The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

I have been listening to a lot of jazz and classical music over the holidays, because there is something about this kind of music that sooths my soul. I can't complain, this year has been a great year for me. I became a published writer/author, and I became an uncle for the first time. I shouldn't feel a sense that this year has been a failure, and I could chalk it up to me just being too hard on myself and trying too hard to meeting other's expectations. I think around this time of year, we over think many things, and we have real expectations that we place on others, that if not meet immediately, we become hurt and toxic. I think that if we have eyes of wisdom this year around, when the bad stuff happens we won't be so surprised by it. Like any time of year, we want to be happy, but this is the time of year that we spend with family and friends and it can be the most dangerous time of year when things don't go as planned. We fear being in pain, and we fear our lov...

No one including myself likes to hear of a cherished public celebrity passing away, especially when you yourself are ageing and childhood idols are now become memories instead of living icons that can still bring you comfort. We grew up feeling that we knew these people, as their passing from this life to the next seems to confront us with our own mortality and what will happen to me when I die becomes the unanswered question in our own minds. Celebrities can inspire hope, so when we loose them we feel like a little bit of their light in us passes away too. Nobody want to face their mortality, it is usually not until we are faced with the prospect of death that we realize how important this life is, and how important it is to be prepared fro the next life. Not every one believes in Heaven, I think more of us believe in Hell and the idea of spending an eternity in a place of suffering scares us that we forget to live. We want to live the right way, and we want to face death with confi...

Unfortunately, my memory doesn't remember my very first Christmas as a little baby, but this year I have the fortunate blessing of being an uncle for my precious little nephew. When you think of Christmas or at least when I think of Christmas, the first thing I think about is presents. But there is a presence that I have come to yearn for this time of year, and that presence is the Lord. I became more alive spiritually when I was 21, when I prayed a prayer that changed my life. In the quiet of my bedroom, I offered my life to Jesus Christ. Being a Catholic, I went through all the necessary sacraments that I was brought up to receive. The first sacrament was reconciliation, and I did this in grade school, probably in grade one or two. We then moved to Markham, and I attended St. Patrick's elementary school which surprisingly still looks the same. Right next to my grade school is the church that I attended at 21, and have returned to lately. We had a religion class, and sometimes...

I have given myself liberty, in the hopes of bringing awareness to something that I sensed was a problem for quite some time. On October 4th of this year I was accused informally of causing division in the church I attended, Harvest Bible Chapel York Region, in Markham Ontario, Canada. I say informally because I was asked in an email by their executive Pastor George Stavropoulos to meet with him, as he explained it he wanted to give me a chance to defend myself in the event that I was wrongfully accused. I explained to him that if I was wrongfully accused the elders in this church have enough wisdom, and are capable of working out the situation. You see, I had posted something on Facebook that didn't line up with what one of the elders thought was against church doctrine. In a private Facebook message this elder pointed out that there was a problem, but he never explained what that problem was, he just quoted Romans 16:17-18. This is what the message reads: "There is a ...

Emotions are getting a bad wrap these days. There are many times in our lives in this present age, where tears would be the appropriate response to all the tragedy we are seeing in our world right now. We must remember that through all we listen to, watch, or read on social media that we live in a relatively calm world. It is us humans that run this world, even  if you believe that there is a God and he is somehow using us as His puppets, you would have a distorted view of the God you believe in. Christ said, "The Kingdom of God is within you" contrary of social distortion, he stresses to the religious leaders of his day that His Kingdom was not of this world. In a word, God's Kingdom is the kingdom of Love. Yes, I believe in the bible and I believe what it says about having faith, and this is how we enter God's Kingdom, but in my understanding of the truth, no one is excluded from God's Kingdom and those who through their rejection of the greatest commandment, wh...

Because I have titled this blog with two questions, I will try to answer both of them at the same time I am writing this. These questions can created a lot of confusion within Christendom because the spectrum of social status with in it will give you all kinds of answers. I must speculate a bit on the first question, because to claim a historical Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the Messiah, in order to have a lot of wealth would have to have a high social position in the time in which he lived. Why would a Jewish and Roman society crucify a wealthy person, someone with money, surely it would be a great scandal in the time that Jesus lived. In order for Jesus to be rich he would have to been greatly educated, and this verse shows that he had little education; 14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. 15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, d when he has never studied?” 16 So Jesus answered them, “My teachin...

There is approximately 13 days untill Christmas Eve as I write this and soon we will be entering a new year. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, it can be a high level anxiety holiday for some of us who are vulnerable and surely emotions run high this time of year if there are unfulfilled dreams or unresolved conflicts in our lives. The bible has given hope to many throughout the centuries, but we live in a world where even the good we find written in those pages can be used for self-fulfilling agendas or reasons, where those who truly see the person and meaning behind those pages, see beyond the hate that so many in today's world use it for. But I am not hear to use the bible to condemn sinners because I am one of them, and I'm sure the founders of the church felt the same way. In today's Protestant society there are some people who call themselves Christians who look down on the disenfranchised, instead of integrating us in their society. I am one of those people that this...

Judgement is not a topic that most people like to talk about, doesn't the bible say judge not lest you be judged? But we live in a world unfortunately where we are placing our judgements all the time. But God's judgements are not like human judgements. We base our judgement on a person, place or a thing with preconceived notions about how we think that person, place or thing should be acting. Mostly, when someone doesn't meet our needs or expectations they become our enemies. It really doesn't take long for someone you have good feeling for to become the object of our scorn. People can be finicky and we can very easily become fair-weather friends, but when the going gets tough you really find out who are your real friends by who stuck with you, and is still there. Sometimes we look to people to meet our needs and when they stop meeting our needs, they are no longer useful to us. We can experience in this life very harsh judgements by those who feel a sense of pride ov...

It's not that the church doesn't have the desire to reconcile sinners or Christians in the modern church, the desire is there. My argument is that they are too much concerned with uniformity rather than unity. Uniformity is defined as; the quality or state of being uniform. Unity is defined as; the state of being one; oneness. There is a subtle difference in being uniform and in being in unity. Doctrinally speaking the church should be in unity, but at the same time unity of doctrine doesn't mean that you give up your free will. Uniformity, as I see it means that we all behave in the same manner, just think of an army. The soldiers are in uniformity, they all are asked to behave and are trained to behave in the same way. It can be a matter of life and death if someone steps out of line. Unity doesn't mean we all behave in the same way, it is a call for unity of heart. In the bible God makes a new testament promise in Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I wi...

I guess the highlight of my year in 2016, was becoming an uncle for the first time. It seems like a dream ago when my brother made the announcement that they were having a baby. I call this part of the year "The great anticipation!" The journey to see the mom, my brother and my little nephew was beyond what words can say. I was so proud of the mother and father, and prayed deeply that morning for a safe delivery. I kept using the phrase "Lord willing" throughout the whole expectancy process, and I will continue to use those words, as little Ezra grows up. I think we all want things to go perfectly in our lives, and when life throws stuff at us that we weren't expecting I think we can freeze up. My brother having a baby with his partner, is bringing so much joy into my life, and with that the responsibility of caring for another human being. I never thought that having a baby was so much work, but when you parents and family members look into the eyes of a beau...

I am nothing but an authority on what I really want in life. Each person is an individual with a mind of his or her own, but I think we all desire to know each other and our own minds as best as we can. Life is a journey, and what we think really matters. What we think about life, about God, about religion has real world concepts and conclusions in this life and in other lives. I used to believe in reincarnation, I couldn't understand the concept fully but I believed that the purpose of my life was to free myself rom the illusions of karma through self-realization. The idea of karma is also a Christian concept. Christians believe what we reap we sow, although reincarnation is missing from Christian doctrine, we believe that if we sow to our flesh we will reap corruption and possibly damnation. But sowing to the spirit is explained in my understanding of it, is reaping virtue or holiness. In evangelicalism the idea of justification is through faith alone. You put your faith in Jes...

I recently had the privilege of celebrating the book release of the second "Hearts Linked by Courage" CMHA York and South Simcoe, the second book in a series. It was published by IC Publishing here in York Region and as far as I know is being distributed by the publishing company and Amazon.ca here in Canada.  My story is the first in the book titled "Created for Joy." In my story, I discuss my journey from crisis to recovery to where I am now. Most of the stories in the book are inspiring and will evoke heart rendering emotions, as you read them and understand the tragedy of mental illness and the miracle of recovery. As I understand it recovery is something that the client must maintain because as everyone knows, there is no cure. The journey to get my story published was graced by God from the beginning to the end. I was inspired to write my story, after being asked by a peer support worker for the CMHA. When I received the news that my story would be includ...

It is the insidious term that no one these days likes to talk about, but a term none the less that has been a part of my vocabulary since childhood. No one likes to openly admit that they are a communist, let alone a socialist, but that doesn't mean that there are real life consequences to these terms. We are a collective species and we like to get alone with each other. Social equality is a concept that every one gets their fair share in the market place and in society. No one likes to be left out, especially the disenfranchised and the poor in our society. When we see social injustice we want to make things right in our society, we want to feed the poor, cloth the homeless, give them a home and a place in our society. No one likes social injustice. Part of it is because, we don't like to feel hungry, we don't like to be poor. We don't like to be homeless, we take the words of compassion very seriously from world and religious leaders, and strive to make this society a...

Some might claim that Jesus was a mystic, that he practiced meditation. But to my knowledge there is nowhere in the bible that claims Jesus meditated. In my view meditation is an eastern practice, and in that light wasn't Jesus from Israel? To understand this conundrum, you have to acknowledge that there are different world views at play here. First you have the world view of the orthodox bible believing church, which basically says that if you can not prove something from the bible then you should not be doing it. Even though the Bible does mention meditation, it is in a different context that the meditation you and I might practice. The reason why no one in the evangelical church will approve of your meditation practice, is because of their world view. You cannot hold a eastern world view, and a western Christian worldview and get away with it in the modern church. The purpose of the church is to evangelise the entire world, and they will see you as lost if you hold to a foreig...

Some might claim that Jesus was a mystic, that he practiced meditation. But to my knowledge there is nowhere in the bible that claims Jesus meditated. In my view meditation is an eastern practice, and in that light wasn't Jesus from Israel? To understand this conundrum, you have to acknowledge that there are different world views at play here. First you have the world view of the orthodox bible believing church, which basically says that if you can not prove something from the bible then you should not be doing it. Even though the Bible does mention meditation, it is in a different context that the meditation you and I might practice. The reason why no one in the evangelical church will approve of your meditation practice, is because of their world view. You cannot hold a eastern world view, and a western Christian worldview and get away with it in the modern church. The purpose of the church is to evangelise the entire world, and they will see you as lost if you hold to a foreig...

As the world moves forward and the church tries to get a handle on the changes that are happening around them, the question to ask is "is the church placing less and less importance on the gifts of the spirit, and conforming to the trends of society?" If the later is the case, then it seems that more and more importance is being placed on peoples natural talents and abilities, instead of what the Holy Spirit has given us as Christians. I am not talking about the fruit of the Spirit, but the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As I search in the Bible to where these gifts are listed, I am left feeling that a mere quotation from the Bible would not suffice here to communicate, what I am trying to say in this article. Of course you have the Catholic gifts, which are different from the evangelical gifts, and there is a strange feeling that these gifts were not given to edify oneself but to build each other up in our faith. Now I will quote a verse from the Bible, "So Christ himself ...

We currently live in the twenty first century. The church is filled with lots of programs, small groups, life groups, men's ministries and so on. But if you could go back in time say three decades ago, you would find a very different world and a very different church. Evangelical churches worked with the same structural model in leadership, doctrine/discipline and discipleship, but you might be wondering what has changed? Practically everything. Let me explain. The worship/walk/work model is just that, a model. Things like life groups or small groups are part of this new model for the evangelical church. How do I know that? Because of something called "man centered theology." If I had to define "man centered theology", it would be simple but not that simple, it is plainly stated any church model of doctrine/discipleship/or discipline that takes it's roots in dialectical thinking. This is not Bible conformity, which is the way that church used to be. The ev...

I have recently taken the initiative on writing a short essay regarding the practice of mindfulness meditation as a Christian. I was born again in 1995 outside the catholic church where I grew up, and discovered meditation by accident in my early 20's. I ventured to California, where I learned the practice of transcendental meditation, during a time when I wasn't practicing my Christianity in the typical way. This was a period of my life when my mind was a mess, I began experimenting with drugs, and had an alcohol problem. I wasn't a heavy drinker, but alcohol was affecting my life in way that I couldn't get my life together. I stumbled into a new age bookstore, and bought a book by a western yogi Master or guru, who founded a meditation community in the 1920's in the United States. My plan while reading the book was to go to India and find a guru, but when I was finished reading the book I thought a visit to a meditation center in California was more realistic. W...

Spirituality is a term usually saved for new age circles, but as born again Christians we have each been given a spiritual gift from God! If you have never been born again, and have no idea what I am talking about, keep reading. Jesus Christ came to this earth to save people from their sins, an idea foreign to your mind if you are working hard to keep your salvation or to maintain it. Can I bring this verse from Ephesians to your mind; For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; (Ephesians 2:8). Salvation is clearly a gift from God, and it is given as a gift so no one can boast. You might be wondering if you can loose your salvation? The answer to this question is yes, look at these two passages in Hebrews; (Hebrews 6:4-8) It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming ...