Learning How to Share.

Proverbs 1: 1-6 (Not just for my Christian Family) - "A Manual for Living - These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David's son, Israel's king—Written down so we'll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it's going; A manual for living, for learning what's right and just and fair; To teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality.There's something here also for seasoned men and women, still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate, the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women."

   I am hesitant to write this particular blog. I promised some I would try not to be overly churchy.  And I've found, as you can read in "Being Selfish," that the more I write the more self conscious I become.  I know that it's important to be who you are. I know that we each need to be confident in our beliefs and to speak out on what we think is important. Really though, are any of us not a little worried about the muddled mess expression has become?  In the proverbic words of Run-D.M.C. "It's tricky."

   This is exactly what I think of when I read the above proverb (the actual Proverb.) It makes me sad when I read the wisdom of the words I find in my Bible. When I read through the Bible's proverbs I realize that they are just as the intro says - a manual for living. So what makes me sad?

   The Christian community, myself included, is a significant contributor to that muddled mess of expression. It's become a dangerous place to say what's really on your mind and it can cost you heavily if you run in the church crowd. 

   Try this experiment; tell someone who is not of the Christian faith a bit of wisdom from the proverbs. Find a way to put it in todays verbiage. They will likely nod their head and happily agree with you. Then mention that you read it from the bible or got it from church. Notice how the tone of the conversation changes. 

   We have for so long made the wisdom of our beliefs about us and about being right. We've enforced those ideas by excommunicating people, judging people and butchering the emotional state of anyone who is not one of us. 

   Other proverbs found in belief systems from all over the world look very similar to ours. Just try that little experiment on one of us. See how many Christians would tell you that your identical wisdom is going to send you to hell because you didn't get it from our Bible.

   I'm not talking religion here. I am not trying to promote universalism. Those are topics for another day. What I am saying is that wisdom is wisdom. Good teaching is good no matter where it came from. It makes me sad that we (Christians) have so jaded our contributions with our own agendas that the great wisdoms we have to offer are often disregarded and in some circles down right despised.

   In my travels I've found pockets of people who have discovered these same things. Some of us are trying to live lives not centered around ourselves. I hope the idea of giving freely what we have will grow. The Bible's proverbs have a tremendous amount of basic and very applicable wisdom. From jobs, to relationships, to money, and success, to peace and love, they are full of really good ideas.

   Can we grab hold of the central belief in Christianity that life is not about us? That it is about love. Can we learn to share what we have freely? Can we offer the goodness given (freely I might add) to us to anyone and everyone regardless of whether they do or don't believe in our Jehovah?

   We claim Christianity is about love, that God is love. What is more loving than to give the good we have with out condition?

- Latsum


P.S. - No, "proverbic" is not a word. I made it up. Yay for the joys of creation.

Being Selfish.

   I am afraid people will get bored reading what I write. I shared writing a blog once with someone else. A friend of mine read an article in that blog that the other person had written. Later I ask the reader what they thought. She replied,

   "I stopped reading because your blog was kinda boring." (Honesty sucks)

   I know for sure she was speaking of my fellow author and yet that statement sticks with me. A comment not intended for me and yet it still haunts me. Am I boring? (Please don't leave comments assuring me. That's not what I'm getting at.)

   I wrote a book this year. A memoirs of sorts. I am very afraid that my life experiences are just that, they're mine. They will not mean to anyone else the things they mean to me. No one will really care about what I have to say.

   I measure writing's worth up against this standard; if no one is reading then it isn't valuable. For instance I wrote and published "Define" a few days ago. It's gathered 15 views in the week it's been available.  I then published "What Do You Think of That" it garnered only half the views of my previous post. It's hard not to measure the value of what I do based on who responds to it.

   Is it possible that I struggle with not being selfish, with doings things for me? I don't write for me. I write for others to know about me.  Why? Can I find satisfaction in writing just for the sake of writing? I don't know. I have not so far and I've been writing since I was a wee-tyke. (like I was ever wee)

   How much does this affect the rest of my life? Can I love God and live out my beliefs because they are good for me? What if they don't affect some one else? Would I sing my songs for me? What if the only satisfaction I ever had from work, diet, exercise, hobbies, etc... is that they are good, just essentially good things to do? I'll be honest this idea scares me to death. I struggle with doing anything if it doesn't somehow garner attention from someone else.

   Could it be, Joe Davenport, king of conversation, confident to the point of being cocky, I, who thrive in groups of strangers, bare my soul on stage for thousands to see, am really on the inside afraid? Afraid of not having worth, of doing a good job, of being liked, of being boring. Do I do what I do to prove other wise? Would I write this blog if no one read it? Do I ask these questions to find an answer or because it gives me something to write about and in return may bring you back to read some more?

   I won't lie. I told you earlier not to leave comments but secretly I'm hoping you do.

   I've let myself ramble my fears in this blog. I hope you see them for what they really are. The truth is that these things are what I've been thinking about since I wrote and published "Define." It has forced me to reconsider why I do what I do.  

   Can I truly be grateful for the beauty of an event if I cannot see that event for what it truly is? Can I really know the joy of writing if I do not experience it free of external benefits? Can I strip away my dual motives? Can I create for the sake of creation and not because it will make you think I'm cooler than I really am?

   I believe that fulfillment comes from doing what you do to the best of your ability. Is it possible to give your best to anything you do if you do not experience what you do pure of what it will grant you from someone else?

   I changed my moniker from Ragged ( a story for later ) to Latsum - a latin compound meaning "to be Gratitude." Can I truly embody gratefulness if I do not know what it means to enjoy and love myself just because it's good to be me, good to do what I do?  

   To be perfectly honest I'm having a hard time asking those questions with out hoping it will make you read my blog more.  This may be a tougher road than I had anticipated.

-Joe (Latsum)

Define.

   I lay in a bed. My sheets and linens are white. The room is white but it's shadowed, not dark but dim. Sitting next to me is an old woman I've never seen before. She's asking me questions. I'm not in pain and I'm not old but I'm pretty sure I may be on my death bed. She asks me something else, "What are you?" I respond, 

"I am a Gratitude." - I wake up.

   I heard of a study where a man's DNA was placed in a petri dish. The man was then hooked up to a computer to do various testing. His petri dish of DNA was then taken into a different room and hooked up to a different computer to see if the DNA would respond to the tests being done on the man. Even though it had been removed from his body his DNA responded in perfect sync with him as they tested the man. Each time the tests were run they moved the dish further away. They had no change in results up to four miles away.

   We believe we all come from Adam. That means somewhere in our complex systems we all share threads of common DNA. In theory everything we do, everything we go through, all the various emotions we have, if even in a minute way, affect every one around us. That is dumb-founding when you consider the compounding affects it would have as people come and go from one place to another. They are passing along the affects you had on them as they go.

    I went for a walk today thinking about the dream I had. It was such an odd statement - "I am a Gratitude." What does it mean to not just be grateful but to become gratefulness incarnate? To not just feel the emotion of gratitude but instead be the very essence of it.  I am gratitude. Yet, that isn't really what I said, not completely. I said I am (a) gratitude, as if there could be more than one, as if I was not an essence but rather a thing.

Consider these definitions:

Hope: the confident expectation of good to come. (not the same as the word wish we often exchange it with.)

The Glory of God: The view and opinion of God.

Humility in reference to God: To cease believing what you believe about yourself and instead believe the glory of God, his view and opinion of you.

   We believe that the Kingdom of God is now. That every promise Christ qualified for is given to us now, here on this earth. We hope (or confidently expect) that as we press into our God the reality of His Kingdom will come from inside us overflowing into our daily lives. We believe that we can throw away our old man (our views and doubts) and replace them with a new man who stands firm in Christ bathed in the view and opinion of God. (His Glory)

   The word says that when Christ redeemed man that God counted it as a gain. The God who never changes, the God that has not a shadow of turning was added to by the redemption of man. That's a doozy of a paradox. It certainly makes me reconsider God's view and opinion of us. The Bible also says that God dances over us with song, that he daily gives us good for our lives, that he scourers the earth in pursuit of us. We are loved.

   All this thinking leads me to understand what it means to be a Gratitude. I can heap all of my self doubt, all my fears, sickness, poverty, hatred, sorrows, and my every affliction on the floor and just walk away from them. I can hold onto a promise secured in Christ that I live in the Kingdom now. That God is ravenously in love with me. That every day every good thing I need to succeed in every thing that I do is mine. All ready given to me. I need not listen to the voices in my head or pay any attention to the condemnation of sin. I don't believe anything but the hope of good things to come. For this I am so deeply grateful.

   I will ponder these things. I will meditate on this. I will make this my focus. I will receive all the Spirit has for me. I will become a point in this universe in which all that is brought to me is filtered through the Glory of God. I will take in all that comes to me in my four mile circle and every where I go I will funnel it through the Hope of God.  I will bathe it in the realities of the Kingdom and then send it right back out to everyone around me.

A Gratitude: A being capable of filtering all it receives until it reflects the view and opinion of the loving Father.

I am a Gratitude.  - Latsum