I can not take away God from my daily life. but I can not take away my humanity either. I am as human as divine every day. Every moment with friends,and family is a remainder that God is with me. Every moment with God is expressed through out the many small encounters with friends during the week. Loving others as I am trying to love myself. It is interesting to hear the words of the Apostle Paul writing to the Jews and Gentiles, who decided to make of all stories of Jesus their own stories in Rome; when he said; “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle”.

Love from the center of who I am?. I will ask how can I love from my own center if I can not accept who I am. If I lived hidden in the words of acceptance of others. If I had made “religiosity” my own temple. If I have created a life for others to be impressed, so I can be called a successful man or woman. Love from the center means that first I have to love myself. Do I really know who I am? “You know,I could do so many stuff to be good, I could go and pray all day so I could feel closer to god, I could read all holly books, repeat all anointing prayers, and sing only songs for my god. I can show the world that I am a godly man but still not having a good heart and mind. Then everything I do is just an empty sound. It is just a whisper. This is exactly what uncomplicated spirituality has been all about, finding my true self in the midst of my imperfections so it is not just an empty sound or quite whisper; but a loud cry to be real, vulnerable and open to others.”(Uncomplicated Spirituality)

Love from the center of who I am means that I need to accept the ugliness in me, the things I do not like about me, fear, doubt, insecurity; but at the same it is also to love the wonderful beauty inside of me, and to realize that my daily life is a continuous interaction of the goodness and evil in me.

Love from the center of who I am starts with loving me. There is a word I have been using a lot this week; I believe is a word that we have misunderstood many ways and sometimes is used to blame others. I also think that is very little used in ourselves. Its meanings is the courteous regard for people’s feelings, an attitude of admiration and esteem, the condition of being honored. So going back to my question, How can I love myself? It will be through out a simple word: Respect. The moment I treat myself respecting my own feelings, when I can admire who I am not from what others say about me, but simple because I am valuable and unique. When I can say I am a person who has honor. In this moment there is this flow of knowing I am someone who has worth. Some people will find this worth through out religion, their jobs, or even studies; I have found it through my God and by the many writings I have done for the last 4 years. When I respect myself, there is no way I can not respect others. When I love myself, there is no way I can not love from the center of myself. This is a big challenge and I know It is not fulfilled yet, but I am working on it.

“If I despised myself, It would be no compensation if everyone saluted me, and if I respect myself, it does not trouble me if others hold me lightly” Max Nordau

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How easily is to place labels on people? As human beings we love to create names in order to identify others. In Junior High teens are the experts of name calling, they identified themselves as the jock, the athletic, the fat, the geek, and the ugly. We as society have different classifications for the people around us, and according to their label we will treat them.(Most of the time called stereotypes) For example when people think about Hispanics, they think about Mexicans only(not right at all). Or when they hear “Islam” the first thing that comes to their mind is terrorist. We label people that are different than us, because in a way we do not know how to deal with them. We have labels like gay, illegals, weirdo, fanatics. There are names that try to describe a whole group but most of the time are wrongly generalized for example: Christians are fanatics, but the reality is not the case, or French people are unfriendly, just because is another culture does not mean all French are unfriendly. Or what about the one I usually say: Americans are cold, what an excellent way to label people and become the unfriendly guy of the neighborhood. Labels can easily become destructive and they divide more than unite.

Last night I sat down among a group of guys, to drink and create conversations. We talked about our countries, about life in itself, exchanged different points of view, there were moments of awkward silence, but also moments of intensity specially when they started to get excited and talk in their language. We spend a couple of hours there trying to make sense of our time together. For a moment in that round table there were no labels anymore, we were united by our desire to hang out and relax from our so occupied schedule at university. In a way language did not matter at all, and the age difference was not a problem specially because I am much older than them.

So labels are relative to the place, community and idiosyncrasy of the ones creating them; all these, influences the way we think about others and how we would react. It has been almost 12 years when I went to my first trip to Paris, and even though I felt in love of the city, I placed a label to French as being not very friendly. Just because some people did not treated me good—as a very imperfect human being—I generalized all French people. Do you think it sounds ridiculous? Well it does, but we do it constantly.

I do not why but in the last 3 months I have met more French than in my trips to Paris. So of course my so wrong conception of them have changed, and not only that now I am also learning French, well I will say that I am trying. So if the labels I placed in them have changed then this tells me that the only way to change my mentally toward others is when I give myself the opportunity to take time, become unselfish and be able to sit down in a table and open myself to learn.

So aging going back to my own experience, just because I started questioning and doubting about God, I do not have to be taken the label of “deserted of the faith”. If you would like to label me, please consider this simple one: A seeker. Simple as that!! But it will be better if you are willing to seat down with me and we can listen to each other so any labels, pre-conceptions or stereotypes can be taken away, and may be we can finish our day drinking together.

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Dinner at Tati's house

I met Antoine(from France) through my friends Josh and Jessica from Tennessee Technological University; Josh and Antoine were room mates in the house that belong to Carrie. Josh met Carrie through Connection. Connection is the group Paula and I founded almost 5 years ago. One day I invited Antoine to one of our karaoke nights with the international students, that is when he met other students from all over the world. Because of this interactions he started to go and played Racket ball with them where eventually he met people from his own country. In another occasion I invited him to a Christmas party at the house of my English professor—David Johnson—while I was studying at the Community College; Antoine realized he had something in common with Dave, and last night in his good bye party he played guitar with Dave and we had a good time singing and drumming.

This is a classical example of what I call Connectivity, in sociology it can be called “the snowball effect” that is produced when we roll a snowball downhill. The largest the network, the stronger it becomes; and when more people is involved, more friends we would have. In business they call it networking.

Connectivity is the discipline that help me meet people so I would connect with them through the simple decision of talking and opening my heart to someone I just met. “They enter to my house, my car or even my time as strangers, but they leave as good friends.”(a quote from Brennan Manning paraphrased by me ).

Connectivity is not about finding people that only think like me, but being able to make of my differences a source to learn from each other. Nasser, my good friend from Iran told me this morning something that helped me even more to contextualized this concept of being united thorough our differences instead of our commonalities, “Miguel when you were listening to Hector Black playing the piano, what did you hear? Music right? Did you ever hear to every single note he was playing?. When you visit a house, you always say ‘what a beautiful house you have!’ You never say, Oh your 128,000 bricks are so wonderful. When you meet someone, you like the person as a whole, not the millions cells he or she has.” It is finding yourself in the middle of seven French speaking people lost in translation at 4:00 in the morning.

Connectivity produces diversity and through diversity we learn to accept and appreciate our differences. If you we could learn this simple concept, our societies , our religious gathering, our families our friendships would be totally different. Peace comes not from finding common ground, but through the realization and respect of our differences. This Connectivity has helped me be introduced to so many people and has given me an opportunity to realize that I enjoy meeting others so, together, we can have a chance to help and learn from each other.

Antoine is going back to France, but even though he thinks he is going back alone, all these new friends, memories, times of playing music together, coffee and “horrible” singing time at Karaoke nights are traveling with him back home. For me, I can easily say that I have a house to stay in France—that is my hope—unless he forgets about ever meeting this crazy Mexican….That would be a whole new story, then I will try to talk about another concept to help me cope.

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Why is that when I start doubting and questioning, people think that I am loosing it? The thing they do not know is that I already lost it, so when I doubt and question I am trying to find back my journey. Why is doubting and questioning so threatening? The problem is not in the nature of these two things because I can use them with people around me like coworkers, classmates, family members, and friends. I can question the political, educational, and Governmental system. But when religion is questioned, I can easily be warned and advised to be careful with the things I say. I am a little confused here because I have been taught that I can doubt about any teaching given to me at church; so why I can not doubt about religion.

My point in the article “I do not want to be an idiot” was to doubt about what close-minded religion has done in history and nowadays . It was not trying to desecrate the religious people and place in high altar the irreligious or vice versa. My article was not a comparison between the irreligious and religious; and it was not an attack to religious either. It was just my doubting and questioning motto about close-mindedness. But I can also realized that I can be close-minded the moment I can not deal with the differences of others. So it becomes an endless game of words between the close and open minded, besides I will say that close or open minded are relative to the thinking of others.

I am amazed on how in close-minded religion, people doubt about my personal decisions, and how encouraged I get from those who do not have an specific religion, or practice an open-minded religion. In the close-minded religion there are people still praying for Paula and I to come back together without even thinking about the facts of our relationship and our common decision to separate knowing God has blessed it. (I may have people screaming with this last statement). At the same time I am very pleased to hear all the words of encouragement that we, both, received from people with an open-minded religion or irreligious ones. Divorce is not only the result of a bad marriage, sometimes is a realization that the time together has fulfilled its time, and we need to move forth, in faith.

Before I continue I would like define what do I mean by close, and open-minded religion. This explanation will take any misconceptions about this subject. First of all, according to my own understanding(and one with no Theological studies) religion is a set of rules and ordinances that people follow to reach their god or goddesses. It is their inner and outward expressions in faith of their own believes. Religion helps people to find their peace between their broken humanity and god. I believe religion is good, the problem arise when I take this rules and ordinances and make them the one and only way to get to the “true” god according to my own believes. When everyone else is measured through out my eyes, know one can fulfill my expectations. This is when I can easily become a close-minded, better known, as bigot. A bigot according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary) is “a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the member of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.”

Therefore according to this definition, bigotry is the way of thinking, or a state of mind of a bigot. In consequence, religious bigotry is the person who can not see other way but his own and he becomes intolerant to be able to learn from others. In a sense religious bigotry is fed by ignorance, in the lack of willingness to be open to new ideas. Ignorance leads to establish a set of strong ideas that eventually will create a person to become a religious bigot and practice a close-minded religious.

The difference with the open-minded religion is that people in it are willing to doubt, to question, to think out of the box, to learn from other philosophies and religions. They become tolerant and maintain this mentality in everything they do. They are inclusive and diverse. They will have rules and ordinances as well, but these are to help them live their faith, and not to place a wall between those who do not agree with them. Disagreement becomes a way to interact with others, not to make sure he/she is right, but to create a conversation where both sides can learn. It is not about who is and is not right; but it is about learning. The problem arise when both sides become deaf to the opinion of the other, and instead of listen to each other, they start defending themselves. And just for a reference I have been in both sides of the fence, but in a way I am glad I was able to cross from one side to another and learn from both sides.

My question about this is: if I have a “personal” spirituality with Christ how come when I make a “personal” decision, suddenly people wonder if I really made the right decision? Suddenly, my God, seems not powerful enough to change my circumstances according to the ones following a close-minded religion. I am measured according to their own personal experiences, and suddenly I am not doing enough, I am not praying enough, I am not fasting enough, or even worst I do not believe in the same powerful God they believe.

I have come to the conclusion that I am a spiritual person who follow Christ as his Rabbi—people could place a label to me called Christianity, the same way it was placed to the early followers, but that will not cover all what I am—and because I do not have any idea on what I am doing, I feel the need to seek the readings of wise people to help me develop my faith, my grace and my understandings of others. Sometimes I am open-minded, and some times I am close-minded. I am tolerant with people different than me, but intolerant with people who are not willing to see the other side of the fence. So I am as imperfect as before, the difference is that today I am learning to love myself as a true beloved person without hiding anything or pretending to live a life that it was not mine, and I am trying, believe me I am trying to walk in this way of simplicity, but I fail most of the time.

Oh well!, in this journey there is one person from whom I want to learn the way of simplicity here on earth; I believe he is the the true example of a person following an open-minded religion, and a life free of complications, even though his life is very complicated. His name Hector Black, nop he is not a preacher, not a professor, nop he is not a writer; he did not study Theology, he is just a simple man. He is like the Pandora’s box—in a good way– when I gave myself the chance to listen and enter to his heart, wonderful things came out from it, specially an open-minded mentality that has encouraged me in this new journey. (By the way behind his overalls, he holds a degree from Harvard University and he plays the piano beautifully!!)

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what if “hell” and “heaven” do not exist?, Can we still follow Christ without the assurance of a better life?. What if hell and heaven are here on earth? What if what we do, or the way we become with others leads us to hell or heaven? I have been thinking this lately, specially with the realization as a new person. Sometimes it seems that religion has divided us more than united us. I was talking with my brother Jose Maria about the evolution of humanity, and for my own opinion, it does not seem we are evolving but devolving. Instead of becoming more open minded and accepting to others, racism—in their many ways—is still devolving.

Religion in general is making people more close to be open. I hope than when you read this you do not think that I am denigrating religion because I am not; I am just asking questions to myself, doubting and giving me an opportunity to think beyond of what I have learned for the last 39 years. “Nothing is static and permanent. And that includes you and me. We have very solid view of ourselves, and also very fixes views about others. Yet if we look closely, we can see that we aren’t even slightly fixed. In fact, we are as unfixed and changing as a river” (Taking the Leap, Pema Chodron).

How come we are changing, but our religions are not? Is it possible to live in the year 2010 with ideologies who were formed 3000 years ago? Division and intolerance have been passing from generations to generations through out the many religions we have, so how come we are not more united then? The simple notion of “hell” and “heaven” has placed a big wall between the supposed save and lost ones. The saved are trying to go and get the lost, and the lost are running away from the saved ones. The saved ones’ full agenda is to be able to rescue people from the wrath of hell, and the lost ones are helping in a better way the needs of this world. I have seen more people from the “lost” side worrying about the state of our planet earth, than what the “saved” ones are. Most of the “saved” ones create programs and activities with an agenda; but the world outside it is creating for the sake of helping others.

So while Jose Maria and me were talking about all these issues, he handed me this article from the Los Angeles Time with the title “Free of the biblical God”, its author William Edelen a former minister at the First Congregational Church in Tacoma, Wash., and lecturer for the Department of Religion at the University of Puget Sound, gave a very interesting view of his own beatitudes. Before criticizing it, read over it and become a critical thinker for your own sake so you can be able to strength your own faith. It is very interesting to realized that in the ancient Greek civilization the people who were ignorant and uneducated, it was people who were not active participants in the public life, and for the Athenian democracy these people were called idiots. They were “people so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning”(Wikipedia). So in a way I do not want to be called an idiot because I was not capable of getting educated to face the the problems of my times. Edelen said:

“Blessed are the atheist, agnostics, deist, mystics, humanist, free thinkers, Taoist, Buddhists and all others who do not have anarchic, primitive god in their mind/brains.
Blessed are they for they do not participate in holy wars, jihads or crusades.
Blessed are they for they would never be martyrs for the glory of God.
Blessed are they for they do not condemn others as heretics or infidels.
Blessed are they for they do not conduct inquisitions nor slaughter million of women as witches.
Blessed are they who not participate in sectarian violence.
Blessed are they who do not twist biblical words to condemn homosexuality as a sin, nor to condemn a woman’s right to choose.
Blessed are they who would never say that a terrorist act is God’s punishment against those who do not believe or think as they do. Or even to think that a natural disaster is God’s wrath against the unbelievers.”(Italics are mine)

My last question will be, why we as Christians are not in this list of the blessed ones? In Christianity’s history we have participated in most of the things, this minister has mentioned, so this makes me think again and I come back to my original dissertation, are we becoming more united with this era, or are we moving further away from the reality of today’s world?. Think about it.

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