Credit

Living on credit. Credit cards. Credit trap. What’s your credit score? Credit limit? Credit card balance. Credit account. Huh? Oh, I got a little carried away. . . but did I? If you’ve been alive for at least seven years, you have heard at least one of these phrases. Heck some children may even have credit cards. This blog message is one that I’ll call a “short-take” meaning I’ll only take a short minute to speak my thoughts. It’s not written like prose or poetry, but still it is shared to make us think about . . . credit. J

I no longer have a credit card for whatever reasons, be that as it may. And the more I read about credit and credit cards I am sooooo glad I don’t have one. I just read in an issue of Reader’s Digest that if you have a credit card with no balance, and you don’t use it for 12 months, this of course does not make the credit card company happy. So they’ve created rules and laws to their benefit to make you pay just for carrying their piece of plastic in your wallet. They will charge you an annual fee up front and there’s nothing you can do about it except pay it, cut up the card and cancel the account. Not using the card does not automatically mean it is a dead dog. It is only sleeping mind you, and because the credit card company gets hungry, it will “kick your dog” and wake him up and demand that you feed him some Annual fee by Purina, or some other dog food company. Hmmmm. With real beef too!!

I thought this was going to be a short-take but already I’ve written more than I intended to so let’s just jump write in. Oh I mean right in. Just a warning though, for this short-take there is more reason than rhyme to what I’ve written so please just hang in there ‘til the ride is over. And then jump off. Thanks!

In the field of accounting, credit, or “to credit” means to deduct an amount from an account whether in your favor (what you owe to a creditor for instance) or in their favor (from your nest egg. Hmmm.). By the way, to debit means to add to your account, or in layman’s and laywoman’s terms “a deposit”. Now that sounds like paper music to my ears!

Living on credit: Spending resources you see with your eyes (hopes, desires, needs or greeds) only. It’s not yet yours. Has not yet landed onto the landing strip of your hands.

Living on credit: Thinking and dwelling with a futuristic view and mentality (can you say “impatience”, or “are we there yet?”) to the point that when the present arrives you never meet him, her, or it, etc., because you never saw them; because you don’t recognize the day of your visitation. But yet somehow you find yourself sitting in, with and on a mountain of “debt”, that you never saw coming. What a paradox.

Living on credit: Back to the future where time just passes through my fingers. My how time flies. Like the wind. Never late, never early. Always on time. (Can you say “credit card payment due date?” Don’t be late!!)

Living on credit: Borrowing against something you will never own. Whoever created credit may be rich now and at everyone else’s expense, but he (or she) is not your friend. But of course, no one is forcing us to go plastic, but because we have, and have just jumped overboard with it, we’re on a slippery slope of our own making sliding into a “cashless” society where no one will be in control of his or her own . . . Money? What’s that?

There really is no reward to living on credit. It's not like getting extra credit in school for doing extra work. Come on my fellow froggers, I mean bloggers, let's wake up and jump out of the pot before we get boiled to death! Trying to live in tomorrow today leaves nothing for tomorrow when it becomes today. Can you say “where’s my social security?” What’s that?

Peace.

Trapped

“Trapped inside this body.” “Trapped inside my mind”. “Caught between a rock and a hard place.” These are just some of the clichés we use to describe that “feeling” (and even maybe the reality) of being in an impossible place, or situation out of which we cannot see our way. Not only does it look and sound impossible, it feels negative and ominous. Very rarely do we look at being “trapped” as being a positive thing, at least not while we’re in it.

As psychologists (and ministers of the gospel) we are trained to help others (and ourselves) to learn to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty, even though it’s the same amount of liquid. J You say “po-tAt-o” and I say “po-TaT-o”. Hmmm, the exact letters, the same food, but it’s all in the pronunciation, or in how you see and hear a thing. (Or taste it. I still love French Fries, my favorite way to eat a po-tAt-o or po-TaT-o, but if you give me a baked po-tAt-o with cheese, bacon bits, chives and onions and butter, I will not get offended not one bit. Neither will I feel trapped in a negative way by the calories.) Anyhoooo, still we too are human experiencing life which is not always flavorful. We still have to be realistic, yet we cannot let our current and present reality become our thermostat, only the thermometer.

I recall from my own life experiencing some life-changing situations, disappointments, surprises with “no way out”. I not only felt trapped but I was trapped by my past decisions and choices (even though they seemed good and positive at the time, and I had no regrets or reasons to regret them). Commitments, loyalties, obligations, contracts, covenants, legal decisions, etc. When you say “yes” to a new job offer with better pay and benefits, you breathe a sigh of relief and make plans for a better and different future. There is nothing wrong with that at all. The only problem is “life happens” and keeps on happening no matter what positive or negative things are happening for, with, without or against you. And there you are “trapped” by your name on the dotted line. Can you say “lay-offs”, “down-sizing” and “pink slips”? What about “memos”? Hmmm.

That’s just one way I’ve personally experienced feeling trapped. Here of late I’ve been assessing my life in conjunction with my relationship to God, the church, the ministry, God’s Word, and to be honest with you I have felt trapped. Now most “religious” people who feel they must defend God would get offended by my statement, and that would be their right and their prerogative, for after all, I used to be just like them. I used to get offended for God over the least little thing, until I began to let His Word and nature transform my character. God doesn’t need me to defend Him against myself neither anyone else, and neither does He want me to spend my time doing that. He’s a big God and can take care of Himself. I need Him to take care of me. Hmmm. Three m’s that time.

Anyhoooo, I’ve been feeling trapped by my commitment to God, the call upon my life, even the anointing. Why? Because with them comes responsibility to live the Word of God we call The Holy Bible. It does not mean I am perfect for no one is, and neither will we ever be in this life. However, as a child of God and as ministers we are always judged more harshly by our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. We cannot pick our nose, clean our ears or floss our teeth in public without someone making a fuss about it. J We are held to a higher standard of conduct than anyone else, yet we are disbelieved and mistreated more harshly than anyone else. On the one hand people will say “they’re only human. Why do they think they know more than we do? After all I hear from God too.” But as soon as our humanity shows, church people (and non, who know absolutely nothing about being a disciple of Jesus the Christ) will sing another song, “He’s (she’s) a minister and should know better.” And why is that pre-tell when we all have the same access and opportunities to learn and know exactly what “better” is?

As a child of God and a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I cannot date the first man I see (neither do I want to), and neither can I marry the first man who proposes to me (and neither do I want to do that). But neither can I just run around with any and everyone without thinking about consequences. I cannot go any and everywhere which may be, and seem to be harmless to those who are not children of God through Jesus the Christ. And let’s make one thing clear here so we can be in the same story book: God is the Creator of everyone in the entire world. He loves everyone the same, and He gave His Son Jesus the Christ to reconnect us to Himself as children are connected to their father. But not everyone in the entire world thinks of Him as Father. Not everyone wants to worship or love Him, or obey Him or seek Him, and adore Him as Father. Not everyone even believes He exists. Therefore He is not the FATHER of everyone. There is a difference. Your daddy may be the principle of the school, but He’s not everyone’s daddy. Just your daddy, and any other children who may adopt him as daddy and be adopted by him. Yet he is the principle over everyone in the school. (Read the book of Romans for more on adoption.)

People claim to believe in a Higher Power, something (and maybe Someone – male or female, mother or father) bigger than themselves, but yet they don’t want to call Him “Father” or God until we start talking in the context of being “God’s children”. Hmmm, please make up your mind so you can stop being confused and walking on both sides of the street. That’s a good way to get hit by a truck. J

No, I’m not defensive but just sharing what I’m feeling at this Christmas season of 2011. No, I don’t have a Christmas blog message for they’re all over the place. As a matter of fact as I write this the movie “Shrek II” is playing in my DVD player and has given me my next blog topic. LOL!! So you see where I get some of my inspiration. LOL!! But back to my original focus.

When people say they are trapped, the first thing we do is ask questions like, “why do you feel trapped?” What’s happening in your life to make you think you’re trapped? Trapped by what? Exactly what are you referring to? What do you want to do (or where do you want to go) that you cannot, and what is preventing you from doing what you believe you want to do? Who holds the keys to your “prison doors”? What can you do about that? Why do they hold the keys? Who gave them the keys? Do they have the rights to those keys? (Who really has the rights to the keys to someone else’s existence? Hmmm.) Is your assessment of your situation real or from your emotions? Has the expiration date for your current place in life come and gone? If so, then it is time for you to move on. If not, then you're not trapped. There's still some milk in that cow for you.

And if you’re in a place you hope to never end up in again in the future once you get out, these may be some of the questions you may need to ask yourself NOW so you can learn from this experience: What choices and decisions did I make which have landed me on this island, this planet, in this cave, in this marriage, in this relationship, on this job, in debt, etc.? What’s inside of me that moves me to make those kinds of decisions etc.? (This question must be investigated and dealt with because everything we do on the outside is first inside of us, and this is from where history will repeat itself. Believe me, I know.) What is one thing I can do differently today which I’ve never done which can change ME so I can change my environment, that I may eventually change my situation? Can you see the progression here? All lasting change begins from inside of ourselves, and right now as I write, I am counseling myself. Really, Holy Spirit Who lives within me – the Great Counselor, is counseling me. J Maybe it’s a thought and a belief. Maybe that’s where you need to start. Maybe that’s where I need to start.

Another way of looking at this feeling and place of being trapped is to turn the coin onto its other side and ask positive questions. For instance, “What have I learned about life, myself, people, God, finances, health, etc. from being where I am now? What are the benefits of this situation? What is it keeping me from doing? What is it protecting me from? Have I milked this cow dry and gleaned from it all I can before moving on to the next desired change in my life? Have others been helped by me from being in this situation, and if so, how have they been helped? What has it prepared me to do? What is it empowering me and allowing me to do? Am I really ready to move forward into the new that I think I want to experience? What do I have on hand that can help me make a positive move?

Trapped. I guess no one felt more trapped than the donkey that fell in the well, and the woman who bled for many years and could not get healed. Most of you know the story of the donkey which fell into the well whose owner had no way of getting him out. So he decided to do the most humane thing he could think of: bury the donkey in the well with dirt. So that’s what the farmer did. He continued to shovel dirt on top of the donkey in the well and the donkey would shake it off and pack it under his feet. After a while the farmer would look down and still see the donkey, for he thought of course that the donkey would be under the dirt. So he continued, and so did the donkey. After a second and third look the farmer realized that the donkey was rising on the dirt, not dying under it, and eventually the donkey walked out of the well on dry ground. J When we feel trapped we tend to use extreme terms like “dying”, “under the weight of this or that”, “can’t see no way out”, “the weight of the world is on my shoulders”, “there’s no one I can call”. Just to name a few.

Imagine yourself bleeding every day of the week, month, year after year non-stop, and living in a society which “knows your business” for everyone knows you’re “unclean” and it is illegal for you to be around people, especially men. (Makes me like less the song, “This is a Man’s World.”) Yet the doctors are men and they don’t have a problem coming into your unclean house to examine you and take all your unclean cash until you have no more resources for any more doctors. And they can’t even cure you. Hmmmm. Sounds like our current healthcare system. Talk about being trapped in your body. What’s the alternative? Where do you go? Who can you call? (Ghost Busters? Well you could, but I’m just not sure if the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man will be of good help. Maybe with some hot chocolate for comfort.)

Seems like we can’t count on those who are supposed to care for us (the farmer gave up on his donkey and decided to bury him alive), neither can we always count on those who are educated to be able to “cure” what ails us. Yes indeedy, we do need to believe in and call on “A Higher Power”. This bleeding woman made her way to Jesus to get her out of her trapped situation. You can find her story in Luke’s gospel chapter 8:43-48. I will give you the first two verses, and you can read the rest for yourself, “And a woman who had suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years and had spent all her living upon physicians, and could not be healed by anyone, Came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His garment, and immediately her flow of blood ceased.” [Amplified Bible]

She did something she had never done before. She did something she was told she could not do, which was socially unacceptable. But she was trapped and no one could help her thus far. Drastic needs call for drastic measures. One of the other gospels tells us what she thought, that “if I can just get to Jesus and touch the hem of His garment, I will be made WHOLE” (not just healed physically.). She believed that Jesus would be able to restore her mentally, emotionally, physically and socially, and guess what? He did just that, all with just one touch. Because He acknowledged her in front of everyone He restored to her her dignity in the community which would allow her to come out of her home, where she was trapped in and by her body. She could get a job. She could become someone’s wife. Maybe she could become a mother too.

So now I do a hmmmmmm on myself and I think about my thoughts to see if they are trapping me, or opening another door for me. Something to think about.

Peace on earth and good will towards men and women.

Magnets

How does a magnet get its magnetism? J Yeah I know, here I go again with one of those trivia questions (or maybe to some a trivial one), but anyhooo, since we’re here let’s continue. Have you ever thought about it? What makes a magnet a magnet? What material is mixed into the metal in its liquid state that gives it that magnetic attraction force and power? Or is there some process it goes through after it is hardened that makes it attractive to some and repellant to other metals? Magnetic attraction. North and south poles attract while south repels south and north repels north. Hmmmm. But I don’t think this is a “rule” we can depend upon in relationships, for it seems that opposites attract and attack, I mean repel each other, while like personalities attract and attack each other too. J It just depends on what’s happening in the mixture of the character of the parties involved. Magnetic attraction or magnetic attacktion. A new word from my “Allnthejeans World Dictionary”.

This magnetic stuff got me thinking of love in all its forms between God and humans especially, but as well as horizontal love between the genders, family members, friends, etc. Everyone has a different model and thus a different definition and understanding of “love”. How is this so? It’s because of the amniotic fluid in which we were conceived and the “oxygen” which we “breathed in” starting at conception throughout childhood and into adulthood. Our understanding of love was modeled for and to us by our parents and authority figures, the most important people in our lives. For many of us these models were balanced, but for most of us they were not.

For instance, if you grew up in a household where affection was little to nil, then your understanding and experience of love is one that is absent of affection. So maybe when you see people who are very affectionate you may feel a little uncomfortable or even exasperated by all that outward and public display of “love”. Or maybe if you were raised in a very affectionate environment between parents and children and between siblings, you cannot conceive of not giving and receiving affection in your relationships. Maybe you are the “touchy-feely” type and you may feel that people don’t like you when they don’t reciprocate affection.

For others love has been modeled as severity and abuse of all sorts – “I love you” while I’m hitting you or punching you or . . . The earlier in life this type of “brainwashing” occurs, the more difficult it becomes for the person to see a different type of love as more desirable and healthy. I asked the question “when did the magnet become magnetic”? I think the answer is “at the very beginning”.

I recall in science class our teacher rubbing two metals together. One was magnetic while the other was not, but it became magnetic, temporarily, because of the magnetic one. But after a few moments it would lose its magnetic powers. Sounds like a super hero story doesn’t it? J The magnetic one had the power inside of itself while the non-magnetic one did not. The magnetic one was the one that did the pulling and drawing, while the non-magnetic one was the one being drawn and pulled.

Hmmm, our upbringing, background, culture, etc. prepares and primes us for the world positively and negatively according to what is “modeled” for us as “normal”. Across the races, generations, countries, great culture divides normal will be different for everyone. But to me, what is (should be) “normal” for everyone is the pure love of God. This love does no harm to the person mentally, emotionally, affectionally, spiritually, physically. This love is only for the benefit of the one being loved. So if what is normal for you or me is not beneficial for us and those we affect, in all of these areas of the soul, spirit and body, then it is not good, and it is not NORMAL. To me, it doesn’t matter from what country you originate. For something (or someone) to be Normal, it must be for the good of the entire person, and for everyone involved, for what is inside of us either attracts others to us, or repels them from us. Who knowingly desires to attract what is abnormal? Hmmm. Anyhoooo again.

I was talking with a friend recently and we discussed the reality of some negative things that happened in real time that really should not have happened in the life of a mutual friend. As we discussed what she experienced and what we knew about her, we realized that her upbringing set her up to experience the negative events to which she exposed herself and endured. The “negativism” (ingredients) of the situation was already inside of her drawing her towards another negative situation, like a magnet. Because of her past – the environment in which she was raised, the love model she knew - her present situation thus, was “normal” to, and for her, even though she did not like it or desire it. It was what she “knew,” it was what was familiar to her. She was already magnetized for it, from the inside.

So when we observe friends and family in certain situations and life scenarios of maybe abuse, alcoholism, drugs, religion (positive and negative), molestation, positive and healthy love relationships, etc. and we wonder “how” and “why”, we know the answer. Somewhere back in the beginning – in their “once upon a time. . .” is the answer to these questions. But you remember, all “once upon a times” do have a “happily ever after.” J I do believe in them even if the “B” to “Y” is filled with wicked witches with poison apples and magic mirrors and mean stepmothers and jealous fairies and wizards and dragons and . . . Yes I have to believe that things don’t have to remain the same and that we don’t have to end where we began or even leave by the same door we came in. A change IS gonna come. As a matter of fact, everyday, as long as we are willing to change from the inside out, our change IS come. It IS upon us. It IS within us. The power to change our love model, our magnetism is within us.

In order to change the type of people you are attracted to or who are attracted to you - who are not good for or to you, you must be willing to change something inside of you which attracts them. Those character traits that are in them which you have no desire for in your space you must first be willing to evict from yourself, from your own character and personality. There is a lot of truth in the cliché “it takes one to know one.” This is why so many people get involved in one-night stands or short long-term relationships, because of that immediate first meeting attraction (i.e. love at first sight. Yeah right. Maybe, and maybe not). There is something common inside the persons pulling them towards each other like magnets. Given time, the true personality of each person gets revealed and depending on what happens next, either they stick together and work it out and help each other to grow and mature, or they abuse each other and stick together and hurt each other, or they abandon one another right away.

Those who realize that the negatives in the other person are too strong for them and that they don’t have the “resources” to invest in any type of relationship with that person will jump ship right away. For many others, we stay and endure, wink the eye and turn our heads to things that are not life and death, until we realize that the person has begun to turn on us and the friendship (or whatever type of relationship it is) isn’t going to go anywhere positive or good for all parties involved, in every area of life, but only one is getting his or her fix at the expense of the other.

If we want to attract positive people for the duration of our lives, meaning we don’t want them to just come and go, then we must make sure we are the types of persons we want to attract. I’m not talking about the beautiful clothing and jewelry, ones gifts and talents, money and jobs etc., but we’re talking about the inward character. This is not a “self-help” blog topic because we did not “get here” by ourselves, so it stands to reason we will not be able to change “all by ourselves.” We need help from outside of ourselves to come and reside inside of us to transform and change our magnetic attraction, our love model so we can know the difference between the good and the bad, the sour and the sweet.

The Bible says about one of the prophets, when the angel told his parents they would have a baby, the child was only to eat “sweet” things so he would know to reject bad things. You see, it happens at the beginning, for permanent magnetism and not just a temporary one. But since most of us (none of us) did not “get it” at our “once upon a time”, God has made it possible for us to start again, to be “born again”, to receive a new name, with new blood (a spiritual blood transfusion to change us from the inside out) to change our inner magnets so we will desire and be drawn to the good, and reject the bad.

There was a man named Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees. He was an important Jewish leader. One night he came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one can do these miraculous signs that you do unless they have God’s help.” Jesus answered, “I assure you, everyone must be born again. Anyone who is not born again cannot be in God’s kingdom.” Nicodemus said, “How can a man who is already old be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” Jesus answered, “Believe me when I say that everyone must be born from water and the Spirit. Anyone who is not born from water and the Spirit cannot enter God’s kingdom. The only life people get from their human parents is physical. But the new life that the Spirit gives a person is spiritual.” [John 3:1-6] (The Healing Bible)

And I get my hope from these words everyday: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!” [II Corinthians 5:17] (The Amplified Bible) As long as I stay in Christ and He stays in me and I allow His nature and character to change mine to become more like His (by the fruit of the Holy Spirit), my love model will change, transforming my magnetic powers J. And I will become the Sister Wonder (thanks Jua) I was created to be! Now what color cape should I wear?

Peace.