Today, I am not talking about Amendment One

Earlier this year, I made a promise to myself and to all of my Facebook friends that I would not talk about politics. I have managed to white-knuckle it through the last 4 months. I will continue to not talk about politics. I will not talk about Amendment One today. I want to talk about something different. Today I want to talk about God, and your relationship with God and with your fellow human beings.I spoke to my husband about this, and he explained that this particular person lives by "rules". That his faith gives him a set of "rules", and there is a safety in that. However, his explanation didn't make me feel any better. Why are there certain "rules" that make other "rules" okay to break? This is the part of religion that makes me uneasy...scratch that....this is the part of human existence that makes me uneasy. What is it inside of us that tells us that we need to be better...smarter....and that we need to exclaim to the world that WE have the answers.

 

 

I don't have the answers...I don't even know the questions. I know that even with my lack of faith, there is a drive inside me to be a better person tomorrow than I was today. I know that my job is to leave this place a better place than I found it. I know that I accomplish more when I love then when I don't. I know that being loved by other human beings feels good. I know there are times when the right decision is difficult. I know there are many times when I make mistakes. I know the only way back from that is to try as hard as possible to not make those mistakes again. And I know that no matter how this whole life/universe/God/Heaven/Hell thing ends up, I'm here right now, and I have to make decisions that make the here/now better for myself and for others.

 

 

At this moment, I know there are people who could read this a know that I have an agenda. You are not wrong...I have an agenda, and it is this: Please come to your decisions with absolute love in your heart for your fellow human being. Please think about what loving another person really means. For my part, although it is not a testament of my faith, will fall back onto the words spoken at so many of the marriages that I have witnessed:

 

 

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

 

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 1-13.

 

 

I have a hard time loving those who I disagree with, and there have been a few times that I have wanted to un-friend people here because of something they have said. However, I am not going to do that. I will not disrespect your opinion and I will not kick you out of my life. We are in each others lives for a reason, and I think it's to make each other better people. You make me a better person, and I would rather be friends with a legion of people who think differently than I do than be mere acquaintances with people who agree with me.

 

 

I do not know what will happen on May 8th. I do know that I will continue to live here...and I will have to continue to exist in a world that thinks differently about things than I do. That is life- I only get one shot, and as far as I can see, the best thing I can do it act in love to each and every person I get the opportunity to share it with.

 

 

These are just my thoughts, down for the world to see.