We all like to complain that life is unfair. But is it? Is it really true that life is unfair and that we won't get justice until the next life? Emerson, and I, think not.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
Although written in 1841, this essay is more true today than when it was written. Why don't we ever learn its lessons? Emerson knew there was no such thing as a free lunch before Milton Friedman did. This is another home run essay from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
The fallacy of living out your "natural" life.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
I received some profound insight into why seemingly bad things happen to good people, from the agonizing death of my father.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
Jesus tells us what God is like in the so called parable of the Prodigal Son. The problem is, organized religion often does not know this God.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
God wants us to grow, but we resist change with all our might. How can God get through to us? Adversity, that's how. Hear about the real man whose actual experiences were behind the plot of the hit movie "Life of Pi."
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
The pre-existent Christ made the material universe, and he made you. You are the incarnation of this Christ whether you know it or not.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
Those possessed by the Spirit of Religion insist John 14:6 is Jesus the Christ's edict that most of the people on the planet are going straight to hell. It is no such thing.
What did Jesus mean by this verse?
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
What difference does it make? Let me put it this way - Jesus tended to be monistic, and religious people tend to be dualistic.
It seems our minds were made for counting. And we especially seem to enjoy counting other people's sins and offenses against us. It is amazing how much joy and peace floods into our lives when we stop counting.
You aren't stupid. You just don't know all of the facts that God does. That's why we all need to check in with the Holy Spirit before we make decisions, instead of blundering ahead and making a decision with the few facts that we know.
You aren't stupid. You just don't know all of the facts that God does. That's why we all need to check in with the Holy Spirit before we make decisions, instead of blundering ahead and making a decision with the few facts that we know.
COPYRIGHT 2016 SCOTT E. ROKELY
Turn by turn directions through life are available from God's GPS System. Problem is, it hardly ever gets used.
Adversity hits. You pray for help. But no help seems to come. It's at this moment that you must simply believe that God loves you. If you stop believing God loves you in these trying times, you open the door to all manner of mayhem in your spiritual life.
We've all heard about near death experiences. This one happened to an atheist. Listen how it affected him.
Until you accept your entire self, good points and bad points, you will never accept other people, and you will see God as angry, violent, and full of vengeance.
A spirituality of trying to be perfect, and demanding perfection of everyone else will drive you crazy. Instead, face reality and realize that all any of us can do is embrace a spirituality of imperfection.
The world is a neutral gray movie screen that you use to project your attitudes onto. What you see in your mind through attitudes is what you get in experience.
Thinking, thinking, thinking, it's what we compulsively do all day long. The problem is, it tends to drive us crazy. I suggest one way to think that will help you be less crazy and more sane.
Of course, God is loving and so He forgives us out of his nature. But there is another reason God forgives us that will probably shock you, and yes, it's in the Bible.
Others don't hear the words you say, they hear the consciousness you are in when you say the words. Listen as I explain how human beings actually communicate to others.
We continue to explore how St. Francis accepted people for who they already were. St. Francis was realistic about human nature and gave great grace to the people he met.
St. Francis thought 180 degrees from current American pop culture. I discuss one shocking thing that he said that was, and still is, so counter cultural and radical, that his followers refused to believe he actually said it.
Have an anger problem? If so, learn how St. Francis saw reality. For St. Francis saw the everyday situations he encountered very differently than most of us.
Being mad at people, the world, your car, and everything else is the worst life a human being can live. The reason we get so mad at life is because we forget what the purpose of life really is.