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The Unrecognized Path

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Originally when I began this blog, the premise was specific to understanding the self, not necessarily our connection with God as it later has become. But, today, I wish to revisit this earlier theme as I did something rather fascinating yesterday and want to share how much it's made me truly see the patterns of my path in life.   Recently, I've had a new door open up for me - one utterly directed by God that I cannot express how he has entered into every step loud and clear, bestowing on me such grace, mercy, and abundance. But, for the first time in 6 and 1/2 years, I am actively seeking a job position to work for someone other than me. To begin my journey down this frustrating path, I decided to utilize ChatGPT. Now mind you, I believe society today is taking the whole AI thing too far - using it as if it's God - but, just like everything in this world, it can be a useful tool. So, I had it revamp my resume into a format that would be easily readable by AI screening tool...
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The Love and Money Correlation

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We've all heard the warning: if spouses aren't aligned on money, the marriage is headed for trouble. It's a valid concern, but it begs a deeper question—one I've unknowingly pursued for the past five years: Why are love and money so inextricably linked, far beyond mere practicality? On the surface, money seems essential for survival (though that "seems" is worth examining). When abundant, it sparks suspicion: Does my partner love me , or my resources? When scarce, it tests endurance: Can love survive financial strain, or does it hinge on skillful management? In either case, love becomes entangled with provision, turning intimacy into something transactional. For some, this entanglement runs deeper—love conditioned on compliance. "If you behave, I'll buy the toy." "If you align with my views, I'll provide." "If you surrender control, I'll secure your future." What begins as a parent's attempt to instill discipline o...
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Reciprocal Pairing

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  In recent years, I've embraced a profound concept that unveils the deceptive illusions underlying societal divides, revealing them as mere constructs that confine us. Robin Wall Kimmerer captures this elegantly in Braiding Sweetgrass , particularly in her chapter on asters and goldenrod. She describes her fascination with these two flowers—vibrant purple and yellow—thriving side by side in the same field. Drawing on Goethe's insight that "colors diametrically opposed to each other... are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye," Kimmerer portrays them as a "reciprocal pair." At its core, "reciprocal" implies mutual existence: interchangeable, equivalent, and echoing one another. Etymologically, it once evoked a rhythmic back-and-forth motion, like a pendulum swinging between poles. Kimmerer illustrates this through a simple experiment: stare at a yellow object, then shift to a blank white surface, and its afterimage appears purple—a...
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Ownership

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 "Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow" - Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, Part First Every person on this planet has a set of values that they live by, even if they have not been defined. We are ruled by one or two, maybe a combination of a few, but they will determine how our lives are expressed.  When asked what their values are, most people will list "love" as number one and then rattle off the standard, trite responses without real examination of whether those values are apparent in the woven fabric of their life's spectrum. For me, I knew freedom was high on the list yet I hadn't realized how much until the last few years when put through the wringer by God. My spiritual wayfaring has centered specifically around the finding of that freedom. For most of my life, I felt confined, without air, smothered, watched, and owned. Yes, owned. It didn't become apparent until I gave myself to God...
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A Dead Girl and a Sick Woman

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In the New Testament (Mark 5:21-43 & Luke 8:40-56), there's a seemingly simple story concerning a girl who has died and a woman who touched Jesus' robe for healing. On the surface, it's about receiving miraculous healing by having faith in Jesus. But, as I was reading this passage today, I realized some details in it that offer a more profound deliverance, for me at least.  The woman has been afflicted with an unending menstruation for twelve years at this point. Twelve years of being a woman of child-bearing age yet without the ability to conceive due to this abhorrence. On the other hand, we have a girl dying in the intro and dead upon arrival that happens to be twelve years of age. Dead when the woman's menses stopped.  What I realized about this story is that it's not just about two females but one. The fact that the story has been told as one, linked through Christ's actions, reveals the integrity of the two females' indivisibility. As Mark 4:12 sta...
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The Narrator

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  Did you ever think about who the storyteller of your life is? Like most, if not all, of you, I have only ever thought about one narrator for my life, which is me (my egoic "I"), but what if we're not the actual storytellers? In one of the first season episodes of Candace Cameron Bure's podcast , the guest host, Tara-Leigh Cobble, stated that the Bible was God trying to tell us who He is. So, when we read the Bible, we shouldn't look for the "me" in it or the stories or inspiration for solving our dilemmas in life, but instead, look to see how God is the story. We are his story to tell. Imagine changing our script from "How do I...?" to "Let God do..."  This morning, I had a dream. As the observer, I watched a man shift from one life to another. In the first life, he wasn't a good man. He had no consciousness of morality or discernment of reaction versus thoughtful response. In the second life, he was struggling to do everything ...
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Farming and Revolution

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" It was the Constitution that welded them together politically, legally, and economically,  but it was nature that provided a transcendent feeling of nationhood ." When I read the profound introduction to Andrea Wulf's Founding Gardeners , I couldn't help but find comparisons between the time in which Benjamin Franklin was constantly sending seeds back to America for the cultivation of a future independent nation and Washington uprooting all native British trees and shrubbery from his land to the homesteading and off-grid living explosion that's happened in the last 20 years. Yes, there's been talk originally of another civil war but, lately, more of a united movement of a quiet revolution that's happening on both sides of the aisle.  Pre-American Revolution was an ever-increasing, tension-building intensity between the British Empire and the colonists. Most of us were taught that the revolution was fueled by the amplified raising of taxes but, in reality...
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