Month: October 2015

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Freewill and Judgement Question

I wonder how you define freewill, I’m a bit theologically curious. I don’t think God is as non judgmental as you seem to [think], and I think you are giving him a get out of jail free card on some things. And my bias is Christian…  V.

Thanks for the comment and question. (Here’s my answer.  I’m sure others would have other answers.)

More important than my understanding of freewill and more important than our differences in our beliefs is the question, “What do we do with our beliefs?”

The world will never have “Peace on Earth, and Goodwill towards all men” if we think we all must believe the same way, because that’s not going to happen.  But, if we look at the question of what do we do with our beliefs, or to what use do we put our beliefs, or how do our own beliefs serve us?, then as we answer this or these questions, our answers will determine how we treat and relate to God, ourselves, and each other.

If we use our beliefs to strengthen our kindness, our compassion, our understanding, mercy and forgiveness, our support, our encouragement, our willingness to hold the hand of those who need a helping hand, then we will find that the world does indeed gain more “Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards all men.”

But, if we use our beliefs to condemn, to criticize, to judge, or to carry out our own vengeance, or our own bitterness, resentment, or hatred, then we will not achieve that which Christ has come to establish.  We can use our beliefs to bury people in guilt and shame.  We can use our beliefs to symbolically stone people to death, until they despair and lose all sense of hope for themselves.  We can use our beliefs to chain and imprison people in blame.   We can use our beliefs in any number of ways to bury people under the weight of the entire world, if we want to choose that.

Regardless of what God chooses to do, to judge or not judge, we can choose, within our own hearts and minds, the beliefs, acts, thoughts and feelings which we want to follow and become who we choose to be.  This is how I define freewill – making a choice on our/my own actions, our/my own feelings, our/my own thoughts, and our/my own beliefs, and then following through with them.

This may seem to some people to contradict the fact that we live on a planet that has a system of justice and imprisonment.  This is a reality on our planet, but each of us still has the choice within us as to whether we condemn another or hate another within our own heart.  Even those that commit crimes, that go through our criminal system, and that are imprisoned – these men and women are loved by someone, and most certainly by Christ,  in addition to being the recipients of Infinite Love from our Infinite God, who also offers Infinite Forgiveness, Infinite Understanding, Infinite Mercy to you, me and everyone else.

This means that everyone, no matter what we, of our own freewill have chosen to act out, or think, or believe, — everyone is already worthy enough to be loved — with no exceptions — and no one can stop this love going to another person.  We can only stop what comes to ourselves.

When we realize this is for all of us, and let the Infinite Expressions of God come forth for all of us, then we have (to use the common phrase) “accepted the keys to the kingdom” – the keys to that existence where Infinite Forgiveness, Infinite Mercy, Infinite Understanding, Infinite Patience, Infinite Compassion and Infinite Love all exist and are ours both within and without.

But, wait, there’s more.  (Sorry, it was too tempting to write that sentence.)  We don’t have to wait until we die to accept this, because of our own freewill, we can choose – within our hearts and minds today to act, to think, to relate, to treat others from that place within us where God lives and where we can draw upon Infinite Mercy, Infinite Patience, Infinite Forgiveness, Infinite Understanding and Infinite Love when dealing with each other.  This is called, “creating a Heaven on Earth.”

God has given us freewill to make our own choices.  These choices of actions, feelings, emotions, thoughts, beliefs and more, – we make these choices every minute of every day.  As humans, we are a mixed bag of all of these, including being judgmental and condemning at times.  With that, it’s not unheard of our wanting God to follow our lead and be like we are, judging who and what we judge, rather than us follow Christ’s lead – being patient, forgiving and merciful – letting go of judgement.

Thank you, again, for your comments and question.  This is how I answer, and I’m sure it is very different than many others’ answer.

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“None of us understands God, as much as God understands God.”  (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2014, Jodie Senkyrik)

“As we pray for others, so are we praying for ourselves.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2003-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

“To successfully forgive, we must let go of the benefits we believe we get from NOT forgiving.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

“Feeling peace is not experiencing God.  Helping someone else feel peace is experiencing God.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

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Freewill, Religions and Atheism

Don’t get lost in the arguments and accusations about religions or Atheism. There are many, many people that are accusing the religion of Islam of horrors. There are many people that accuse Christianity, and there are many people accusing “any and all” religions and even the non-belief in God of being the source of the horrors we humans inflict on each other.

And don’t get confused about Atheism or the “belief in No God”. As strange as it might be to think —- we can very easily argue that Atheism is also a religion. It is a system of beliefs with its central foundation being “a relationship” or in this case – “Non-relationship with a non-God” with the only difference being that the relationship is a with a God they believe doesn’t exist. Whether Atheists believe God exists or believe God doesn’t exist isn’t the determining factor of whether Atheism is a religion. It’s the fact that there is a relationship. It’s just that in this case it’s with a deity to not-believe exists. All the tenets are still in place in the same way tenets for every “belief in a deity” based religion are in place. Atheism wouldn’t exist without the debate of whether God exists or not. Atheism centers around a God to not believe exists or to believe doesn’t exist, but it still centers around “a God” and another argument could be made for that “God” to be human beings, ourselves.

Because of all of this, we can easily argue that efforts made by atheists to change certain things related to religious references become efforts made to impose their “religion” onto others, and many times, in order to “save people from something” and in many cases, save people from other people of other religions from imposing their religion onto others.  Sound familiar?

So many *people* adhering to a certain religion say, “Don’t believe in that other religion’s God because our religion’s God is the one in which to believe.” (Notice I said – ‘people’ and not ‘religions’?) Atheism is merely saying “believe in our non-existing God.”

But, it really doesn’t matter at all, !!! whether Atheism is a religion or any of the other religions exist or not. And if you don’t read the remainder of this article, you won’t understand why it really doesn’t matter at all !!!

By itself, no religion, belief system, government system or any “system” is responsible for the horrors of mankind. Mankind and what we each – of our own freewill – choose to have in our hearts and minds, and then inflict upon others – mankind is responsible for the horrors of mankind. Religions, psychologies, philosophies, sciences, mathematics, type of government, ignorance and any and all ways of thinking in the brain, and ways of feeling in the heart, are tools which we human beings, who choose of our own freewill to have the hatred in our hearts, and violence on our minds, then put to use to further our agenda of hatred and violence. The hatred and violence doesn’t exist outside of us, it exists within us.

A person – any one of us, who has kindness in our hearts cannot have it legislated out of us. A person who is patient, gives forgiveness, shares their love, demonstrates mercy, compassion and understanding cannot have it forcefully and without permission removed from their heart by an outside force, a government or a religious organization. This is true of all of us. This person – any of us – can hold to any and all religions or belief systems and NOT bring about horrors when we choose to relate to others via this kindness, love, patience, mercy, and brotherhood.

Of our own freewill, we can choose to throw out the patience, forgiveness, love, mercy, compassion, etc from within our hearts and minds, and choose of our own free will, hatred, violence, revenge, selfishness, and self-aggrandizement instead.   No outside force or way of living can put kindness or hatred inside us or take kindness or hatred out of us.

So many times all of us, at some point or another, have done just this – of our own free will – thrown out forgiveness, tossed aside mercy or compassion. We have then justified it and rationalized these choices by using religion, philosophies, types of government, sciences, ignorance and any and all ways of thinking in the brain and feelings in the heart. The horrors of mankind don’t begin outside of us, they begin inside of us – in our own hearts and minds – of our own freewill – if we’re willing to have horrors within our hearts and minds. We then choose these horrors within us to motivate our actions towards others.

But, in the very next moment, we can change our mind.  We can then take hold of our own desire to bring kindness into the world.  We can hold onto our love for God and our love for anyone or anything, and with our freewill bring forgiveness and mercy into the world.  Of our own freewill, we can choose patience or look for understanding, or any of the other fruits of the spirit.  We can step back from our seemingly automatic bitterness and instead, be willing in our hearts to trade it for some quality which will help bring healing and peace into our relationship and our world.  In that moment that I’m talking about, we can change even our heart – if we’re willing to hold on and if we’re willing to change our hearts.

Every day, of our own freewill, we make choices that impact how we are in the world – how we relate to all other people. Each day we choose.  And regardless of what we chose yesterday, today we can change our mind and change our heart to choose better than hatred and all its horrors – if we’re willing.

Each day we choose life or death – we choose violence, hatred and revenge

or we choose kindness, love, patience, forgiveness, mercy and healing.

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“No one speaking judgement and condemnation, speaks for God.  No one speaking punishment or retribution, hatred or war, speaks for God.  The one speaking love, forgiveness, kindness, brotherhood, acceptance, patience and mercy –
this one speaks for God.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

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Hurricane Patricia and the 2nd of 3 Events

I spoke a lot about the energy of the 2nd of 3 events still needing to find a way to manifest.  What I’ve been studying and working to understand is the “how” and “what will it look like”.

It would be easy for me to jump on the band wagon and say hurricanes like Hurricane Patricia are the manifestation of this 2nd of 3 events, but I can’t and we can’t make that jump without examining the Akashic information and energy connections.

This is what I do see having potential and what we can watch for:

  1. A lot of the energy related to the 2nd of the 3 events is destined to manifest in the Atlantic area. The energy related to the 2nd of 3 events has attached itself to this area – i.e. created a vortex holding to this area through time, until the energy is rebalanced, dissolved, used up or healed.
  2. Some of the energy in the Atlantic area hasn’t yet found a channel through which to manifest, but some has which I’ll describe.
  3. Still – watch for social/political or other problems in the Venezuela area, because when energy like this doesn’t manifest through the Earth, it can manifest through people.  Venezuela is still a strong potential location for manifestation.
  4. There will be more smaller and localized natural disasters in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and Eastern Atlantic coastlines that are manifestations of this energy.
  5. Some of the energy will continue to be spread out in time – occurring over several years with most of it manifesting through to the end of this decade.  With this time span expanded there is also more that can be rebalanced thus making the manifested events less harmful.  (The purpose of all these events is to help raise vibrations in the Earth.  Prayer does that.  Calling out to God does that.  It’s better to raise the vibrations before the events manifest than afterwards.)
  6. Watch for a destructive natural event or a harmful human event in February or March, 2016 in this same area.  This would be an example of the energy manifesting through people via human’s freewill choices to cause a harmful/destructive act.
  7. I see the ocean bottom in the area of where Poseidia existed rising more – not surfacing, but the measured depth of that area (off the east coast of the Bahama and Bimini Islands) will become shallower.  This could take up to two years to be fulfilled.
  8. Related to this energy, I’m seeing an earthquake happening in the western Atlantic to the east of the Caribbean Sea in about 28-29 months.  Although this is an exact time frame now, this can be changed.  It will be in a deeper part of the Atlantic.
  9. All of our prayers for these areas will change things.  I’m becoming more and more aware that one of the strongest and most important messages coming from the Spirit Side of existence is that prayer changes energy, changes our lives and changes the world we live in.
  10. I still don’t see much of this energy being focused on the Eastern Coast of the US, because of its distance away from the vortex that this energy has come to create.
  11. All natural events, like disasters, have an energy source which seeks manifestation.  All of them.  The 2nd of 3 events was such a dramatic and huge amount of energy that I was able to see it as a distinct coalesced manifestation.  The very real prayers which people really did pray served to vibrate this coalesced energy in such a way as to make it into multiple smaller individual pockets of energy.
  12. Hurricane Patricia – as hard as it may be to believe this, I see Hurricane Patricia’s source energy coming from the consciousness of hatred and violence from the Mayans and others in the ancient area, beginning about 6000 years ago to about 2500 years ago.  There was much hatred in the peoples which led to vengeful and destructive warring on others and the disregard of human life leading to human sacrifice.  This consciousness of violent hatred coalesced and the Karmic processes of “returning to where it came from” then contributed to the forming of this hurricane here in 2015.  (I should have a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” category.)  That’s all I’m going to say about this.

I’m ready for questions, if anyone has any.

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“Having faith has always been God’s answer to a problem.
Not having faith has never been God’s answer to a problem.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

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To Know Oneself

Over and over and over, we give ourselves messages from ourselves.  We talk to ourselves in our minds.  We think to ourselves.  We assure ourselves.  We comfort ourselves. We chastise ourselves.  We criticize ourselves.  We are instant messaging ourselves all the time – telling ourselves all kinds of things about the world and ourselves throughout the day.  We communicate more with ourselves than any other being in existence – all happening in all the different levels of our minds.

And we’re always honest with ourselves, right?  The one person who we would think would be honest with ourselves would be our self, right?  There’s no question that what we tell ourselves is always the truth, right?

Not really, and that’s putting it mildly, isn’t it.

In all honesty, we’re just as likely to be dishonest with ourselves as we are with anyone else.  In fact, sometimes it’s easier, isn’t it. Many times, since we’re the one who judges whether it’s okay to lie about something, we are mostly okay when we lie even to ourselves.  Aren’t we.  We do it so often, that we often don’t know the truth when we hear it, or say it.  Isn’t that true?  We have a version in our minds which we say is true, and which we tell ourselves is the absolute truth, and which we would swear to in front of any other person who asks, right?

That “truth” that we call “truth” to ourselves – we know that very well.  That’s the version of truth that we’ve worked out inside ourselves to be called “true.”  In our subconscious and in our day-to-day consciousness, we go about our day deciding what is going to be the truth and what isn’t.  Isn’t that so – not always consciously, but then sometimes consciously, right?

And how does this serve us?

It serves us by not requiring us to feel all the feelings and emotions which go along with acknowledging the actual truth.  Many times the actual truth that we don’t acknowledge comes connected to sadness and sorrow, grief and disappointment, anger and bitterness, hatred and aggravation – feelings we don’t want to be experiencing or acknowledge.

It also serves us by giving us a different view of who we think we are – or a view of how far we think we’ve grown on this spiritual path or in any way whatsoever.  Sometimes, subconsciously, these are factors that we think may determine whether we get loved or not.  After all, everyone wants to be loved, and maybe the “better people” are the ones that get loved.  And if I’m a “better people”, I should then be loved, too.  Right?

The actual truth doesn’t come with all of these aspects and factors all the time, but still, the actual truth that we want to not be true, many times does in truth come with heavy, painful, and disturbing feelings and acknowledgments as well as those subconscious messages which we tell ourselves related to being loved in the world, (a formidable source of motivation, since after all, everyone wants to be loved.)

Yet, this actual truth can come forward within us, but only if we allow it and only if we allow the emotions to come, also.  It can knock on the door, but it comes in only when we open the door and welcome it in.

This actual truth often comes with an assessment of ourselves.  It sometimes points out how we need to change something within ourselves or how we may have acted inappropriately in how we related to someone.  It can come with regret or sorrow, shame, guilt or embarrassment.  Or it can come with a chance to heal.

There are times that we can really benefit from knowing the actual truth.  There are times that we can heal when the actual truth is acknowledged.  Counseling helps that process.  Talk therapy helps a person find their way to clean out their closet filled with all kinds of stuff that we fill closets with.  Yet, that’s only one way of many ways to figure out the truth within ourselves, though.

Sometimes, it helps to just be willing to accept the actual truth, regardless of what comes with it.  “Willingness” to allow the actual truth to come forward is the single strongest quality that helps it come forward.

Yes, we can lie to ourselves about being willing.  We can tell ourselves that we want the actual truth, and then not be willing to open the door for it.  Sincerity is a big key, but then sincerity includes willingness and comes with one of the deeper forms of honesty, doesn’t it.

What has helped me many times is to pray to God – “God, help me be honest with myself.”  If I’m really wanting honesty and truth, who better to ask for help to gain honesty and truth.  When we’re truly sincere about working to be more honest with ourselves, it’s best to start with the one who can actually help make that goal a reality.  When we pray for God to help us be honest with ourselves, we are “standing in front of the face of God.”  We are placing ourselves in front of the face of the One who knows Truth about ourselves, about our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, our behaviors, our pain, our suffering, our shame, our guilt, our disappointments, our grief, our hopes, our dreams, our loves, our hates, our healing, our needs, our crying out in the wilderness, our courage and our fear – our whole selves – our deepest parts of ourselves and our shallowest parts of ourselves – our honesty and our lies.  It’s not that easy to do, but again, all we need to be is “willing” in order to move forward.

“God, help me be honest with myself” is a gentle prayer, but can be an effective one if what we seek is the real truth about ourselves and our lives, and to be honest with that real truth about ourselves and our lives.

It’s a challenging “row to hoe”, and what I describe here is in no way the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because I don’t have a lock on ‘Truth’.  But the effort we make to dig for the truth – to dig for being honest with ourselves – pays off with a greater understanding and knowledge of ourselves, and to know our self, honestly and truthfully, is an ever greater thing to know.  “There’s gold in them thar hills” – or in this case – the priceless jewels of who we are await us when we come to know ourselves.  Getting to know our self is one of the greatest things in all existence.  When we do this, we then come to understand more of our relationships with God, with others and very importantly, our relationship with ourselves.

Surprising, but true.

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Thank you.

I want to express my thanks to everyone who has supported this blog, this work and myself, in whatever way you have offered your support.  All of it is appreciated and helpful.  Thank you, and I mean it.  This is for those people who are personally in my life, and those who I know through public channels.  We’re in this together, and all of you are just as much a part of helping this work come forth as I am.  Thank you, again.

Jodie

 

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Politics and Religion and Bears – Oh, My!

How many of you reading this blog, think that everyone else reading this blog thinks, feels, and votes politically, the same way that you do? are probably in the same camp? are with you on your side? How many? Go ahead and raise your hands. Okay… 1… 2 … 5… 12…

Now step back – how many of any group of us believe that everyone else reading this blog – or in any group we belong to, church we go to, school we attend or organization we are involved with – believe the same way we do about politics, political parties and our elected officials? Of course the answer is “No one thinks that everyone believes, thinks, feels and VOTES – all of these – the same way we do. Similar – sometimes yes, but exactly the same?  God, no.

The diversity of feelings, thoughts, beliefs about politics, political parties, and voting is truly, truly diverse, even among like-minded people.

Yet, we all gather together and attend our own church together. We all gather together and attend school, go to work, support organizations, and read this blog (well, maybe not gathered together to read the blog.)  We all still gather together in our groups, and families, and jobs and etc. etc.  Usually, we gather together, because we don’t talk politics and religion.

(Speaking politically about the different political parties, or different churches or different religions, I say, if you want to rant and rave, and rage against the political and religious machines, go ahead.)

It’s just that I’m reminded that Jesus never once spoke out against the Roman government or Roman officials, who were ruling the area. Jesus never spoke out against any government or government officials.  Nor did he speak out against the Roman religion or the Samaritan religion or the Gentiles’ religions. Christ never spoke out against the established forces and religions of the day.

What Jesus called the Romans was “Brothers”, as in “We are all brothers and sisters.”  Jesus had Roman followers.  John the Baptist did the same – he called the Romans brothers and had many Romans, even soldiers, come to be baptized – and they stayed Roman soldiers afterwards.  John’s instructions to the Romans were be honest with each other – don’t mistreat one another. Do your jobs with respect for others.

Jesus’ directive was “Follow Me.” And we follow someone by walking on the path they walk on. Jesus walked the path of Loving kindness. He walked the path of knowing everyone was His brother and sister. He walked the path of understanding, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, and mercy. He walked the path of helping one another. He walked the path of brotherhood.

Jesus never condemned, criticized or spoke out against anyone, …

except hypocrites and those that buried the people with religious condemnation “from above.”

Jesus never condemned other religions, but we do. Jesus never condemned other political affiliations, but we do. Christ never spoke out against anyone who was different or from a culture or group that was different from his own. He never spoke out against Gays, Lesbians, or Transgendered and they existed then. Jesus never condemned prostitutes, alcoholics, or any subgroup or subculture in society, but we do. Christ never condemned other ethnic groups, immigrants, “illegal aliens,” people from other nations….

but we do.

Jesus Christ never condemned any other group – except hypocrites – those that said one thing but lived another – those that easily condemned others with their message “if you’re not like me, you’re evil” or “wrong” or “condemned” or etc…., or “if you don’t live as I think you should, believing as I think you should, you’re WRONG!”… or “if you don’t live as I tell you to, you’re condemned in the eyes of God.”  How many of us have heard these messages expressed?  How many of us have been on the receiving end of these messages?  (Have any of us said these messages?)

Jesus Christ opened His arms for everyone, every culture, every subculture, every group, every subgroup, every organization, every political party, every religion, every everything, saying ‘Follow me on this path of Love, Kindness, Understanding, Patience, Mercy, and Forgiveness.’ ‘Follow me on this path I walk of Charity, of Brotherhood, of Tolerance, of Compassion, or Cooperation, of Humbleness, and Long-Suffering.’ ‘Follow me on this path I walk of knowing and seeing everyone being equal and deserving of God’s Infinite Love in the Infinite Eyes of God, and of everyone being brothers and sisters – children to Our Creator Father/Mother God – the God of all and the source of all Love, all Compassion, all Mercy, all Patience, all Forgiveness, all Acceptance and all Kindness.’

Jesus opened His arms for everyone that wants Love, Kindness, Mercy, Forgiveness, Tolerance, etc, and He still does. His only request is that we then share these things with each other, ….

and, I guess, patience and long-suffering with those that do speak “condemnation” (which I will admit absolutely takes God’s help to do, sometimes.)

*******

“No one speaking judgement and condemnation, speaks for God.  No one speaking punishment and retribution, speaks for God.  The one speaking love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, brotherhood, patience and mercy – this one speaks for God.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)