Tweets - January 12th - Garden of God

The Garden of God: Support systems of support systems of support systems of support systems (Community). It is merciful ingenuity. You are never ever alone. It is faithful, upbuilding, and healing trust in friends, in lovers, in strangers, in oneself, and in the Living God.

Tweets - January 10th - Children

Response to tweet: https://twitter.com/MrBTheTeach/status/1479221097799299078

Some things came in to focus after watching these videos.

You know, heaven has refused to tell me how to think about anything. In fact, if an angel visits you and tells you how you need to think about something, one way or another, you can be certain that it is no angel speaking with you (same goes for any of these prophets).

As often as they have been hands-on with me, they have been hands-off. They continually show me what goodness is, and then they step back so that I can consider the things I've been given.

But considering the vileness that bear, raise, teach, and govern children in this place, I do understand more plainly why one would have the need to instruct and encourage children to view things like Nazism, racism, and slavery in a negative way.

Remember children:
"Racism": BAD! (unless it benefits corporate or political agendas)
"Ideal rate of poverty, hunger, thefts, evictions, destitution, homelessness, system-inflicted pain, and unemployment > 0%": GOOD!

I spent 25 years in godless despair, and it's good for me to remember where I come from so I'll always know where you are (or at least have a good idea of where you are).

As much as I'll require you to understand goodness, I will not tell you how to think - and my silence will piss you off at times, just like it pissed me off when they (pointing upward) were silent.

I will have to think of ways to give insight and show you - even before you know you need to see - and my hope is that you will be in a better position to both move forward and be moved forward (by God through Christ).

The end goal is for you to heal and to be healed, so that even if this world causes you perpetual agony, sadness, and distress, your mind and your body will not. In this way, God is being glorified through you.

Tweets - January 9th - Liberty

"Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you." ~ 1 Corinthians 9. One thing I will say about Paul (being a Pharisee yet called by God through Christ), is that Paul could set right and bring to light many things in the church that the disciples and other apostles were ignoring and hiding (and therefore, setting wrong). "But if I still proclaim circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?" ~ Galatians 5. Though it doesn't appear the disciples were teaching that following the law was a requirement for salvation, they weren't teaching that it wasn't either. This then explains why Peter and James could travel around with their wives and converse with Jews and Jewish leaders throughout Asia and Europe whereas Paul had the shit kicked out of him every time he stepped foot in Israel. What the church needed was truth and confidence in God's power and mercy (which would have been interpreted as boldness), and Christ knew this faithfulness in Paul before Paul knew it in himself.

Lifting someone up in order for them to be humbled can be a very risky endeavor; they may not let go of that which they once fully clung to. In Paul's case, he was brought up as a religious Jew, to know and follow and understand the Laws of Moses through and through; then he encountered Christ on the road and was humbled. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." ~ Romans 3. Paul clung to the law and was convinced the law came from God as the covenant between God and Israel. And he, whether intentionally or inadvertently, required the Church to obey parts of law (as a requirement for salvation), especially those parts which dealt with "sexual immorality". This was hypocrisy that no one in the Church would stand up to Paul and point out - not for thousands of years. Paul expected the Churches to live according to some of the ideals set by the law (so the Churches would display themselves a certain way before God, men, and other Churches), which led him to be controlling. This was Paul's grave error that he could not overcome - not even after decades - and so he perished and left behind a Church that would never see nor understand the True Liberty found in the Living God (this side of the grave).

Paul - like billions of others - would need to be destroyed in order to be saved, and Paul is being saved. I imagine he will be among the first to be raised up.

I do see Paul's concern with all the issues that can surround sex in a monogamous/marital-centric culture, especially among people who are coming to know God and God's mercy. If you are jealous because your neighbor likes the girl you like, then how will you love your neighbor? For Paul, it made sense to him for people to just refrain from sex altogether - and if they couldn't resist their urges, then get married. In suggesting these things over and over, he ignored human nature, calling it "sin", and encouraged entire generations to follow suit. It never occurred to him that liberty and neighborly loving care could be found in sex too, even among multiple partners.

As for me, I haven't had sex in maybe 6 or 7 years. My reasons for not doing so are not physical or emotional (I'm in a good headspace, my body functions normally, and my orgasms are powerful). Sex in this place comes with a lot of expectations - quite a bit of selfishness and sometimes carelessness - it's noticeable in a lot of porn as well.

When I was a kid, I had a wooden baseball bat, and I would sometimes go out to the basketball court at the apartment complex I lived in at the time, and I would sit down by myself, find rocks, and grind them with my baseball bat (rotating the bat on the rocks over and over). What was left was a powdered sand that amazed me as a child - turning rocks into sand - I discovered it by accident just by playing around. Now, this didn't work for all rocks, but I learned which rocks I could grind into sand and which ones I couldn't. Eventually other kids took notice and they sat down and ground up rocks with me. Sometimes other kids in the complex would come, knock on my door, and ask me, "Kelvin, do you want to go grind up some rocks?"

None of this was the expected or conventional use of a wooden baseball bat and a basketball court. I didn't like playing baseball or basketball or even the idea of sports, I just liked the simplicity of grinding rocks by myself or with my neighbors.

I don't think I'll be sleeping with anyone who isn't being saved by God alongside me. To me, this is fair. Should I only request from the beautiful (who are dying) and ignore the ugly, wrinkled, or disfigured (who are dying)? This sounds so very unfair to me - especially knowing the power of God. I am completely OK with waiting for them all to fall under grace and lean on God, even if it takes several more decades.

Tweets - December 31st - So Close

I've been thinking about those spacecrafts I saw a few nights ago since I woke up this morning.

With the exception of the ones I mentioned, I don't recall any of them being markedly bright - some of them weren't bright at all - but there were several spacecrafts that flew (more than I've seen in one night in quite some time).

And the ones that did become bright weren't super-high beams bright, not even close. This has made me think that my understanding of this idea (leaps of faith) is SO VERY CLOSE, but is still lacking in some way.

And I see this "lack" because of the hundreds of questions, scenarios, and answers that keep popping up in my mind. Is the lack in my understanding? Is the lack in my faith? Is it both? Is it neither (and simply a misinterpretation on my part regarding the lights of spacecrafts)?

It is interesting - always interesting. I won't have these questions for too much longer (because of mercy and effort). Even when taking a step back to observe, we continually move forward. So, forward we walk, and never alone.

Tweets - December 28th - Lazarus

I find myself like that Lazarus character in the Gospel of Luke, where I am resting comfortably in Abraham's bosom while those across the gulf are roasting in the fires.

An important difference I'm finding between myself and Lazarus, one that I am coming to terms with, is that I can cross the gulf as freely and as often as I choose. I am able to walk as I would normally walk; I am able to care as I would normally care.

What happens is that when people see me in the midst of the fire, with a face unmoved by the flames, they think I am iron-willed and able to endure the burning pains like a strong man with a "very stoic face" (as someone said of my appearance).

But the reality is that I am not strong and I am very soft - what they see instead is me not being burned at all. And as I was told (or think I was told) a few nights ago from above, "it would take years" before some of those burning in the flames realize this.

Though this liberty is God's power and free gift, I will neither announce nor boast in my liberty in hell - traversing the flames while being unburned - crossing the gulf as often as I please.

We are as we are made to be - Lazarus and all - and if I boast in this liberty, then that stubbornness and bitterness caused by hell's fire may motivate those in pain to pick up their red-hot iron rods and strike my flesh with it until they see the weakness on my face.

Now, I am at liberty. I can continue to rest comfortably in Abraham's bosom far away from those in the flames (and it surely crosses my mind), but in doing so, I may prevent myself from being a light for God to turn on the super-high beams in hell's darkness.

Tweets - December 26th - Justice

I'm failing to see the difference between kindness and justice.

Justice, justice is building what needs to be built, destroying what needs to be destroyed, improving what needs to be improved, restoring what needs to be restored, repairing what needs to be repaired. (Justice does not ignore nor forget anyone, otherwise injustice abounds.)

Love, love is both the deeply empathetic motivation and the perpetual act of justice. (Love is not jealous nor does it boast, for both are destructive by way of deceit.)

Mercy, mercy is the act of creating conditions for justice to exist. (Mercy does not require one to pray and beg for it, it is given freely without request.)

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Several spacecrafts flew overhead tonight, and I'm not entirely sure why, but I do think I have an idea. As I pondered this idea, a spacecraft flew and slowly became brighter and brighter; and as I was informed this could mean, "it would take years".

But later another spacecraft flew and did the same thing, which makes me unsure, as I wasn't speaking about anything that time. But several angels flew tonight in what I would assume is general affirmation.

As for my idea, it really just boils down to leaps of faith. No matter how reasonable things are, there's still that loom of the deep dark pit of death and despair that you know doesn't exist for you. So I leapt, I thought about things, and I will leap again and again and again.

Tweets - December 24th - Christmas

Gospel of John 7:40-43 ~ "Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, 'This certainly is the Prophet.' Others were saying, 'This is the Christ.' Still others were saying, 'Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?' So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him."

There appear to have been first century debates over whether or not Jesus was the Christ.

According to the tradition of the priests at that time, the Christ would be born in Bethlehem (this appears to have been based on a specific interpretation of Micah chapter 5). So if Jesus is indeed the Christ, he would have be born in Bethlehem.

But Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, and this complaint is made known to us in the story of John 7:40-43 (which is only a story to illustrate the realities of the contentions and debates that occurred at the time).

According to the understanding of the authors of John, the first century Jews, and the very early Church, Jesus was born and raised in Galilee (Nazareth of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth).

This issue of the Christ being born in Bethlehem was a controversial issue among first century Jews, and there were some who refused to believe that Jesus was the Christ because he was not born in Bethlehem.

If Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, there would never have been any divisions among them (for this reason) and John 7:40-43 would not exist.

Well the scriptures do not lie, do they? Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem; and all it takes is for one person to spark this idea and for a lot of careless hearers to not seek out what is true (not that there was any way to disprove the idea after enough time had passed).

So stories add on to stories, from desire to mouth to ear to mouth.

Though it does not appear the intention of the birth narratives found in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew were written to convince Jews of the birth location of Jesus, the author of Luke and the editor of Matthew did end all disputes for all time for Jews and Christians alike.

By the time their narratives were written, hearsay regarding "Jesus of Bethlehem" had already become Christian faith and understanding. There would be no more challenges and no more debates about the birthplace of Jesus or the fulfillment of prophecy.

A Jew: According to the scriptures, the Christ will be born in Bethlehem.

A Christian: Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

A Jew: How do you know?

A Christian: Matthew 2 and Luke 2.

 - Christian drops mic