I believe

Random thoughts and partial postings from this week's school discussions...

I believe that a person's relationship with God cannot be defined. It must be experienced to be truely understood. Just like there are preconceptions about what a marriage should or should not be, there are attempts by religions to define, control or propose a correct way to include God in one's life. Consider this, my relationship with my spouse is unique to us and could not be replicated were I to be with another person. Nor is our relationship exactly like that of any another couple. It is unique, just like any relationship is.

So, it seems an easy conclusion that one's relationship with a higher being would only be that much more unique.

When I was Catholic the idea of Confession always bothered me. God knew exactly what I'd done, and more importantly he knew if I was sorry about it or not. Why involve a third party in a very private conversation?

Forgiveness

I strongly believe that we live multiple lives. We’re tasked with learning lessons in each life, relearning lessons that we didn’t or refused to learn in prior lives, until ultimately we become a “perfect soul”. This isn’t meant to imply that there are “perfect” people, but that there are some people who could be best described as possessing an “old soul”. Edgar Cayce reportedly had some theories on this topic that fall in line with what I believe, but I confess I’ve yet to read them. My mother had told me about them years ago. She also said she felt that I’d been her mother in a prior life, to which I thought I’d often felt like her mother in this life as well.

But I digress…

So, believing these things I’m conscious about the lessons I believe I’ve been tasked with learning in this life and have come to fear that forgiveness is one of those lessons. And I’m having a really hard time learning it. The worst part is, I’m pretty certain if I don’t learn to leave it now when my forgiveness would be granted for relatively small offenses, that I’ll be forced to learn a much harsher lesson either in this life or the next. Do you suppose maybe my residual anger and lack of forgiveness comes from things that happened to me in a prior life? That might account for some of my reluctance or resistance to learning this lesson. Hand in hand with my beliefs is also the idea that we also tend to be around the same souls in multiple lifetimes. Much like my mother’s idea (often stated actually) that I’d been her mother in a prior life.

Mark Gungor suggests that holding on to anger is much like drinking poison in hopes of killing someone else. He has a point. Don’t you hate it when someone knocks you down from your self-righteous pedestal with logic?

Actually I wonder if it’s not so much a tendency not to forgive, but a reluctance to trust that people won’t hurt you, so it’s easier to simply move on rather than give them a chance to hurt you again. That would explain my rather strict rule about not being friends with ex’s (I’ve never understood that). As Miranda on Sex and the City said once, “it didn’t work out, you need to not exist”. I’ve always said that I’m a complete Miranda. Besides, if the offending party who hurt you isn’t around, there’s no need to determine whether you forgive them or not, because you don’t have to deal with them either way. I rather like that. Of course, I have done the occasional Google search in the hopes that one certain ex has been run over by a train or publicly flogged or stoned or something. But since I have no real opportunity to run him over with my car, I don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about whether I’ve forgiven him for being a complete jerk or not.

So yeah, I suppose I should work on my forgiveness skills, but for now I’ll limit it to people I’d generally not want to hit with my car. Hey, it’s my lesson, I’ll learn it at my own pace…

Failure

So, today's writing prompt at The One-Minute Writer is "What did you learn from your biggest failure?"

That's a bit heavy for a Sunday morning, isn't it? I mean, that seems much more like a Monday morning topic to me, or perhaps a Friday night over drinks topic, because to answer the question one has to first determine what their biggest failure was. Nothing like opening that particular box, eh? I mean, we all have one - that box of failures that we keep shoved back in the dark recesses of the closet of our minds. However, I must say that, for the most part, when you do pull that box out, dust it off and look inside, more often than not what's inside really isn't as big and ugly as you remembered it to be. I know I'm a lot harder on myself than anyone else ever has been. Thinking of a list of failures was harder to do than I thought it would be. Nothing came immediately to mind, really.

So, what did I learn from my failures? Well I suppose what I just said is what I've learned. Unless your biggest failure was to go bungee jumping and forget to attach the cord, chances are that whatever it was - you survived it. Regardless of how bad, you may be able to look back one day and realize that it really wasn't that big of a deal. And maybe even that your "failures" ultimately led you to something good in your life that you would have otherwise missed out on.

So, when something bad happens ask yourself if "in five years, will this matter?" There's a good chance that it won't. Oh, but always wear a bungee cord.

Meat Cookies

1 lb. Extra Lean Ground Beef

Celery Salt

Garlic Salt

Onion

Mix ingredients together. Pat into a circular shape and grill until done. Serve on a bun with various condiments of your choosing.

Sound like a hamburger? Well it is, or was...

As we ate dinner the other night, Angie was eating her (bun-less) hamburger, smiled at Daddy and said "Cookie!"

Lenny replied, "no baby, that's a hamburger".

"Cookie," Angie insisted.

"Hamburger".

"Cookie!"

Well this went back and forth a few times until we gave in an renamed hamburgers "Meat Cookies". So there you have it.

Wendy's Hamburgers is old news... next up Angie's Meat Cookies!