my christianity

i'm all about family. the best way for me to think of spirituality is in the context of family.

we are all the children of god. i like to think of god as the father and nature as the mother..mother nature. the analogy works out fine. Although normally..when not thinking religiously, i think of god and nature as synonymous. which is cool because in christianity, marriage unites two beings into one. But in this relationship, as sometimes we might think of the mother providing the order around the house and the father provides the means of life support for the family, i think of god as being the energy and substance that interacts with the order of the laws of nature bringing about existence of the family of beings. i use this analogy only because it is the type of structure that i am most familiar with. plus i sort of feel that god gives us new opportunities for religious thinking in order for us to relate with him best in contexts that we're familiar with. and that's why there are so many different religions. God wants all of his people to live for him and understand his plan to work for the ultimate good. so in different cultures there are different religions because god interacted with people of those cultures to establish structure to lead to the ultimate good of that culture. problems have arisen now as the world has become smaller and religious beliefs (which have taken on meanings god never intended) interfere with one another. The point of god is goodness and the point of religions is to help us understand what goodness is and how we should act in order to achieve it.

so god's family and christianity.. Jesus was real. He is the ultimate big brother. While you all reading this are my brothers and sister (some big and some little), jesus was the perfect brother who did exactly as god would do. he was abel and the jews who couldn't stand him in his life were cain. ah biblical reference. he was just too perfect for them to tolerate.

in a family, there is this idea of unconditional love. you love your family just because..independent of their actions. sometimes actions stand in the way of a good relationship between family members, but in a loving family, familial love is stronger than any disruptive actions. the love remains. we have got to think of existence as familial. and god and nature as the single parent soul leading this family in love. so although we may not have good relationships with people, we should still love them. there are different levels of love, but among all things there should be the essential familial love of ultimate existence in god's family.

jesus loved all. in families, some members get along better with others because their personalities are more in tune. all the members love each other, but some people have more similar views and interests than others. the great thing about families is that everyone accepts one another for who they are. Unless one attribute or tendency of a member is extremely detrimental to the well-being of the family as a whole, members of a family are going to let each other be as they are. It's all about respect for the personhood of one another.

this is how we should love here on earth today. wwjd. jesus loves. we should too. who cares about difference of opinion. we don't have to get along to get along. as long as we all are working for the greatest good love should guide us to happiness.