Y Not I

This is something I have been thinking about for awhile. I sometimes look at my life, look at how I am serving the Lord, look at my shortcomings and then look at others. I understand that comparing is not necessarily a good thing to do, however just hear me out.

The website, List Universe recently had a list on Top 10 Astonishing Miracles and in it number nine was Incorruptible Corpses. Reading through the description and knowing that in Scripture there were some that never tasted death made me think this certainly seems possible. I know most of the miracles listed involve Catholic tradition and I am not here to argue for or against the miracles listed. That is not my point. My point is that here were people who received something special. They were called to a certain level of holiness, a level that at least as of today I have been able to achieve. Sometimes we get to a crossroads with G-d if we choose right we move on, if we choose incorrectly we sometime go around the mountain again to return to this crossroad again. Sometimes I think God allows us to go down the incorrect path we choose and reap the consequence of that choice. I see myself going around the mountain a great deal. I understand that it is by grace that G-d allows me to go around again and gives me another shot, as it were.

Once again I look at me and my struggles (and G-d’s victories through me) and then I look at either people I know, people I read about in current event, in history or in Scripture and wonder why I do not have that level of faith, that level of holiness. And while it might be bad to compare, in this case I think the comparison for me reveals something about G-d. He equips us for the task He calls us to. Some are equipped well and their task is likely quite a heavy task. Other are called to simpler tasks and equipped less heavily.

So, I think it is not that I am weak or somehow less than others who have achieve greatness in a Spiritual sense, but I have not been equipped yet for anything beyond what G-d has me doing right now. That might change tomorrow, but for now I am OK with my weakness, but will continue to pray for G-d to strength me and fill me more with Him and his Spirit and have less of me there. And whether I end up one who escapes death or not, I trust in my G-d for all things.

B”H

I found this quite interesting. I have a tag cloud on my page over on the right hand side column of the site, which as I tag my posts based upon the subjects of the post, the words more often tagged become bigger and ones less often tagged are smaller. Here is someone using Wordle who tag clouded the entire Brit Hadashah. Very interesting to see the words used the most often in each book. Does it give an idea as to the theme or concept that runs through the book. I will need to look at them further. What do you think?

Being a Messianic Jew who values the Torah and whole of Scripture and not just certain parts I wanted to start getting clouds of the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament.

Here is Genesis:

Exodus:

Leviticus:

Numbers:

and Deuteronomy:

I used the King James Version for all my clouds. Pretty interesting stuff.

B”H

I was going through some sites and links that I had been sent from friends and as is the way of the web, one link leads to one site to another to another and sometimes you come to a place that is totally different from where you started. This happened this morning and it opened up an understanding for me of the massive popularity of Barack Obama, and especially those that bestow upon him a kind of Messiahship. I have often wondered where that came from, why is it that people are fainting just hearing him speak and some of the talk is so high and lofty and outright spiritual when speaking about Obama. It is not that they like his policies, but much higher than that, that he is a “Lightworker” with a capital ‘L’. Check this out:

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

And:

Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence

So why do people have this love for Barack Obama that goes beyond just liking his policies or campaign promises? That his “sheer presence” can blow away “enormously smart” people? Well, I was watch a YouTube video with parts from a PBS special about the Weather Underground and came upon one small section that had a clip from an Obama event. The words hit me in a way and gave me the answer as to why so many are so infatuated with the presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate. He said:

then you and I together, we will remake this country and we will remake the world.”

You can see the quote in it’s whole here and compared to former President Reagan by the Washington Post. I found the comparison based on this quote and one listed by Reagan to be a bad comparison as Reagan’s words were a summation of his Presidency according to him, not a promise for a future. If what you do changes the world, that is far different that promising to change the world. I personally see very little similarity between Reagan and Obama. You can view the quote being spoken below.

So what does this quote reveal to me? Well, my Rabbi has often said that we are His (God’s) creation. He is the creator, we are the creation. He goes on to say that if we could be gods, creators ourselves, we would, and he points out that we all do desire this in some way. If we could we would choose to become gods ourselves and make creation what we think it should be. And that is what Obama is promising; that his supporters and those that vote for him can change the country, can change the world. That they can become gods. Quite a bold promise!

Well, now I can see why people are so enamored with him, after all promising godhood is a powerful promise. Whether he would be able to keep that promise, of course, is another question, one that I will leave for others.

B”H