stand? We have not been listening as our apathy has let wisdom be extracted from our schools, our businesses, our communities and our country.


What is the message of Jesus? LOVE! What does this love look like when the covers are pulled back? It is a love that refuses to see the us against them mentality, or, to look upon others as unworthy in ANY way. It's the love that fastens itself to the wheelhouse and stays the course with purpose and commitment to bring kindness and compassion into every corner it possess. It is a love that liberates others from their past crimes and seeks their happiness as desperately as it seeks its own and breeds a better version of the world. Don’t listen to your accusers! Listen to truth and win back your discernment. If we allow the politics of our love to degrade anyone then it must be tossed overboard and reconstructed. We need to build within us a new road to our divine, shared, purpose. One that lifts our families, communities, cities, states, countries and world into a cloud of healing and sweet reconciliation. We must become more other oriented as you would have to be blind not to notice that something is not right in the world today and that we are ripe for an evolutionary or revolutionary change. So. Instead! Store provisions of hope, thirst for wisdom and compassion for your neighbors. Be preppers of virtue! The nation cries out for great men and women to rise out of this nonsense with fresh direction and immoveable character. We need the uncommon leaders to step out of the shadows and lift humanity to its highest self. If we do not do this, NOW, we may have forfeited this GREAT NATION!

My hope is that you fan the virtue within yourself and it fill the voids in your busy life in quiet ways. Allow every person to walk upon the carpets of your compassion and gain the reins of tongue back so that you will be the voice of wisdom in all your interactions. Lay aside idol conversations and bring light in by daring to talk about the significant topics that drape your tables. Within your words speak of HOPE. We are not a nation of fearful people needing to board up our minds. We are  Dream builders with the providential winds of grace. Roll up the sleeves of your will and return to the plow. The time has come to unearth new fields of thought where every tribe of people honor their heritage and allow each tribe to honor their own. Living within the walls of love and acceptance, starting first with our own person; we can expand our desires through the minds of others and create a better version of humanity.


Mona McPherson

"I Am the Bread of Life!"

Deepening my thirst for truth, I climbed atop an idea to revisit my understanding of Jesus and his message to the world, please, do not stop reading just because I mentioned Jesus; this will not be an exegesis of ancient text nor a sermon on the mount. Inspiration has not died with the Bible! Inspiration is an ever evolving animal in the species of the mankind, if, mankind does not abort its need to hunt and gather it freely. God is still inspiring us to grow and find meaning.

Have you made it this far without questioning the life you have, without whittling it down to expose its sweet tender wood and fine mangled threads, or, without breathing in the rich oak of who you really are and why you are here?! No one leaves the world without wandering in the Amazon of their purpose and securing the meaning. If you don’t’ believe me just ask someone in end of life care. I’m sure they will say that they are struggling with their life’s meaning when there is no longer a job to go to, no way to leave the bed, when dignity must take a backseat in personal hygiene and there’s no place to run from the sickle cloaked minutes hanging on the wall. Meaning’s forest is where their feet are planted in each day.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” he was calling us to understand that he was representing the most basic of human needs, meaning. Bread has been the staple in diets throughout history in all the world. The bread we consume today is not the bread whose aroma and simplicity roamed aimlessly through the streets and fields of the past (its mass produced by machines not hands). There’s something about that bread that makes me feel a thin piece of sacredness on the crust of my thoughts. That bread provided strong nutritional value, but, too, the breaking of it provided community (love of others). To make bread is time consuming but the ingredients are bare. This is such a sweet reflection on what Jesus represents to me when he identifies with bread—with being our meaning. Gone is my need for organized religions that murky the waters of his simple message; those religions make Jesus’ bread out of tares and not wheat (they use machines and not human hands). Jesus was expressing that he came to give our lives meaning, and, in our understanding the meaning of our lives; he kneaded into us the ideas that loving others is the true path to meaning. It was made clear that we’re not just loving the loveable. Jesus said that in our growth we would learn to love those that are intolerant, hurtful, pot-stirrers, abusers and the list could go on. If loving others, all others...including homosexuals for those with a more fundamental faith that I once had ... is what brings meaning to us; and lessons that infuse our lives with purpose thus providing a sense meaning, then it would be a worthy endeavor to reflect on if we are practicing this love. It would also behoove us to seek relationships that embody the simplicity of Jesus' message and are not marred with overly crowded divisional language, or, us against them mentalities.

 My new look at Jesus, away from my fundamental past, is inspiring. He becomes who I believe he was always meant to be, an example of love and inclusion. I recall sitting in a church pew, being a Deacon’s wife, and being called for a special vote; it was a vote to vote a member out of the church. That moment has stayed with me. It was the moment that I realized that if there are no conditions to unconditional love, why would we be excluding a member out of our church?! I went home heartsick knowing that I was no better or worse than that member who was voted out, but, I was not brave enough to make a stand. This new Jesus allows me to boldly say that I will no longer pick up the rock of judgement and intolerance toward ANY human no matter what the church or others think the Bible is saying. Meaning for me revolves around the need to stay in my truth. The Bible is an allegorical wonderland that holds a rich history, but, to stop there and say nothing has been inspired since; I think would be foolish especially since everything God created is ever expanding into something new.

Mona McPherson