Eric's Sunday Sermon; How to Avoid Confusion of the Mind and Find Success.

Just for today. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Do you like what you see? Let me try that a different way. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Like what you see. Is life really that simple? It kind of is.

When I was just a youngster I got a degree in philosophy. It was at Northern Arizona University. For a full confluence of reasons the school at that time had an awesome and well respected school of philosophy. One of the jokes was that if you wanted to go to graduate school you did not enroll in philosophy. The reason was that you could not get in to graduate school with an “F” in your transcript. Normally a degree in philosophy is a bachelor’s of fine arts. A BA. For this fool it was so loaded with logic classes that I earned a bachelor’s of science in philosophy. Somehow the wise people determined that the art of logic was scientific I suppose. Well the point of this long winded boring story is that my thesis which we had to do just to make things harder, was on success. The thesis was a failure. Get it? Oh do not worry it was good enough to get me into graduate school, but it just was not good enough for me. It was not the masterpiece I had come to expect from myself. Now let us get back to that mirror. I know that you are way ahead of me here, because you are smart. And you really do like what you see in the mirror. Go on look again. You are special and what could be seen as defects are really just your character and that is a good good thing indeed.

Go ahead and be confused about my writing. Be confused as to how that idiot is driving. Be confused over how your spouse treats you and about just about anything, but do not be confused about who you are and you are great

Now let us get into where some confusion begins. You want to do better and improve yourself. Therefor there must be something wrong with you. Or you can phrase it like this: I hate that I am lazy so I want to become more energetic. Two peas – same pod. Can you see the logical dilemma that puts us into? Wouldn’t it be more productive if we said, this is fine but I can do better? I have a heater that works just fine. But the pilot light is burning too high. It does not mean it is a bad heater. It means that if I tweak the valves just right it can be a more efficient heater. I am not a fat slob. But if I exercise I will feel better and look even better. Listen to this upbeat song, and we will talk more about confusion.

Somehow we see that something could be better and we immediately jump to the illogical conclusion that how it is now is bad. Life is funny that way. One of my favorite things to see, and I do not know if they do it anymore, is the notion of “new and improved”. They used to do it all the time with products they were hawking on TV. Detergents and shampoos. I remember one where they even went so far as to say the “new new and improved”. I don’t think people went around throwing out their old and not improved stuff. Don’t you dare go around throwing out the old you, just improve on it. Love what you see but always strive to improve.

Now let us talk about love and religion. Religion is not exclusive of love. Love is not exclusive of religion. And some folks like to say that love is their religion. And others say that my religion is all about love. It kind of gets confusing. There is a notion that God loves us. But we also hear of fire and brimstone and eternal hellfire if we do wrong. That is confusing. And we are not to be confused about God’s love for us. So a fellow like me clears up the confusion. And that gets confusing. Have you ever heard of the concepts of metaphor, allegory, parable, analogy, symbolism or simile? If you have not then I suggest you read no further and look those words up. It is not important that you can define them but it is important that you know they are ways of talking about something that are not really to be taken literally. If I say; “You love me” it is different than saying “you love me like a father loves his daughter”. They mean different things but the second certainly does not mean that you are a father of the speaker. That would be a major confusion in the mind. The love part is constant, though the type of love is changed. And we certainly no that fathers and daughters are not a part of the story. They were simply used in literary license to get a point across.

Sorry for all you Bible thumping literalists. The Bible is many things but it is a book. A book is literature. Literary rules apply. And keep in mind that Jesus even spoke in parables and more.

Now let me get back to the very unloving hellfire and eternal damnation in that unquenchable fire. The particulars are not important, but let me tell you truthfully, I have been to hell on earth. My own doing. It was an incomprehensible demoralized state without hope for anything better in all eternity. It came with moral, spiritual and physical bankruptcy. Fire would have been a blessing compared to this. And I can tell you this also; love was the lifeline to get me back in touch with love and being in love. It lifted the eternal hell that I was stuck in.

Now all that is true. But I write like that to get the point across. The Bible is written like that to get the point across. If your life is void of love, it is a fiery hell. A burning sensation fills that void that should be occupied by love. I believe God is Love. I believe in the Holy Trinity notion and that the Holy Ghost is that Love. Hey that is just me, and it works for me. (or if you don’t think so – let me know in the comments) Now here is the freaky point of my belief. I believe you can be an atheist and if you are filled with love and you believe in love in your heart, then no one important gives a hoot what you think. Thinking is for weirdos like me. If you are loving to others then I see God in you and I do not care what your religion is.

Do not be confused about love or success. But just to let you know, in my thesis I determined and argued that true success was only found in true love. The material is almost irrelevant as success there is only transitory at best and at worst a cause for a separation from love.

Please go back and look in that mirror and love the one you are with – you! Do not be confused by the things of this world, be guided by love, and for sure that begins with loving yourself.