Behind Me Satan

I'm Not A Perfect Person

 Hoobestank

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In the many teachings of the Christian life, none is greater than those dealing with Charity. All "natural" loves, those organic stirrings in the breast may be made full or whole in Charity with the acceptance of the gift as love.
While human emotion or sentimentality in itself may result in an affection which ultimately eats itself up, a love of need, a craving now satisfied, love as gift is looking towards another, one to receive the gift and the giver who gives it. This love is in proportion.

Can one love 'too much?' Loving in proportion is not simply about quantity, rather it places itself in relation to the Creator, the one who gives all from the first. Can then a love be too much for an earthly beloved? The question doesn't seek an answer as to emotional intensity. Rather is asks, whom do you serve, where do you place your treasure?

While all love, we are taught, comes from the Creator, there surely is nothing against fully engaging in human loves, nor for fear of disappointment or hurt as a result. In Luke 14:26 this is carried a step further. It introduces the notion of hate here. What is it to earthly love to hate? Why does Luke say it as he does?

He exclaims in this story, not that the Creator is counseling hate, but rather he is exclaiming to all who wish a taste of divine charity, to 'get behind me,' that they set themselves against the hateful, make no concession to it, nor to the beloved when the beloved calls however sweetly, prompts of Satan, the devil.

A man, retorts the Christ, cannot serve two masters. Either he serves the good or he serves the other. The humble in a sense of Grace may have the sense of service to the One, a knowledge of the Creator herself; only knowledge because the source is so vast.

God is Love, declares Paul. "Not that we loved, but that God has loved us.' 1John 4:10. John declares this not as an entry to mysticism, but as a real beginning, that love is divine energy. This energy loved into being all that exists on earth as a Divine creation.

It is a Creator's love directed to what one finds intrinsically unloveable: the murderer, the thief, the deviant, the cheat, and others, but through a movement of the Holy Spirit, charity comes into play and one gives something of that divine energy, something of ones' own heart, rendering the unloveable more divine, more lovable. All may be clothed in the Christ.

Luke it seems, recognized that there is the complex, unloveable in all of us; that in our darkest recesses are those vague, unformed impulses driving towards the evil energies fully present in the world. Luke 8:11-15
 In the book of Matthew there, further insists that Charity, the Love energy was greater, thus he demands, "Get behind me Satan!"  Mat. 16:23

Gender Identities

And he made each one in his own likeness.  --Genesis 1:25-26

Daisy Jane

by America

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Flyin' me back to Memphis
Gotta find my Daisy Jane
Well the summer's gone
And I hope she's feelin' the same

Well, I just left her to roam the city

Thinkin' it would ease the pain
I'm a crazy man
And I'm playin' my crazy game
Does she really love me?
I think she does
Like the stars above me, I know because
When the sky is bright
Everything's alright

Flyin' me back to Memphis
Honey keep the oven warm
All the clouds are clearin'
And I think we're over the storm

Well I've been pickin' it up around me
Daisy I think I'm sane
Well I'm awful glad
And I guess you're really to blame, blame

Do you really love me?
I hope you do
Like the stars above me, how I love you
When it's cold at night
Everything's all right

Does she really love me?
I think she does
Like the stars above me, I know because
When the sky is bright
Everything's alright

Today's media is all ablaze with reports of which public restrooms are one to use; who will put what signage where? There is an increased perception that humans, made in the image of the Divine Creator are, maybe, not so divine after all. Maybe they're off kilter, mixed-up; it's become quite political. What ever spiritual base it may have is unclear to many these days. Is an individual life, a struggle, confusion towards what is and what is not? Is it like Daisy Jane?

Ms. Schick, American author, Christian writer, speaker and the daughter of a man whom she describes as suffering from Gender Identity Disorder, the result being that he viewed himself not as the Divine did create, but rather as female. For the writer and her family, they came under a great deal of challenge and discord. She writes now of it in several of her books; most recently, Understanding Gender Confusion.

She writes largely from personal experience, from what she has learned and from a primary view of catholic, Christian faith. Regardless of what side of the fence one resides, her experiences are validly her own.
As Christians we are called to love our neighbors as our self, and to give expression to the dignity of all Creation. The prime concern she writes, is to address the pain and confusion of these souls, saying there is in each case, a primary disconnect, "a psychological separation from one's true existence."

She writes also that God the Creator is indeed "very interested in all aspects of our lives."

Matthew 12:10; Luke 6:20