. . . the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." 

This is the first commandment.

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

There is no other commandment greater than these.

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

and to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

and to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

(a challenge)

... to rise up from our slumber

to rise up from our dormancy

to rise up from our complacency

to find a way in which we might not only reclaim christianity for ourselves but for the entire world.

It seems to me that so many have lived under a toxic theology that has burdened us, we have lost the taste for beauty, creation, for all that is good and all that is holy.

And that's another cool thing our Senior Pastor told us.

PROGRAM LISTINGS & PROGRAM SCHEDULES

"Watch your relationships. There are nourishing relationships and there are toxic relationships. Nourishing relationships; they bring the best out of you; they inspire you! Toxic relationships, they drain you!"

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciensious stupidity." Martin Luther King Jr.

We've arrived at the 11th sector of our grid, exploring the true nature of authenic love. This sector is annotated love rejoices in the truth. Our citation from Martin Luther King Jr. has a unique resonance here.

"Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." This quote is from Our Lord Jesus Christ. It also resonates in this sector, significantly so, I find.

Springing up like a geyser with a loud swooshing sound through this sector is a thought expressed by make-up artist and photographer Kevin Aucoin. "It's our hearts and brains we should exercise more. You can put on all the make-up you want, but it won't make your soul pretty." His truth sprouts from the same stream out of which flows a worthy realization: "Fear breeds hatred, and hatred has the power to destroy everything in its path."

Love rejoices in the truth.

Warning! Warning! Warning! These fetched quotes might seem suspiciously similar to 'pick-pocketing' - the charlatan's crime we exposed in an earlier sector. How can you be sure? Not until, or unless, you are willing to do your homework. (Do your homework!)

This would be a prima facie case for a 'pick-pocketing' claim should you find evidence that such quotations are dangling divorced from their context, having been ripped from their source to be employed as pillars or posts propping some other claim or cause, as if originally intended exactly so to do.

Should you find otherwise, specifically, that these genious quotes, complete with their original context and with their original intent, resonate significantly within its new environment, then what you are witnessing is a tidal wave well worth attention. (Do the homework. Discuss.) Love rejoices in the truth.

There is truth and there is truth. The two are NOT the same. Let me explain.

Rather, let me place in your light two verifiable truths. Why? This awesome 'thing' - love - is huge. It is potent. It is encompassing. I am standing in this spot. You are standing in your spot. I am so excited I am inviting you to peek with me from my spot. And call upon you, if it so pleases you to do, to share what you are seeing and feeling and hearing and tasting and touching in your spot - a spot where I am not standing. For, that is how humoungous this 'thing' called love is.

No matter where you are or where I am or however we move around, love rejoices in the truth, so let me set before you two such replications of authentic truth from the lot to which I am exposed; neither of which is the same as the other, and may even conflict or contend wiith each other, yet each every bit real! They exist in our reality.

Take a deep breath. Life is about to get exciting. Come peek with me.

There is personal truth! Your truth! My truth! Your truth is real! To you! My truth is real. To me! Your truth is not my truth. My truth is not your truth. It never was. It never will be. Your authentic truth is and always will be an almagamation and integration of your understanding and your experience and your beliefs and your biases and your prejudices and your tastes and your desires and your inclinations and your fallability. It, alltogether-as-one, feels very right to you. It is supposed to. It is intended to keep you safe. It has a way of changing without necessarily informing you! Because you trust it! It will drive you mad if you don't. All of the above is just as true for me. And your neighbor. And your mate. And your alien friend. You do yourself grave wrong to deny your truth as it is! It is your personal truth. You do yourself grave harm to presume your truth equatable to some other truth. It will lie to you. It is your personal truth. No one else's! Look in the mirror, you'll get a glimpse of it. Your truth! We are not talking about the acts of charlatans, manipulators or demagogues here, we're talking about truth. Your truth! Your authentic truth. Or mine. Or his. Or hers. Not lies. Not deceptions. Your authentic truth. Or mine. Or his. Or hers. (Discuss).

There is the universe's truth! The universe's truth is not beholden to your truth or mine one iota. The universe's truth does not bend to either of our wills or wishes. It is an infallable truth. It is what it is, period! It is an unchanging truth! It has no bias or pretension. Its only intention is the embodiment and enactment of its wisdom. You and I are wholly subject to it. Period! But we can discover it - ever more and more. That's what life is about. Ours is the challenge. Discovery. We - you, me, they - are real parts of the universe's truth, embodied in the universe's truth. And that is where - for you, for me - the fun begins! Oooh-wee! Put your helmets on. And your dancing shoes. Take off your breastplates. (Discuss).

Keep in mind exactly what we are exploring in this sector. We are exploring love - the authentic nature of love. We are not exploring truth. We are exploring love. Love rejoices in the truth. We are looking at love rejoicing. Love rejoices in the truth, so we need to have some guage of truth. What's the size of this dance floor? Truth!

I don't know about you, but I kinda like the idea of being in the experience of this rejoicing; it feels, well, so sexy! Oh, you betyah! If you also want to get off the bench and see what's still shaking or shakable, it's about time to get ready. I am about to show you something huge. It's gonna be so cool. Love is awesome. Storge. Philia. Eros. Agape. I can feel it. Can you?

Share what you find.

Being fully functional and wholly human!

Love rejoices in the truth.

"Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self."

When I was a teeny-weeny little boy, my mother was trying to convince me that the stars I was seeing in the night sky were still shining - and just as brightly - during daylight.

Yeah right!

I loved my mother. A lot. Many boys often do in the beginning. They love their mothers. Many mothers are brilliant. My mother certainly was. Until moments such as these. One begins to question one's lineage!

"But mommy look! They are not there. They are gone. They won't be back before tonight."

"Oh, my boy, but they are very much still there. The sun is just too bright for you to see them."

Ha! The woman is going crazy on me now. "But mommy, because the sun is so bright you will see them better if they were there. They are gone mommy. They are gone. Just look, you will see. Look!"

My mother was a credentialed teacher - patient and passionate. Her lesson for me did not end there. I spent many a day, while she wasn't watching, trying to let my eyes prove her right. I did not want to have a non-brilliant craziish kind of mother. I wanted a mother I could trust. I wanted a mother who could teach me stuff. Oh, how little did I know how much I needed such a mother. And I got one!

Live a little; learn a little!

Love rejoices in the truth! Love is still rejoicing in the truth. There is no time limit on love rejoicing in the truth. There is truth. Love walks into it - love rejoices.

Can you see it?

This thing is huge - love, that is! Right this second I am watching merely a teensy-weensy bit of it. Love rejoicing! In the truth! I am looking at my truth.

What about your truth?

Aha!

My truth is exactly who I am. Your truth is exactly who you are! It is never what either of us might prefer to present ourselves to be, or pretend to be, or hope to be. My truth embodies exactly who I am in body and mind and heart and soul WITH all of my hopes and dreams and preferences and desires. Just as I am! My truth. Love walks into that truth - boom - rejoicing!

Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Rejoicing. Rejoicing.

Just look at what else is happening here: truth setting free! Oooh-wee-wee-wee! Free to rejoice. Free to dance. Free to be. Rejoicing in truth. Free to be the best I can be.

There's a whole lot of rejoicing going here!

Yes! And it scares the heck out of some folks looking on. What kind of folks?

Well I don't know them all, but let's see if we can identify a few. Shall we? Look around you too, just in case they are also hanging around you - but don't stop rejoicing no matter who you see - lift your jaw back into place and rejoice.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice in the truth.

You see there are folks out there - for whatever reason - who are only interested in a certain aspect of your truth - whatever that is! They want you to shout that aspect of your truth from the rooftoop - for whatever reason - and they will be right there rejoicing with you.

You see there are folks out there - for whatever reason - who want you to bury some aspect of your truth - whatever that is - or they will bury you! Or at least shove you into a hole and start tossing dirt on you.

You see there are folks out there - for whatever reason - who want to bully you, or cajoal you, or trick you with pick-pocketed verses to reveal some snippet of your truth - whatever that is - so they can blind you and blnd you and cut off your head!

Love DOES NOT do that! Not where I am standing! The love where I am standing rejoices in the truth - the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is what I am seeing here, my friend.

What are you seeing?

Love rejoices in the truth! It is not condemning - not where I am standing! Not controling - not where I am standing. Not sifting and sorting and judiging - not where I am standing. Love is rejoicing where I am standing. And I find that real cool.

Ain't that cool?

It is huge.

We are not looking at somebody else's truth! Not his. Not hers. Not theirs. You are looking at yours. I am looking at mine. That is where we are standing. See your truth. Accept your truth. Let love walk in. There is rejoicing. Here is the real deal: love your self - love you enough to let your love walk into your truth!

Bidabing! Bidabang! God's love is already there!

And now set free. It is the key. Love! Surround yourself with relationships that are nourishing. Step away from relationships that are toxic. Love is the key. Oh, I know, that FREE frightens a few. Hahahahaha! What a mighty God I serve. What about you?

Just as I am - just as you are - love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; love your neighbor; love yourself! Freedom! Your key is in your hand. I have mine. Let's use them. Shall we?

Now the journey gets exciting living above the stuff.

Every life tells its story. It does so on its own. Love tells its story. It does so on its own. Love is alive: true love is; authentic love is. It tells its story on its own. Not well, if it is hidden. Not aloud, when it is locked away. And not at all, if it does not exist. Love - true love - is alive. It tells its own story.

What's your story?

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

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Something To Consider

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You are

What POWER!