WHAT DOES THE BIBLE MEAN TO SAY? AND HOW DO YOU KNOW?

YOUR MORALITY IS NOT MY MORALITY NECESSARILY


IT'S BASIC

I LIKE PEOPLE WHO ARE KIND TO ME

SO IT'S MY IDEA OF RIGHT ~

TO BE KIND TO OTHERS

I think each person has an obligation to be kind.

I think each person has a right to be.

I think if being you requires me to be less of who I am, then you are wrong.

And the same for me, I am wrong if I don't allow you to be you.

Not so easy, sometimes. It doesn't have to be easy to be true.

The slim pickings of the Bible that I like includes Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31

"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

HH the Dalai Lama

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"When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people." Abraham Joshua Heschel

I find some of the Bible wrong. Although I like I Corinthians 13:1-13, I cannot accept Paul in everything he is credited with writing in the New Testament of the Bible. This one gets my head going side to side: I Corinthians 14:34 and 35

I disagree with many verses in the Bible in regards to being a female gender person.
For example, Ephesians 5: 22:

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The Bible on slaves

The Bible on stoning

Leviticus 5 The Sin Offering

Leviticus 11 Clean and Unclean Food
Leviticus 12 Purification After Childbirth
Leviticus 13
which includes the following:

Regulations About Mildew

47 "If any clothing is contaminated with mildew—any woolen or linen clothing, 48 any woven or knitted material of linen or wool, any leather or anything made of leather- 49 and if the contamination in the clothing, or leather, or woven or knitted material, or any leather article, is greenish or reddish, it is a spreading mildew and must be shown to the priest. 50 The priest is to examine the mildew and isolate the affected article for seven days. 51 On the seventh day he is to examine it, and if the mildew has spread in the clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or the leather, whatever its use, it is a destructive mildew; the article is unclean. 52 He must burn up the clothing, or the woven or knitted material of wool or linen, or any leather article that has the contamination in it, because the mildew is destructive; the article must be burned up.

53 "But if, when the priest examines it, the mildew has not spread in the clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or the leather article, 54 he shall order that the contaminated article be washed. Then he is to isolate it for another seven days. 55 After the affected article has been washed, the priest is to examine it, and if the mildew has not changed its appearance, even though it has not spread, it is unclean. Burn it with fire, whether the mildew has affected one side or the other. 56 If, when the priest examines it, the mildew has faded after the article has been washed, he is to tear the contaminated part out of the clothing, or the leather, or the woven or knitted material. 57 But if it reappears in the clothing, or in the woven or knitted material, or in the leather article, it is spreading, and whatever has the mildew must be burned with fire. 58 The clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or any leather article that has been washed and is rid of the mildew, must be washed again, and it will be clean."

59 These are the regulations concerning contamination by mildew in woolen or linen clothing, woven or knitted material, or any leather article, for pronouncing them clean or unclean.

Leviticus 14 Cleansing From Infectious Skin Diseases
Leviticus 15 Discharges Causing Uncleanness
Leviticus 16 The Day of Atonement
Leviticus 17 Eating Blood Forbidden

Matthew 25
When I googled Matthew 25 I found this www.matthew25.org
A pleasant surprise.

The following text is from Matthew 25:

The Sheep and the Goats

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind." Henry James

Kindness

HOW DO WE EXPECT PEACE TO BE THE OUTCOME FROM WAR? AND WHERE THE GIRLS ARE IN TODAY'S WORLD

Be the Change You Want to See

We have just never given PEACE A CHANCE. We say we want peace. But we historically and currently try to get there by force. Personally anytime anyone has tried to force me to do anything when it wasn't something I had my heart or convictions behind - to be able to live with myself - I had to do the most difficult thing and not do what the parent, boss or group was pressuring or intimidating me to do. It is not something that we females are trained to do by many of our families, our work environments and society. Even, now. Even, here in the United States of America. To stand up for ourselves. To take the lead. To be courageous and speak out. To be strong in the face of someone else who, acceptably, is strong. We are expected to acquiesce. It is written in the Bible that we are inferior, basically. That we are to submit. I gag when I hear someone spout this stuff as anything other than rhetoric or a topic of discussion. It is no creed that I believe in. I loathe when I go to a wedding and this part of Paul's words in the Bible relegate a bride to the status of being subservient. I said to my mother after my niece of 21 years young just had her wedding with these words as a part of the ceremony homily, her other daughter (the niece's mother) and she don't live that way in their marriages - so why do they accept and put up with such nonsense in these ceremonies that are supposed to mean so much. There was no good answer. There was a flimflam, pretentious answer given, but I just shook my head.

I never had a daughter. I mentored a female teen when I was teaching. I met Sherry while I was teaching music in middle school while the regular teacher was in Italy singing opera for half of the school year. When I was about to leave the middle school and return to my elementary music teaching position, I asked Sherry if she wanted to get together every week and just be together. The most meaningful thing that I think I did for her was to drive her to some foster parents that she had had in the past who had meant a lot to her and reunite them. And also, take her and her younger sister to the park. I just found a lot of pictures that I had taken of her tonight. Sherry's mother was missing along with some other drug addicts and prostitutes in Massachusetts. The others had been found murdered along the highway, but Sherry's mom had never shown up. Sherry feared that her mother had abandoned her and her younger sister. Because her mother had once before, then she came up missing again. Sherry was apprehensive about getting her hopes up. No one really knew where her mother was. I mentored her for about 3 years while she went on to high school. Sherry lived with an aunt without her sister. A few years after that, I hadn't seen Sherry for awhile and I read in the newspaper that her mother's body had been found in Fall River, Massachusetts - buried in the yard of someone's house. I read Sherry's words in the newspaper, where she stated that she wanted to be a good mother to her little boy.

The reason I thought of her was that I gave her mostly my heart and my time, but once I gave her this advice: "Count on your own inner strength and integrity. Don't give away your power to others. Believe in yourself. Put your faith in your own perspective." I believe that is still good advice. I was amazed while I taught school to the thousands of students that I had, that the little girls, most of them, weren't being taught that they were just as good as the boys. And that they had the power to empower themselves.

Personally, I was given this message by society, but also my mother: That all I was ever going to be was someone's wife and some children's mother. No identity of my own. The thing is I never wanted that for myself. When I was in 6th grade (11 years old) I decided that I never wanted to bring children into the world that had so many problems. It just didn't seem fair to the children. And I certainly didn't want just to be a wife. I mean even when I was young, it seemed wrong that women were expected to give up something so personal and so identifiably them when they married some man - their name. Women were expected to forego what they had been named since the day they were born to take some other human being's last name. And all those meals that my mother spent so much time preparing and then the family ate in about 15 to 20 minutes - it just seemed, well, unappreciated. When I was selecting a college, my mother actually said to me that it didn't matter if I went to the college that I wanted because all I was ever going to be was a wife and a mother anyway. It rankles me to this day to think of that sentiment.

It is good to have Nancy Pelosi in the 2nd position of succession to be President, if the President dies. It is good to have Hillary Rodham Clinton running, although I prefer Barack Obama. It is important that women are given the status of "important human being" and not some second or third class citizen.

Around the world, women have been Prime Ministers and other women have had lower consideration than cattle. In China the boys have no girls to marry, because the female babies are/were not as desired as the male babies. So they have been shipped off to be adopted by foreigners or aborted. Personally, I stand on the side of abortion rights. To me that is for another post someday, potentially. However, girls, women around the world historically have been given a short-changed life and less respect by virtue of the fact that they don't have a penis. That may sound crude. But in reality it is just the truth.

To have Peace on this Planet it will take a mindset that we have never had before. And for starters we must include girls, women and all children with the same rights as any man.
As any white, caucasian man. If you are born a white man in this world - you are born in a position of socially automatic privileges.

So PEACE . . . how do we ever have it be a reality? Guns aren't the answer, people. Nuclear bombs aren't the answer. (And my dad's brother was at Los Alamos right out of Purdue University as a physicist helping create the bomb.) No war ever ended in peace. It just ended the war. We are going to have to learn to talk. And we are going to have to figure out what to do with those that we can't trust their words. Look I'm from the United States of America and I feel it very true that I can't trust my President Bush. We aren't all that high and mighty. Sometimes we stand pretty low to the ground. It wouldn't be a bad thing to admit when we've done the world wrong. Iraq. Need I really say more? I know there are those who still feel that the USA should have bombed Iraq. But I just don't get it.

"As soon as guilt and rage enter the room everyone wants to exit. Which means we never get the real issue-power: how to share it, how to relinquish it and learn to live with the awkwardness that comes with change . . . . as a country we’re still quite primitive when it comes to negotiating difference, we don’t seem to have the skills essential to survive the early steps of any conversation about race." (George C Wolf)

Even though, this quote ends with "about race" I think you could also substitute a lot of words after "about". And I don't think we need to limit this wisdom to the perspective of "country" only. It fits in our relationships and family environments just as well.

If we spent as much money on peace as we do on war. . . if we spent as much time studying others' histories, other cultures and other people's religions, as we as a nation, spend on studying how to make war - we might find a way - leading to something close - to something we could call "Peace on Earth". And really mean it. Not just something we pretend at Christmas or whenever.

Song by Melanie Safka