Jesus with a Sport Top!

Being thirsty sucks.

What? It's true.

Dry mouth. Bad breath. Muscle cramps. Headaches. I mean, these are only a few of the problems with being thirsty right? If you've ever had heat stroke, you know the ramifications. It is proven that sometimes humans eat food and do not get satisfied because they misinterpret their thirst for hunger. Drinking Enough water has benefits of clearing up skin, and can flush up to 15 extra pounds out of your system A YEAR!!!

So what? For starters, drink your 32 oz. minimum of water a day!

For seconds, think about what this means for you spiritually. We are moving away from metaphors, kids! What's Jesus telling us?
He's telling us he can make us NEVER thirst AGAIN.
Sounds pretty cool, but you have NO idea...

I just told you what SUCKS about being thirsty. Physically. Now, Jesus tells us that while this body is important, so is our SPIRIT. In fact, the SPIRIT may be even MORE important, because when we DIE, the spirit keeps on living.

Stay with me.
SO, if we need the spirit to keep running efficiently, we need to FEED and WATER it the way one might feed and water our body. And Jesus is telling us that he wants to Provide us with the water.

What does that mean? Well, first of all, think about the good things that water does for the body. NOW think about all the metaphorical WATER that we could get. And not just any old Spiritual water. This is not south of the boarder, Parasite ridden, come back with a tape worm kinda water! This is pure, fresh, clean, right off the mountain and into your body through a spiffy looking sport top! You might know it as the Holy spirit!

Sounds good! sign me up right?
If you're reading this you're probably are covered. Crack open your bible. See what you can find. Pick a passage, ANY PASSAGE, see what moves you. ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS. If it doesn;t make sense in your head, READ it out loud. What makes you less thirsty about it. Bada-bing! Eternal water via bible.

Do it, to it. although I don't recommend reading ur bible and drinking water.... the bible is more of a oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and milk kinda book :)

Loving your neighbor is a two step process

Readers-

I recently started taking a class on listening (I know I know, as if I didn't have enough to do...)  But, I like to talk, and I am pretty comfortable listening, but it could never hurt to try something new and it is only an hour out of my week.  That's not the point to my story...

Had I been still teaching, I would have had Jr. High tonight (I am SOOO sorry that I never got to say bye to them too, by the way...).  Anyways, I had scheduled tonight that our topic of conversation would be about "Loving your Neighbor", as it is lent.  So we might reflect on WHO our neighbor is and WHY we need to love them... Sounds like a pretty good thing to do, right?

And then I went to this class.  

At the end of this class the exercise was for one person to talk for 4 minutes about a time when they felt good.  WHOA! I mean, most people can talk about themselves... but GOOD things... and for 4 minutes.  Unheard of.

Think about it. Everyday we put ourselves down.  Advertisements tell us how we can look better all day long.  Which got me to thinking... How am I supposed to love my neighbor when I don't even love myself? Not to say that I DON'T love myself (I mean, seriously, what's NOT to love..? kidding.), but it was hard to think of 4 minutes worth of"Good things" to share.  So, had I been able to reformat my original thought, maybe a better plan would have been to talk about loving ourselves first, and being able to acknowledge... and THEN worrying about our neighbor.  

So I am challenging YOU to think of a time when you felt good about yourself.  If you can change your attitude about how you perceive yourself, it make loving your neighbor way easier.  Seriously, let me know how this goes.  And while your at it, let me know how not complaining is going too :)

the best way I can sum this up is to pull lyrics from Incubus' song "Warning":

 "I suggest we learn to love ourselves before its made illegal" 

Greetings and inspirations: this isn't going to be easy

Readers-
Hi and welcome to the blog. I must start off by saying that I am very new to blogging. I feel like disclaimer is needed since I am talking about Religion in an opened venue. I will say that what I write is not supposed to be Cannon Law. I will specify words that are quoted, look up documents if needed, but what this is essentially for is a way to break down and interpret the word into layman's terms and answer the question: "So Why should I care?"
Anything that is not cited is merely the knowledge and insight of what I know in my 21 years of living a life of faith.
Now that I we've gotten that out of the way, let's get to it:

This blog was inspired a week ago when I got off a retreat with several students of mine. The point of retreat is to do simply that: go AWAY from the hang-ups and distractions of life and try and remember what it is you are meant to do. Now on one hand, this is a really great way to teach the faith because you are surrounded by supportive people, who believe and share these ideals. And you go, and sing songs, and feel better about yourself at the end and commit life to chirst. It's so easy to be good on retreat.

On the other hand, this is not what Christ intended.

Christ did a lot of footwork. He ate and drank with sinners. And while he does take some time to go off and think and pray (40 days to be exact), this was not his messege. Christ challenges us to go OUT and spread his "light" or his "word" (Depending on what gospel your reading). Retreats only happen every so often, and we cannot live life on retreat. And the furthur and furthur you get from retreat... the easier and easier it is to forget what you learned. And MAYBE you forget your commitment you made.

Retreat is a refresher on how to make things work. So HOW can we get our retreat like atmosphere to keep us good in a not-always-so-good world? Let's look back at our elements of retreat: People who believe the same ideals, songs, commitment to God....

Don't get me wrong... but doesn't that sound a little like church?

Who knew? An hour out of your day, one day a week, and we get a little refresher on what Jesus says about life, and it gets EASIER to carry out his messege... And by COMMITTING that one hour out of your week to "retreat", its making that catholic guilt less prominent the next time you go to retreat and commit your life to god:) (If you've ever been to church camp, you know what I am talking about)

So what: All I am saying is, if you have Jesus' word once a week at LEAST, it makes being a Christian through actions a little bit easier. And trust me. No one said this was going to be easy. :)