“What are you?”

Last week at dinner with a co-worker and his wife, his wife asked me, “So, what are you?” She wanted to know what I did for a living but I was taken back. Inside my mind I thought, “Wow, did she just tie me and my identity, my worth and my AM with my job?”

I responded, “I am a Human Being. If you want to know what I do, I work in Human Resources.” She was a bit surprised by my answer.

What a question. What am I?

I look into the mirror and I see me. Or do I?

I cut off the edge of a finger nail and cast it away. Am I less of me? Am I somehow less of me than I was before I clipped my nail?

I cut off some hair and drop it. Am I less of me now? No, as a matter of fact I feel no more or less of me than I did before I clipped my nail and cut my hair. In the very literal sense though, I guess I am some hundredths of a milligram in weight less than I was before. However, I am not just what I see – I look into the mirror and see the tool of me.

I drive past a billboard with a picture of a young woman and a surfboard. The woman is missing her left arm but yet she is clearly ready to go surfing from the setting and her swim suit. It reads “Rising Above.” Clearly she is not less of who she is without her arm too – as a matter of fact, the lack of her arm perhaps showed her more than ever before who she really was – something more than she previously knew (http://www.forbetterlife.org/billboards/rising-above , http://www.forbetterlife.org/images/pdf/vision.pdf).

What am I then? Who am I then? We, as brothers and sisters, are all similar in the core. If you go deep inside you, you will find it. What we see on the outside is a tool for who we really are – spirit and intelligence. This tool, this miraculous tool, amplifies that spirit within and creates opportunities for us that without this body we never could have experienced. We are light. We are intelligence. And we are our bodies as well. These things combined are us. The things people see are the manifestation of what is within. The works of kindness or greed, skill or shamble, beauty or sloppiness, virtue or vice are the manifestation of perhaps how in tune we are with what really is within.

If perception is reality, which in our heads it truly is, there are many who really are only what they see in the mirror and they feel it too.

When we confuse who we are with what we do and what we see only, we miss the true us. We are much more than a set of skills, a pretty face, a handsome physique, a pleasant voice. If we tie our identity to these outward things, when we grow old and wrinkly, lose our job, gain weight, no longer be able to play sports, etc., we will feel less worth, less self-esteem, less value, because we don’t know who we really are.

Who am I? I didn’t answer fully my colleague’s question. I am a son of God, created in His image, given His light within me, and growing towards Him to one day be like Him, God willing and I believing.

Who are you? His Child as well, born of divine heritage and destined for goodness and greatness. Don’t believe me? Do the exercise - cut your nail, look inside you, and then look upward towards God.

With All Thy Getting...

One of my favorite scriptures reads, "With all thy getting, get understanding." Every day of my life I try to get more understanding of not only the world around me and myself, but also of the things of God & His truths. My life has been blessed as I have been able to find in degrees greater understanding in all of these areas.

One bit of understanding that has helped me has been the truth that I live by to build in all I do and to never tear down. In all of our conversations we should, ideally, build each other up either through kindness, expressions of faith, or of genuine goodwill towards one another. At the very least, our conversations should never lead to being critical, judgemental or scornful of those we know and associate with. Rather than tear down, we should build up.

The movies we watch or the music we listen to at the very least should not make us less of a human for participating in them. We should emerge just as human as we were before and ideally, we should emerge better. We should emerge as people determined to be a little better and a little kinder to those around us - in an ideal world.

Our work should build us up. Our thoughts should build us up. Our words show the inner workings of the workmanship of our hearts. Our lives should build up others. I wish to be a master builder - just like the Carpenter's Son.

A poem expressed this bit of understanding in this way:

"I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung the beams and the side walls fell.
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
The kind you’d hire were you to build?”
He laughed and said, “Why, no indeed!
Just common laborers are all I need.
They can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken years to do. “
And I thought to myself as I went my way:
“What part in the game of life do I play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds to a well-made plan,
patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?”

That is one of my favorite poems. Douglas L. Callister said, "Refinement in speech is more than polished elocution. It results from purity of thought and sincerity of expression.... Refinement in speech is reflected not only in our choice of words but also in the things we talk about. There are those who always speak of themselves, and they are either insecure or proud. There are those who always speak of others. They are usually very boring. There are those who speak of stirring ideas, compelling books, and inspiring doctrine. These are the few who make their mark in this world.

"The subjects discussed in heaven are not trifling or mundane. They are sublime beyond our most extended imagination. We will feel at home there if we are rehearsed on this earth in conversing about the refined and noble, clothing our expressions in well-measured words."

It is my hope to be a builder, not content with tearing down but ever seeking to build up others by the gift of love & kindness behind the words and actions people see and hear from me. For me, this is priceless understanding. Thank you for reading - I hope in this short read, you were inspired to be the better you.

Religion v. Spirituality?

Recently I have had several discussions with people regarding things of a higher, more noble plane. Discussions should always strive to make us, and those around us better. They should never diminish us or others in any way. Gratefully, I have been blessed to be with good people who seek, as do I, for further light and knowledge throughout our sojourn here on earth.

In our discussions, my mind has often turned toward religion and spirituality. I am tempted to use religion v. spirituality but that is not the way it should be and not the way it always is. Unfortunately, religion today is viewed by many people as something that in fact impedes spiritual growth. Why is that? It is my belief that it is because the religions they have experienced have in fact done just that, kept them from true spiritual enlightenment and living.

Just to be sure that we all are on the same page, religion for me is a certain set of beliefs and/or rituals followed and practiced, typically by a group of people. Spirituality is the growth of the soul in personal understanding about who we are, where we came from & where we are going as well as those virtues that refine and eventually perfect a being through light, knowledge and spirit.

Religion - true religion - with all of its guidelines, teachings and ordinances should be a tool in the hands of God to provide direction, experiences and opportunities for spiritual enlightenment and therefore spiritual growth and development.

God, our Heavenly Father, loves all of His children and desires that we gain the same spiritual plane that He now stands upon. Hence, He has shared His works and words to spiritual men and women through the ages in an effort to answer their earnest quest for spiritual growth and satisfaction.

I know there is a God and I believe that He has inspired the founders of all of the great religions and made them instruments in His hands to do more than just enlighten themselves, but to bring their whole society to a higher plane.

When religion, in my opinion, becomes the hands of men rather than the hands of God it ceases to have that same spiritual power that it once did. People come to eat at the table, but they leave still hungry. At what point does it become the hands of men? I feel that religion of any kind ceases to edify when it closes the mind and creates enmity between mankind. At that point it can no longer provide the spiritual development that it promises because true spirituality embraces all truth and light as well as love and equality among all men.

People are hungry and can you blame them? The great religions are also the icons of the great divide among men and ideas. Those very tools that were intended to provide spiritual growth for their followers have in fact lead them on for so long only doing the motions - telling the stories of the great prophets but failing to write new chapters. I believe that God can and does still speak with us today and that we can hear Him if we will tap into His spirit.

We can turn it around - I believe in a better tomorrow. I only believe it will come though as enmity dies and minds and hearts open to the Spirit of Truth and Enlightenment. Let us all seek for true religion and for sincere spirituality.