Saturday, October 17, 2009

Get Over It

'Get Over It' is the title of one of my favorite Eagles songs and it is very funny as well as being very direct which my sarcastic personality can appreciate. It's not until you're over something that you really see how hard and how long you held onto it. Then you can give yourself the chance to really analyze it to understand why you held on so long and so hard.

I recently began the "Get Over It" process as I felt myself release a relationship. There was no fanfare to mark my final release. No angelic hosts seranading my freedom. No external excitement whatsoever. It was a profound shift in my focus. Suddenly, the angst was gone. I felt me become important and not them. New thoughts popped into my head. It was so instantaneous when the shift occurred that it took me a few days to fully embrace what I was experiencing for the first time in a really long time. I was thinking of myself and the things that would make me happy. I was not considering anyone else in my thinking because I was confident that their happiness, or wellbeing, or life was not mine to consider. I am a Mother and my children are grown. I am single, young, and FREE.

If I want to pick up and move across the country, I can. If I want to walk away from the life I live now and start a new one someplace else, I can. If I want to sit still for a while, I can. If I want to have a wild crazy affair, I can. I can do anything I want. There is no one else to make happy but me and the truth that my freedom has shown me is that there never was anyone else to make happy.

It was not easy to let go of the things that I held close. But when I did, the shift was profound. So whether you're married or single, young or old, man or woman, I am here to declare in a loud strong voice, BE HAPPY!! There is no one else in your life more important than you. Whatever is between you and your happiness, Get Over It.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Marisa's Diary

Why does your god care what you wear?
To go to the altar in worship and prayer
Does god care so much for the cost of your clothes?
That he doesn’t mind the way you turn up your nose
At the ones who show up in their best Sunday rags
And carry their purses in brown paper bags
Do his teachings encourage your bigotry?
Do they really say your path is the best one for me?
Will heaven be denied to the ones who care less?
For the cost of stained glass, that the rich man has blessed
Or will the final day of reckoning show crystal clear
The things held in our hearts are the things that we fear
For the poor will always be welcomed in kind
By those who know the truth of things divine

Saturday, October 3, 2009

A non-Christian take on Jesus

I am always leery when people ask whether I'm a Christian. I immediately feel defensive because I am convinced that their idea of Christian and mine are completely different. I assume (right or wrong) that they are referring to the accepted (narrow) way that Christians are defined. I never like definitions. I find them to be very limiting. I don't think that an idea as grand as the one that Jesus presented can be boxed and packaged the way that organized (loose term) religion has tried to do. His messages were expansive, transformative, thought provoking. They were then written down long after he walked the Earth and translated from several different languages to English. Then you add in the political and financial uses of his teachings to garner wealth, control the masses, and direct political change. Don't you think with all those factors in play that maybe the Bible should not be taken literally?

The messages of love, peace, community, mindfulness, thoughfulness, tolerance, compassion, charity are lost in rules that take away free will, ideas that condemn, and activities that exclude. I am particularly concerned when supposed religious authority assumes to hold special access to the divine and to Jesus. More and more we are uncovering text long buried that present a Jesus and a teaching far and away more liberating than what we see in churches and experience from their attendees. His message was always one of love in all its expressions.

Please don't misunderstand, I am not anti-Christian. I am against those that would use an idea as uplifting as a belief in something greater than oneself as a means to control, enslave, exclude and persecute. For the record, all books are divinely inspired even the ones we don't agree with. All stories are from the perspective of the storyteller. There are no absolutes. Don't let these illusions deter you from getting to know the greater parts of you. There is no need for an intercession with the divine. We are already connected to the divine. There is no separation.

By the way, I do believe in Jesus.