Here's a Rant For you

If my thoughts are in pink, maybs they'll seem less mean.

What they hey is up with this crap of people saying this is a Christian Nation!!?? Whatever happened to the first amendment?? It says the government cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion or impeding the free exercise of religion. also, here's a quote from the 1797 Tripoli Treaty: "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded in the Christian Religion". I'm not going to deny that many of the founders of our country were Christian, or did believe in some form of God, please keep in mind that Jesus WAS NEVER mentioned in any of the really biggie court documents regarding the founding. Yes there is a bit about us all being created equal, but keep in mind as well that many of these founders were Deist ,meaning they believe in a Creator but impersonal God (one you can't pray to, well you can, but he's not going to answer).

Its NOT a christian nation. it is a nation of Christians, and every other religion (and not religion) so just ignore ppl who say it is. PLEASE!!! its so ridiculous.

jean vanier = love

maybe Jesus dying and resurrection is a symbol of dying to your ego (selfishness, insecurities, prejudices, hate, fears,desire for power and recognition) and then rising in perfect or more perfect love. Except i don't think its a one time thing, its more of a continuous cycle of dying and rebirth, and each time maybe your inner peace and ability to love, understand and forgive becomes bigger (if that makes sense). it is one hell of a sacrifice to make, but it results in more peace and a deeper ability to Love unconditionally and to forgive and understand. As you let go of your ego, you are more aware of other's suffering and pain, and the reason behind their actions. Jean Vanier said that part of forgiveness is seeing the pain, suffering and reasons behind the action, and understanding the circumstances that lead to the person's action. Anyway, why can't I be more coherent??

anywho. thats all for now.

p.s. lol, this is from Jean Vanier, but i suddenly just connected it to the cross, resurrection, dying thing more clearly in my own mind after listening to my favorite song from my christian era, sweetly broken by jeremy riddle.

prayer

The other day in the Body and Soul magazine that comes to our house, I read an article about prayer. The article was written by a skeptic of religion who went on a retreat that involved prayer. At one point, she asked the retreat counselor to whom they were praying to. The counselor told her that it wasn't really about praying to someone, but rather expressing and articulating the deepest desires of your soul. Anyway. I think that is pretty cool! It is a good way to focus your mind, and to keep your thoughts on what you desire and want in life. anyway, I'll write more later.

This is more later too, that I wrote after the next more later, but it goes better here. OH shoot. I forgot what I was going to say blasssst.

Oh yea, so lets say you were praying to be more open minded, and to have less issues with wanting to be in control of situations even though its impossible to have control over everything. If you pray every night for that (directing your prayer to whoever/whatever), it will become imprinted in your mind and thoughts. Well I don't know if thats true, but thats what I am thinking. I think that is why many people write their deepest desires in a journal, so those desires are at the forefront of their thoughts, and they can't be overridden by daily distractions as easily.



This is more later. I was planning on trying to give up fartbook for lent (except for a few minutes every day) so i could focus more on focusing my mind. lol, did that make sense??? But I like writing notes too much, because the results are just way too funny. Really I only write these notes for myself, so I should just write them somewhere else, but then I'd probably lose them. plus, like i said, they are funny!! hahahahahahahahha love yall

Lent

Today I was learning about lent. I did not know this, but the word ‘lent’, back in the day, merely meant ‘springtime’. I mean I knew lent/Easter was all about new birth, re birth, creation and all that jazz, but it was nice to learn this (or maybe learn it again, because I most likely knew that already back in the day. I also got to listen to this one heck of an amazing lady!!! She is just the coolest lady ever, she’s been with l’Arche for 20 years, and is a Catholic sister. I met her a few weeks ago at this retreat for assistants, and man-o-man I liked this lady. She talked all about the interdependence of all things, and that we are a product of millions of years of evolution. She talked about us all having unique and irreplaceable beauty and gifts, and therefore we were the only person in the whole world that could offer what we could. Anyway, I completely agree with the idea of interdependence of ALL things, and that this is why we need to cooperate, sharing our gifts, receiving the gifts of others.
Anyway, at the community I am a part of, we are going through some serious transition and trying to figure out a lot of things. At one point, after hearing a lot of people say “we’ll just go with God’s plan”, she said something like, “remember that God doesn’t have a plan. We are co-creators, we are creating the world anew, your community anew, all we have to do is listen to one another” That just totally made me stop and want to jump out of my seat and hug her!!!!!! It was beautiful <3. We are part of this Universe, which is the closest thing to ‘Divine’ that I can possibly believe in. This Universe is constantly creating and re-creating itself, and we are part of that. Everything we do affects everything else, and one thing I never thought about that she said was, “If you do something for someone it is like doing it to yourself” . . . that’s just like Jesus. I mean just like something or other he said. Well actually I did think about that before, because I know from experience that doing things for others makes you feel so bubbly in side, and also you let go of your ego more and more when you do something for others. When you are an ass to others, you feel bad. Well anyway, she gave us this quote that she also gave us at the retreat. I don’t know who to credit for the quote but here it is, “"everything comes to being through relatedness is sustained through relationship and thrives on interdependence”. Think about it, its so true!!
Oh dear, I forget how I connected these two things together in the beginning, darn. Well lent/Easter, Springtime is new creation, and creation comes through things interrelating and cooperation and all that jazz.
Well the original point of my note was that anyone can participate in Lent then, even if they aren’t Christian. It’s a time for new beginnings, a new creation, re-creating your life. It is a time for personal re-birth, and a re-commitment to your values, your vision, your goals, etc. It takes a combination of things in order for your re-birth to realize itself. Catholics do prayer, almsgiving and fasting. I’m not really Catholic (at all) but I think they are on to something. Prayer is for keeping your mind focused on your goals/ aspirations/purpose/etc, almsgiving is giving of yourself (letting go of caring for yourself) and fasting is refraining from doing the things that keeps you away from realizing your aspirations. SWEEETT!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am just writing because I am greatly annoyed about all of the absurd laws in religion. Like one is that you are not obligated to go to church if the priest is practising an immoral lifestyle. First of all, no one is practicing a perfectly moral lifestyle, and second, who the fuck has the right to dictate how and when you should go to church. That should be a personal choice only, and if it is dictated, or there are rules for it then people are going because they feel they are obligated too, and not because they want to, and that surely means they will get a lot less out of it. It is hard enough to be truly present in church when you want to be there, so how can you be present if you don't want to be there, and are just going there because you feel you should. There may be a church full of bodies, but there are most likely only a few minds present. ARRRGHHHHHH what the Hell??? I guess this is reason number 200 why I am atheist.

Second pet peeve is the close-minded assumption that atheist can't be thankful or feel blessed. Well you know what? I AM AN ATHEIST AND I AM THANKFUL and feel blessed. I am thankful for the generosity, kindness and love of my friends, the people I live with, my family, and for this beautiful earth that provides me with what I need. I am thankful for people that are selfless and giving, and for the Lovers of humanity!! I am thankful for the thinkers and the honest, and for people who accidently begin the most incredible movements simply because of an inkling of love. I'm talking about Jean Vanier who began the wonder that is L'Arche, I am also thankful for all the other Lovers and Thinkers of this world that put there foot down, and went the opposite way of the world, which is the way of Peace and the Path to justice and liberty for all!!!!!!! Not just for you, Christians, for Atheists, Agnostics, Apatheists, Christians, Deists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Wiccans and all of the other people of the world, for Humans everwhere to have inner peace, aka freedom, liberty. . . and all that jazz.

Also, to quote a movie that was silly but suprisingly true and lovely called 100 girls, is that there are too many -ists in the world (also isms) and if we want to be -ists, we should be humanists because we are all humans and that is highlighting our sameness and not our differentness that is so damn divisive.

Love,

Abby

What was I going to say????

The unexamined life is not worth living says this one dude. I forget who though, crap. hold on. It was Socrates!! Also Herman Hesse wrote a book regarding this, and I am about to read it after I finish reading the Jungle by Mr. Sinclair. I'll be right back. . . . duties are calling. . I'm back. before i continue, quote of the day:
Me: I keep farting and i have no idea why (to no one in particular)
Ralph: I know what it was, it was probably that cheese.

Anyway the unexamined life is not worth living. We talked about this at a retreat for L'Arche assistants last week. My examination of my life, and my feelings lead me to be very confused about certain events in life. I was afraid of love, and of relationship, and now I see why. . . it is so hard, and annoying and it hurts badly sometimes. If i didn't have this relationship I would not have this pain, yet I would also be without the joy and learning. . what am i going to do. . . shoot

The Lovers in my Life

The fantastic place I live in. The folks I live with are (names changed to protect the fantastic) Hank, Ralph, Rudy, Lisa, and John. My home is L'Arche, an intentional community for people with and without developmental disabilities. The folks with DD are our core members. They are the core of our community, and from them we learn love, welcome, celebration, forgiveness, compassion and directness. The folks without a developmental disabilities (but not without disabilities) are called Assistants. So that is who John and I are. L'Arche is unlike a group home in that it's purpose is to intentionally build home and family to ensure that ALL involved have the chance to reach their highest potential, self whatever. Mr. Tolstoy said that to love God is to love the highest possible potential in all things. That means we have to see the person's highest potential hiding in their deepest self. We have to have faith that each person can reach their highest potential, and we have faith that the way to that is confidence, which is only reached through the ability to love and be Loved. That means we can't look at each person through their disability. We can't group people together and view them as a group, we have to look at and LOVE each, INDIVIDUAL person. We have to get to know them, be with them, BE with them, and talk with them. We have to know them, and love them, and teach them, and learn from them. We have to share with them, do with them, be a part of their life, and share a part of our lives with them. The core members are there for us, and we are there for them, and the core members are there for eachother and us assistatns are there for eachother. We all have our weaknesses and our strengths, and we must love and respect those strengths and weakness. when we realise we have both, and realise which particular strengths and weaknesses we uniquely have, and others uniquealy have we realise we are ONE body and we need eachother to live and grow, and love. we can exist on our own maybe for a tiny bit but we need others to really LIVe.