Religion

Religion had become my way of resigning to not thinking for myself.

The self doubt religion creates in the independent mind is to force submission. Taught to doubt yourself and let the brainwashing begin.

Expected to be predictable for the comfort of those who fear living. The mental chastening at the initiation of an original thought from the perpetrator. Perpetrator in their eyes.

Shared ideas for genuine feedback met with a systematic dismantling of independent thinking.

Playing within the confines of religious expectation, you come to realize the rules only apply to the individual in subjection; not to the authority. This is not freedom.

Control takes precedence over love, and dogma is the tool. The constant that keeps the people in line. Religion.

 

Clairvoyant Experience

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I have been friends with Hatim since we were in the 8th grade, we graduated high school together in Pullman Washington. A group of four of us have stayed friends ever since, and we get together at least every 2 years, but often times every year one or two of us are together. We stay in touch through texting and social media. I now live in Longview, Washington which is approximately 400 miles away from where my formative years took place. I have lived here now for almost 13 years. Hatim has always been an atheist as a kid that was forced to go to catholic church by his mother, and when he visited his Dad, he had to be a good Muslim while visiting Saudi Arabia. He had thrown religion and superstitious spiritual stuff out a long time ago, and often made fun of it in a playful way.

The Experience:

A few years back before I got into meditation or anything,  my family and I were having a few drinks over at my brothers house here in Longview, and my brother Justin and I asked our wives if we could go sing karaoke. They were visiting with each other and the kids were entertained so they agreed.

I was in the passenger seat and I suddenly get this feeling as we are heading to the bar that my friend Hatim was near and that I needed to call him. Hatim was living in Montana at the time, 850 miles away. I call him up and he answers and I say something like “Hey, man I got this intense feeling like you are near, you wanna go sing karaoke with me and Justin?” Then I laughed a little knowing he was in Montana. He gets this serious perplexed voice and says “Did you talk to Nick?” (our other friend) I say “No, why?” On a side note: Nick rarely answers our calls he’s the friend that texts you back days later after you’ve called and left messages. Anyway, he assumed I had talked to him. He says “Jimmy! I’m passing the Longview exit right now on the highway, my Dad and Lenah (his sister) are in the car and I’m driving them to the Seattle airport so I can’t hang out, but that is strange.”

Hatim is a very level headed civil engineer, and now has his pilot’s license. He’s one of the most balanced people I know. After this experience he investigated for himself. He called Nick and asked him if I had talked to him, and he confirmed that I hadn’t spoke to him in forever. I recently was telling my nephew that is currently living with me about the experience, and I texted Hatim to reconfirm my story and I have posted the text messages below.

I have had so many of these experiences throughout my life, more numerous to count actually. Most of the time I just ignored them. Why the experiences? I don’t know why, but they  happen and I think they show that there is so much more about the mind that we have no idea about. I have speculated that it could have been due to Hatim and I thinking of each other at the exact time. It could have been me using a dormant primitive sense that was very useful to us before the development of language and writing. Kind of like the way non-verbal animals communicate. Or it could be nothing and a figment of our imagination despite the evidence. Now which of these possibilities causes us to close our mind to asking further questions? Could it be the last two?

Openness and asking questions will help us discover, and as we do this we will be pleasantly surprised that we find ourselves. Discovery is not reserved for only the well educated main stream scientists.

 

 

Lucid Dream Come True

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I want to premise my main experience by sharing a couple dreams I had prior to the one that absolutely blew my mind. I also want to share a disclaimer: I realize that some of it will cause people to question my sanity, I actually did question it too, but I think its my sanity that keeps me grounded, and prevents me from becoming so engrossed in them that I become obsessed. I believe it’s my recent focus on meditation, mindfulness, and openness that has made it possible to connect with my mind in these ways, and has also helped me discover balance and peace that is growing everyday in the midst of my busy life that used to only create anxiety and despair. My job didn’t change, my circumstances haven’t changed; for the most part ,outwardly, my life has stayed the same, but inwardly things are changing for the good.

Many people throughout history have used what’s called the hypnagogic state of mind to tap into things hidden deep within the subconscious mind. Edison and Tesla used to use these states to solve some of their invention and creativity problems. At first I was just playing around in my dreams, now I am using them as a tool. For example, I put into my mind that I want to work on anger and jealousy issues, and have had several dreams where I am in a potential jealous or angry situation and my reactions are becoming calmer and calmer over time. This calm has manifested in my everyday life. Now back to this story.

Two Dreams

I cant remember the date of the first one, it was back in June or July of 2018. When I had this one I hadn’t started consistently writing anything down yet. I had come home from a night shift working in the ICU, and went to bed in my upstairs room, shut the door, put ear plugs in, turned the fan on high, and went to sleep for work the next night (I got five loud kids). The question in my mind had been; is there any merit to any of this stuff that I am experiencing? So anyway, I simply had a dream that I was playing catch with a major league baseball player, and when I woke up and went downstairs to see everyone then my son came up to me with a baseball and a glove, and asked me to play catch with him. He had never asked me to play catch before, and when I had asked him a while back he didn’t want to play. I found this pretty interesting that some of reality overlapped with what I had dreamt, but I didn’t think a whole lot of it until later.

The second one occurred on 8/16/18, and this was also after coming home in the morning after a night shift. In my dream I was sitting in a restaurant and started fighting with people, and got kicked out. These guys chased me out with iron bars in their hands. There are a lot of side details to this dream too, but I am going to skip them. Anyway, I come downstairs after sleeping and my daughter Josie comes up to me with a piece of rebar in her hand and tells me that Izzy, my oldest daughter, was jumping on the trampoline she hopped off and cut her foot on the rebar that was sticking up in the yard. I started to pay a little more attention at this point

Now the shocking one:

I had been friends with this kid way back in like 2nd or 3rd grade and I used to go over to his house. He had an older brother named Sam and we really looked up to him, he was so cool. I later moved 300 miles away to eastern wa when I was like 13 years old, and never stayed in contact. When I was 20 years old I moved back to where I am now and Have not spoken to him since. So that’s over 12 years.

Back in 2010, I read online that his older brother Sam disappeared in the woods near his home after a domestic dispute, and had not come home. Fast-forward to 2013 and they found his skull out in the woods. I was pretty sad to read that, but had not thought about it for years, because he had just been an acquaintance that I knew of when i was a little kid. I don’t remember for sure, but back then I may have contacted zac on facebook, and gave my condolences. But no contact for sure since 2013. Now to the dream.

8/21/18

In my dream I was at this big building that had a courtyard, and all the sudden the mother of this guy comes up to me, and she was crying telling me she missed her son, and that she was having ghost stuff happen at her house. All of the sudden I had a feeling in my heart that he was trying to tell her he loved her and he was with her, and he didn’t know what to do, I was getting nervous, but heard a calming voice tell me it was okay. Next thing I know I appear at his house. I started to get a little creeped out, and a voice would say its okay, and it would calm me. I hate ghost stuff, and I was scared because I didn’t want to see the dead guy. After this fear the dream fast-forwarded to me leaving the house, and I heard a male voice tell me: “You helped him cross over!” Other dream stuff happened unrelated to his afterward, but I was able to entirely control the rest of my dream.

8/24/18

So now real life, my mom had been calling me from 8/21/18 to 8/23/18, and I hadn’t had a chance to call her back. It wasn’t until 8/24/18 until I called her back. I woke up to get ready for work, felt guilty as soon as I opened my eyes that I hadn’t called my mom and I gave her a call. We aren’t heavily involved in each others lives she lives pretty far away; we started talking about random topics, and I told her about the lucid dream with Sam Stephonek.

I suddenly get this feeling to check the date he disappeared, put my mom on speaker and checked because I didn’t remember. The date he disappeared was 8/8/2010, didn’t impress me at all. My mom said “Maybe check his birthday?” I looked up his birthday and it freaking blew my mind, sure enough I see that his birthday is 8/24, the exact day I’m sitting there telling my mom the dream. My mom told me I needed to contact his Mom, I said no, I hadn’t seen her in over 10 years, and that she doesn’t need someone calling her on her sons birthday saying crazy stuff. I said if its meant to be I’ll cross paths with her. While I’m saying this my mom says she knows where she works. I told my mom if she felt comfortable calling her at her work that she could give my number and if she wanted to call she could. My mom contacted his mother and she called me right away and I shared what her dead son said on his BIRTHDAY. His brother, the one I had been friends with years ago was working at the same place that day as well. She was very touched and said ” Thank you, for whatever reason he wanted to talk to me through you.”

All I can really do is share my experience. I don’t know why it happened. I have ideas, but that’s all. I remain open to whatever life throws at me regardless of what I think is possible or not.

Here’s some links to put a face with the name.

https://tdn.com/news/local/two-years-later-authorities-still-seeking-clues-in-stefonek-disappearance/article_b86d2666-e110-11e1-b28a-001a4bcf887a.html

https://tdn.com/news/local/mount-brynion-skull-identified-as-that-of-missing-kelso-man/article_352b8a76-98fe-11e2-9a49-001a4bcf887a.html

 

Hide and Seek With God Part:2

My first exposure to church after getting out of juvenile detention was a charismatic church. These  people seemed to know God personally, and He had given them his power. They always had big smiles on their faces and were quick to give you a word from the Lord or some kind of encouragement. It was almost impossible to be discouraged in their midst. They were always so sure that God was going to intervene in your life in a powerful supernatural way, and they had many bible verses to back it up. I believed them, and I took it in hook line and sinker. I especially believed the supernatural healing part.

I was reading my bible constantly in my room and playing worship music. I would sit in my room for hours and do this. I was convinced that if I lacked any closeness to God that it was on me, and that it was up to me to seek Him until I found Him. I sought out sick people to pray for their healing. I read all the books by John G. Lake and Smith Wigglesworth that I could get ahold of. These books made God seem so big. So did the bible. I remember I flipped a poster I had in my room over so I could have a clear canvas to write scripture verses on, and I wrote in very small print and filled the whole thing up. I even started a bible study group in my high-school and we would meet at lunch time and do a bible study.  Looking back it was a very manic and exhausting state to live in.

As my emotional high would hit its peek, I would be so terrified that it would go away that I sought God even harder, spent more time and energy in prayer and worship, I would even fast. I was 16 years old at this time, no one in my family was following God, and none of my friends were as committed as I was. I was doing this on my own. I was desperate to know Him. I remember telling a youth pastor once that his uncle could have been healed from lung cancer if he would have had enough faith.

In high-school a friend of mine’s mom was in the hospital fighting her last battle with some kind of cancer, I cant remember what kind it was, but I offered to come to the hospital to pray for her healing. She was my friend and she agreed to have me come, I remember telling her not to worry that “God had the last word.” I was confident that my faith was going to move God’s heart and heal her mom. Her mom died within a couple days. This was my first disillusionment, and I remember thinking for a brief second that it was weird that I couldn’t just be there for her, and deal with the death. The veil was lifted briefly, I thought wow I really tried to insulate myself from the pain of death, but I couldn’t deal with it.  I didn’t understand this, I had mustered up as much faith as I could to have God heal her. I wasn’t playing games with God I put my whole heart into seeking him.

I came to the conclusion that somehow I hadn’t had enough faith. I thought maybe had I prayed out loud and not in my head then she would have been healed. I felt like Jesus saved me, the least I could do is be bold for him. My next cancer patient I prayed for was a lady with breast cancer. I got several friends together that I knew believed in healing and we knocked on her door. She allowed us to come in and pray for her this time we prayed out loud and laid hands on her,one of my friends even prayed in tongues over her, and when we finished she thanked us and we left. Eventually after several chemo treatments and radiation, I believe her cancer went into remission, but of course we attributed the success to God.

I realize now how much impossible pressure I was putting on myself, but I figured Jesus bore the sin of the world and he was living in me, so through him I could bear all the pressure of seeking Him. I was intense, Paul the apostle was my hero. I attributed all of my perceived failures as discipline from the lord so that I could learn to be closer to Him. I realize now how egocentric this was.

Fast forward a year or two to 18 years old, my senior year in high-school. I had continued to believe in healing, and was determined to find the key. I figured I was so obsessed with divine healing because it was my gift, and I needed to develop it by praying over people. By this time I had added to my inner spiritual life the idea that my sins could effect the success of my prayers. So even if I was praying all the right prayers and had faith, if I hadn’t basically punished myself for my sins by being “sorry enough,” then this could prevent prayers from being answered.

This habit of blaming myself for every disillusionment followed me all the way to the end of my faith, though it was more sophisticated. I mean I later understood grace and not to expect too much from God, and I called that surrender to His will (Fatalism basically).If I could blame myself for my failures and not God then there could be no abandonment. The goal was always just out of reach and I mystified all my previous disillusionment.

Back to 18 years old. I was really into the faith healer Benny Hinn, and I remember telling a friend, while watching his program, that I was going to meet him one day. He just kind of looked at me funny, no way he believed me, but I did meet him. I thought when I meet him, he is going to pass me the torch and I will be the next faith healer.

The time came when I would meet him. My uncle Jeremy was born deaf and was I think around 28 or so at the time, and I heard Benny was going to be in Portland, OR for a healing crusade. My grandma, Jeremy, and I went to it. We were in the nose bleed section, but I was determined to get on the stage. I talked my uncle into heading down to the stage to try to get Benny Hinn to lay hands on him and ask God to heal him. There were thousands of people at this crusade, we made our way down, and got in line to get on stage. I remember a guy in a wheelchair wheeled up to me and said “You’ll never get up there I’ve been to 15 of these things and never got up there.” I turned around and told him “You have to have faith!”

I remember a woman announcing “Benny wants all people up to 25 years old if near the stage, to press in toward the stage.” I made a run for it, kids had climbed up on stage and the crowd was pushing me into the edge of the stage and I thought “I’m gonna be smashed,” so I jumped up on the stage and joined the large crowd up there, but my uncle had stayed behind.  Benny walked right through the crowd and grabbed my wrist, and pulled me to the center of the stage. He began prophesying over me to the thousands of people in the auditorium. As he was doing this I was shaking and crying.

In the middle of it though I remembered my uncle, and I stopped Benny mid sentence and told him my uncle was out in the crowd, that he was deaf, and asked him if he would call him up, and pray for his healing.  I pointed to my uncle in the crowd and motioned for him to come up. Benny looked a bit nervous, like it wasn’t in the script, but he called him up, put his fingers in my uncles ears and shook his head back and forth and yelled “in the name of Jesus.” He did this over and over again. I heard the desperate prayers of the little kids praying for him as Benny was doing this. I am still appreciative of all their love for my uncle. At that time for me it was actually beautiful.

Then Benny started playing to the crowd, although I didn’t realize it at the time. He had my uncle face the people and Benny had me sign to my uncle to clap after him, and Benny would clap by Jeremy’s ears. Jeremy would clap back after feeling the wind of the clap, and then Benny would throw his arms up and yell to the crowd “PRAISE JESUS.” I didn’t realize it was a sham at first because I was so caught up emotionally. Then he had Jeremy try to speak and this just got awkward, but Benny played it off like my uncle was healed. When we walked off stage some of his cronies walked up to us and asked if he was really healed. I felt obligated to say “yes” because I didn’t want to doubt the healing. I thought “maybe the healing will be progressive, and it will be dependent on me continuing to walk by faith and not sight.

I held onto the hope that he would be healed, but of course as I couldn’t keep up the emotional hype, I assumed I hadn’t had enough faith for the healing. For awhile I felt my uncle was doomed to continuing to be deaf because I had failed him. I thought “I didn’t care enough about him to continue fasting and praying for his healing.” Again this was a way for me to rationalize why God didn’t show up though I had faith, I didn’t have enough—once again! I briefly turned back to my old ways after this. I began drinking and partying again and not giving a shit anymore. I didn’t quit believing, I was just convinced that God had rejected me for all my faith failures.

After some time doing this I began to think that maybe my failures were because I had believed the wrong brand of Christianity. I thought “oh, Jesus didn’t heal my uncle because I was following the health wealth gospel, and Jesus didn’t promise us everything would be rosie. It was a misunderstanding on my part. When I wondered why God allowed me to experience this in the first place; I reasoned that he showed me this so that I would never make the same mistake again. I reasoned that I needed to learn how to surrender more, but I didn’t feel like I could be accepted back because I had missed it so bad. After all its God’s will not mine. I was about 20 years old here.

Eventually I believed God could accept me back, I was still 20 years old and I had been exposed to a christian singer Keith Green. His message of no compromise and his deeply spiritual songs spurred me on to a greater commitment to God. Anytime I listened to his music I felt so close to God. I avoided charismatic churches like the plague, and opted for the more balanced churches like Evangelical free and baptist churches. I was terrified of feeling the pain of disillusionment again, and the pain of letting God down. I had more wisdom and I was extra determined to know God like the people of the new testament did.

Somewhere along the timeline I had picked up the idea that God will not work miracles here in America because of our unbelief, our wealth, and all our distractions, and so I once again dangled the carrot just out of my reach. I think I heard God wouldn’t work miracles in America from KP Yohannan, the leader of Gospel for Asia a missionary organization that focused on reaching people for Christ in the 10/40 window. I read several of his books that had the same undertones in them as Keith Green’s music. The impossible standards, the pressure to reach the lost, and no compromising. I could always convince myself that I was falling short in some way.

I eventually learned to give myself some grace and joined a local American baptist Church. I still held the no compromise standards, but I was a little more patient with the visions of future mission work and miracles coming to fruition. After all I had a lot to learn before I could go. But I felt like I was aligned with God’s heart. I still blamed myself for every time God didn’t show up even though theologically I had learned that I needed to submit to the will of God. The will of God eventually looked like whatever happened. Imagine that! I wasn’t convinced though until I did Hospice nursing which I will talk about in part 5. That’s when God’s ways became too mysterious for me to trust.

Part 3 to follow

 

Is gay marriage wrong?

This is an interesting question.  I find it interesting because we as Christians do not find nearly as intriguing the availability of pornography, availability of alcohol, the availability of drugs. We petition and cry out to the government when homosexuals get married, but we talk about how it is just a shame that these aforementioned materials and substances are available, yet do not attack it with the same fiery intensity.
Now to my point. I do not suggest that we cease in believing that these things are wrong. However, I do believe that we need to rethink them as Christians. I would submit that we make ourselves look terrible and bring the name of our Lord into disrepute when we fight for our right to control those who want to live in sin. Yes we call it sin, but does God control them and make them obey him? No, never, God allows mankind to make their choices whether good or bad. We are to be in the world but not of the world, therefore why do we attempt to attack a spiritual problem by natural means? I think it has to do with our unbelief in the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives. Why should we react with such hostility to Gay marriage? As Christians we are to love every kind of sinner, and this is not in a condescending, smug, hateful way.
I would say that to hold pickets, and attack congress is a measly attempt at controlling sin to make us feel more comfortable. Rather we should love every kind of man, and when we draw lines such as God hates the sin, but loves the sinner before we actually love is a fallacy. It is not a fallacy because it is untrue, but it is a fallacy because love should have no limit instead of drawing the line before we really know what the love of God is. The love of God is this that Jesus Christ died to save sinners, and we did not love him first, but he loved us first. Even a couple disciples during Jesus time on earth said “should we call down fire to consume them,” about a few people who were speaking against Jesus, and Jesus said “You do not know what spirit you are of.” Lets have the mind of Christ and focus on love for those that we call sinners in a real way, not just sentimentally, but in a real tangible way.

 

No Condemnation

1.  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you^[a] free from the law of sin and death. ³ For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,^[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.^[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-4 NIV).

The Spirit gives us life is the key here.  What Paul is referring to about the law being “powerless”  is that our sinful nature makes it impossible for us to fulfill what God wants.  So if we are in Christ Jesus his Spirit sets us free from the “law of sin and death.”  Paul is not calling the law itself “sin and death”  back in Romans 7:25 Paul mentions the “law of sin”  that is the “law of sin and death.”  The fact is when we hear the law we may have a desire to fulfill it, but it brings death without the spirit because the law is holy and perfect and yet we are “sold as slaves under sin.”  (see Romans ch. 7)

So , when Jesus gives us his Spirit we are given a new nature, and the Spirit of the Lord sets us free from the” law of sin and death.”  When Jesus came and died on the cross he was dying for our sins.  At this point many Christians believe that they are forgiven, but they do not live by the Spirit, and so they are very frustrated because they expected to be able to overcome sin.  They often times do not realize that Jesus also “condemned sin in the flesh.” Jesus condemning the flesh means that we are no longer to rely on our flesh to accomplish what only the SPIRIT in us can do.

Notice that verse 4 does not say “in order that the righteous REQUIREMENTS of the law…,” but “righteous REQUIREMENT.  That requirement is to live by the SPIRIT!  When we live by the SPIRIT that requirement is “fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the SPIRIT.”  When we depend on the SPIRIT of Christ in us, HE accomplishes those things that please HIM as we submit our lives to him.  By the SPIRIT we are able to overcome sin in our lives.

Praise God for his SPIRIT because without JESUS in our lives we would be completely crushed by the weight of condemnation. Thank God there is “no condemnation for those that are in Christ JESUS.”  And what does it mean to be in Christ Jesus?  We trust Him for  the forgiveness of our sins, and we live by the Spirit in grace.