Eric’s Sunday Sermon; Amen and Hallelujah

Amen fits just right for me. Amen is not necessarily religious. You can use amen however you want to but know it is an affirmation of something that happened. “Amen to that bro”. Try starting out a prayer or meditation with “amen”. Amen is not a thank you. In my little brain I said amen to something I thought. That is real. So let’s move on from here; can I get an amen?

It is hard to reconcile amendment and amends to this word. Use the word ratification or condemnation instead. One works the other not unless you are saying amen to someone condemning an action. Personally I cannot ratify condemnation normally. It may work sometimes.

Hallelujah is different and a great word. We use “sermon” here. It is not meant like a sermon from a pulpit and “religious” notions. Sermon can mean a strong statement regarding matters of moral and civil matters. But the word use here is meant to caution folks with preconceived notions. We are not here to argue, although that is welcome. So hallelujah (alleluia) is close. We consider it mostly as a type of giving credit to God. Our notions are limited quite often by our religious preconceived notions. Hallelujah can be secular. Just deal with that. Hallelujah bro, can I get an amen to that?

Easy Does It

I think Christians are perhaps a bit zealous in these matters. Meditation? They got rid of that out of new versions of the bible as it seemed to be mystical or something. Yoga or stretching while in a peaceful state. Do not call it yoga to a Catholic. I do not know of “Anger Yoga” or “Hate Yoga”. Abhikama and Bakti are cool words about Yoga techniques – they are all about the love baby. My mantra is “Thank you Lord Jesus” or for some breathing practices just “Jesus is Love”. Maybe my Warrior poses need some work but not my faith in that regard.

Prejudice is wrong in most places and uses. Amen? But I am prejudiced toward apathy or apathetic actions. Apathy and not hate is the opposite of Love. Read that also as opposition to Love. It takes real effort not to care. Do not go sideways here. It is just fine to not care about stuff in tabloids. Or is that the actual news I see? Don’t know and do not care.

What about exclaiming gratitude?

Amen and hallelujah maybe should be used more often as in; Amen – “thanks for saying that.”, and Hallelujah – “thanks to whatever, whoever or why ever you are here.” Of course for me it is all about the God of Love. Love that in fact connects us all.

Gratitude

Gratitude is cool. But I do not think we say hallelujah in thanks to another much. But much hallelujah in gratefulness that a person was put in your life. I think I say it about my children and wife. I know I say it to and through my bounty like food and saying grace.

Now the Hindi have this great deal where you put your hands in prayer position bow and say “Namaste’”. It has like about 10 ancient meanings and several modern meetings which can be as simple as “I bow to you”. I searched for way too long and could not find a negative meaning. I even looked it up in my real books. It is about spreading love and peace and tranquility to each other and to all. Kind of a bonding thing. I suppose some people think hallelujah and amen are strange and not cool, Namaste’ fits right in.

Seems like the same as with people, with words we can focus on the negative or embrace the positive in our own way. I have a room for you in my home if you are that negative where you have to take it out on words. You can sleep in my library/office/den. But be careful the books may give you nightmares.

So Amen and Hallelujah are fine words. They certainly mean no one harm.

Word abuse

There was a time and in some places still are I imagine, where the “new” Christians would cruise around and verbally and loud say ‘praise the Lord’ for every good thing. Well of course we do, but you do not constantly shove that down, non-religious folk’s gullet. And those people may be very spiritual or atheists. It clearly became, for those proclaimers, a habit, probably after a bit, a meaningless habit.

I took two of these aside one time and explained the parable of the salt from Luke chapter 14. If salt loses its taste it is worthless. If words are repeated too often they lose their light. Note it is the use of the word and the circumstances of the use and not the word itself.

Now I drop in on the Southern Baptist church from time to time. Forced friendly lot they are, but I enjoy them. They have a five hundred seat auditorium type “chapel”? Filled half way I would say. Sermons are good and families in attendance are the norm.

However in the back they have what I call the glorytoGodamenhallelujahpraisetheLord section. A few of the ten say some form of this to every sentence the preacher utters. Seriously, he was announcing a calendar of events and they were doing it. How ingenuous is that?

Give Thanks Always

Now pray unceasingly but be real. I give thanks at least once an hour, probably usually more. I think that is weird in the sense of being not normal. Although I do know others that do, but rarely do we even know that about someone. I think that is the way it is supposed to be. Hopefully that ties in with the above about an empty gong. Which reminds us that words used in contemplation of love are the best words. Do you use patronizing words in a habit with your spouse? “OK honey I understand”. The empty gong teaching is cool; “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” ( 1 Cor. 13:1 )

Is it ok to say “damn it” when stubbing your toe?

So I think we agree. Amen and Hallelujah are good words when said in love. Bad words when said in wrote habit. And lousy words when meant to create a negative feeling or thought. “Take this you atheist!”

Now our teacher/Rabbi told us this in Matt. 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” (I like that old King James wording) That is a cool concept. So do we yell out Amen and Hallelujah? It seems to have a place. But perhaps we can think of our quiet brain as the closet and do it more there.

I wonder if you can retire being a preacher man. You can retire from active preaching but I think you cannot stop being one. My point is that when we are engrained in a certain way we will continue that in our being. If love is engrained then words very seldom are used poorly.

Triggers

In a previous lifetime in my job, sometimes I was called to rip a poor witness a new one. I learned that certain words are triggers for negative or positive reaction. Each person has theirs, the trick is figuring them out – the trigger word and the person. Now I can use that to trigger good stuff in a person.

Only use Amen and Hallelujah to trigger love.

I hope this sermon was short enough. Too lengthy and it is done in ego. Let us not use Amen in egotism. This should have taken about five minutes to read aloud or silently. Can you imagine a thirty minute sermon? You will get no Amen from my pew seat.