Learning to Love: The Journey

I want to learn how to love as unconditionally as my mother-in-law loves her parents.  Her childhood was not the best, and I have seen so many people grow up with bitterness against their parents, even when their own childhood was not half as bad as hers.  Yet, she chooses never to highlight the bad, only speaking good of them.  Never accusing, or blaming them for anything, even though she suffered because of their actions.  This is, to me, the very definition of unconditional love.  I have asked her how she does that, how she is so loyal to them, and her answer is simple: “Because they are my family.”  In her mind, regardless of what they may do wrong, family is part of one’s self, and should be shown love.

I would like to learn how to just love people because of who they are, and stop subconsciously loving them more or less based on how much I consider they deserve it.  Usually, if I see a person who only thinks selfishly, my respect, and love towards them decreases.  It’s like I need to have a reason to love someone, like so-and-so puts others first, so they deserve to be loved.  However, that is most certainly conditional love, depending on their behavior, and attitudes.  I have no problem, treating strangers politely, and treating certain people with love.  However, I really need to work on treating with love, and sincerely loving, those who I (am supposed to) love, but do not like.   For example, those whose personalities do not click with mine , or whose opinions differ greatly from mine, and actions just do not match up with my “standards”.  Looking in, I notice I can be judgemental, when one strives for excellence, they start making the mistake of seeing what others should work on.  In my own quest for excellence, I must cease to do this, and work on myself, and just focus on loving others.

This brings me to explain what this “journey” will be.  I have made the decision to leave much of my life behind to live with my mother who is battling breast cancer.  This trip will be my quest for learning how to love unconditionally. Going somewhere I was not looking forward to going. Leaving my comfort, to be with those who I love but don’t like. I have put up walls, I am used to just watching from a distance what is happening, making it easier to have my walls up, with that convenient little window to look thru.  However, love means tearing down those walls, and opening up my heart to the severity of what will be going on around me.  I have a hard, and sometimes rebellious heart.  God promises to take that heart, and replace it will a heart of flesh, which will truly feel how He means it to.  I am bracing myself, because this seems like it’s going to be a time when I will be tested, and frustrated, and probably desperate.  I know I will become, very dependent on God.  He is the one who shaped my character, He taught my how to let go of my fits of rage, and anger problems back in Summer of 2002.  It looks like 2012 will be a lengthy course on unconditional love.

Cell Phones: Distinguishing Between Body, Soul, and Spirit

I often thought of a cell phone like a person.  The difference between body, soul, and spirit can be seen clearer using the analogy of a cell phone.  First of all, the body is the physical part of us.  In the case of the cell phone, it is the actually cell phone, the tangible device you hold in your hand.  However, the cell phone would have no life without its soul, which is the software/programming that makes it process information.  For us, this is our mind, our will, and our emotions.  Who we are, our personality, is basically our soul.    Finally, the spirit, though people often find it hard to see the difference between soul and spirit, to me it is like the cell phone service provider.  The spirit is essentially what connects you to the Higher Power, just like the signal on the cell phone.   Many times I would think about the extreme difference between having a working phone that turns on, and having a working phone that turns on and is connected to a cell phone carrier, where it can perform its purpose.  Just like us, we can be alive, and functioning, but there is still another level to us,  with that same ability to connect.

Universal Truths

It’s not about being religious, or being a fanatic  it’s about recognizing the universal truths we should live by to have, and enjoy our life.  Because we all know that living soley for personal gain, never leads to happiness.  These truths are those that after you read them somewhere, you realize that you have known that to be true the whole time.  The following is an example of a universal truth:

• Happiness usually promotes health.

How I Was Unable to Conceive the Concept of Conception

Something I wrote on October 23, 2011-

“The reality is I do not believe in babies.

Sounds weird, huh?  I mean, I am not ignorant, I am perfectly aware that babies exist, and people have babies (sometimes lots of them), and yes, I know where they come from.  However,  it just blows my mind the concept of their being absolutely nothing, just organic matter, similar to another cell in the body, and then out of seemly nowhere, BAM!  A new life!   I just find it semi-impossible for ordinary organic matter to turn into a life.  Crazy, just crazy, (and, BTW, this amazement also happens to me with seeds I plant in my garden, too).  It’s like they literally come from nowhere.  All which that person is to become, at one moment it’s not there, and the next moment it is.  Besides knowing the science behind the whole baby event, and I have my beliefs about a Divine hand in the whole process, to me it was just inconceivable.  I could never, and still never have been able to visualize myself pregnant.  It is just hard for me to imagine looking at my belly and knowing that, besides the last thing I ate, there is also a forming human inside there, that wasn’t there before.  It’s amazing, astonishing, and so underappreciated by so many.  Some people find absolutely nothing interesting in it.  However, for me, it is something, so out of this world, that I cannot imagine ever going through that. ”

Yesterday, I got my answer.  I remembered a passage in the bible that talked about how God calls things into existence.  I looked it up and in Romans 4: 17,( coincidently it is talking about babies, among other things), and the last part says: “(He) who creates new things out of nothing.”  That is how I was finally able to conceive the concept of conception,  by understanding that new life is definitely more than its organic components.

What Being a College Graduate Means (To Me)

I compare graduating from college with being a toddler.  You have been years preparing, but have not been able to practically apply what you have been taught to do.  In the same way, toddlers have the capacity to learn new things, but it is a bit awkward and difficult to actually begin doing day-to-day things.  It’s those fine motor skills that have to be developed.   We go thru that stage again, where we are clumsy, uncoordinated, and somewhat lost.  Where we have to depend on others to teach us, and guide us in the beginning.  We are like this lump of clay that has to be molded. We have the potential, and now we have to actually make that into something tangible. People might think that graduating college means we’ve arrived, but it just means we’ve arrived at the bottom step, and it’s time to start climbing up.