Gay O.K.!

It's O.K. to be gay!

God does not hate you.

You will go to Heaven when you die.

Religious bigots who push hate and hell do not know God.

They are wrong.

We are right.

Homosexuality is Love.

It's O.K. to be gay!


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Turn on the Lights.

An Indian Guru once said to me, "Don't just grope around in the dark; turn on the lights."

Unfortunately he didn't say how to turn on the lights.

In my experience, however, the Light comes from God.
And a relationship with God is established through study, prayer, and contemplation.

But a lasting link with God is made through love.


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The Reality.

When the Light comes it reveals God's truths as self-evident.

This is why it is called The Reality.

So forgive those who abuse you and pray for them to see more clearly.

Pray for them to see the errors in their received knowledge and the identity of those who gave it to them.

Then their false ideas will be revealed as wishful thinking which is not based in reality.

And therefore it cannot win.


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Selling Lies.

The major tactic of the malevolent forces in our culture is to sell lies.

If you can get enough people to buy what you tell them then it may as well be true.

This is done by deception, illusion, fear, and force.

It is done in the darkness.

And in the realm of the unconscious.

But when the Light comes it is seen for what it is - Lies.

Often the truth is the opposite of these lies.

And the debt is doubled.

Pray to God with a sincere heart.

And He will send the Light.


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Tenants.

God owns the earth.

We are merely tenants.

We enter the world with nothing.
We leave the world with nothing.

All our estate and possessions are nothing to God.

He knows our needs.

He provides.

In the year of Jubilee everyone was to return to their original plot of land.

Debts and acquisitions were to be cancelled.

Accumulation of wealth and privilege are anathema to God.

Despite modern conventions.

"'the Lord looks on the heart.'"  1 Samuel 16:7d (NRSV)

The heart is kindly and generous.
It gives and receives love freely.

Or it is cold and hard.
Closed by fear.

Broken by experience.

Open your heart to God and to others.

And live!


[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.]

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The Night.

"Yours is the day, yours also is the night."  Psalm 74:16a (NRSV)

Rather than the day being God's realm and the night ruled by the powers of darkness, the day and the night are both ruled by God.

Archaic ideas of dualism do not apply.

God is One.
His nature is holistic.

There is no devil, no powers of darkness.

"when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadows of your wings I sing for joy."  Psalm 63:6,7 (NRSV)

The moon and the stars watch over the night.
As the sun watches over the day.

"You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty.....
You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day."  Psalm 91:1,5 (NRSV)

This is not to say that there are no evil people in the world, people who believe in the devil and the powers of darkness.

St Paul believed in the devil and the power of death.

But this was left-over dualism from Persian religion which influenced Judaism in the ancient world.

The sect of Pharisees in which St. Paul was trained believed these things.

But this does not appear in the teachings of Jesus.

The Gospel of John, written 100 years after Jesus' birth, contains some dualistic ideas but this is Christology which developed much later.

It does not appear in the Synoptic Gospels.

But new revelations reveal that dualism is a false doctrine.
God is holistic, transcendent, and sublime.

If we can conceive of a reality without dualism.

This is the Great Leap Forward which leaves behind all negative ideas of Divinity.

God is good.

He does not punish us.

And His mercy is forever.


[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.]

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Celebrate!

A church friend of mine who is gay said to me, "I don't want to be just accepted, I want to be celebrated.  When straight people marry they clap and they cheer.....I want gay marriages to be celebrated like this!"

I can see his point.

To be grudgingly accepted is not equality at all.

And most Churches don't even do that.

So I look forward to the time when gay marriages are celebrated in churches.


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