Never Too Late: Discovering The Connection To The Vocational CallingTao

Being passionate about a vocation is not something we are born with . Certainly, there are people that seemed to have been wired for passion while in the womb. I mean, these people, as children, know that they know that they know , beyond reasonable doubt, that one day , when they grow up, they will be doctors, actors, musicians, etc. But the majority has no clue and may not get a clue until "later" in life. Some never get a clue. Some are never guided. Some are never encouraged about their potential. Some are never hear anything good about themselves. Some are bound in their mind to thoughts like "We are poor. Me a doctor? that's not possible." Since when is who you must become a function of money? One's vocational passion, one's calling is always waiting to be seized.

Passing It On: Key To Staying ConnectTao

These are some of the lessons I wish someone had passed on to me not only by example but also with clear words:
1. Life is very short. Your hours on this Earth are limited. “Someday” or “one of these days” never come. So Live!!!
2. Love, as much as possible, unconditionally.
3. Forgive others their debts…if you want to receive forgiveness for yours. Some things that need to be forgiven: Offenses, Trespasses, intrusions, hurts. These are sides of the same geometric figure.
4. Forgiveness does not mean that you stop seeking for ways to bring about justice, and to right wrongs. Make amends whenever possible.
5. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is power under restraint.
6. To be humble does not mean you have low self-esteem. It means that you have gotten to know yourself. You have accepted yourself. You are confident in who you are. You do not need the adulation of others. You know what your power is, where does it come from, when, why and how to use it. And do not have the need to be barking it to the four corners of the world.
7. Continuous Indebtedness will make you a slave to those who control the flow of money. Get off that road!
8. Be willing to “walk” in other people’s shoes: Seek first to understand , and only then, to be understood.
9. Fear is at the root of every destructive prejudice. So examine and challenge your fears, especially those that keep you from receiving and experiencing the goodness in others, especially, people who are eccentric, “weird”, who follow “the beat of a different drum”.
10. Force yourself to look for something good in every one. If you seek, you will find.
11. Some prejudice is constructive. Learn the difference and you’ll begin to see where healthy boundaries need to exist.
12. Keep your word. If you say you are going to do it, then do it, even if it becomes costly after the fact! Lack of trust is costlier than any price you may think you are paying. Keep your promises.
13. Speak clearly: Let your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be “No”!
14. Say often: “Yes, I will and therefore, Yes, I can!” Every thought you put into action is first an act of your will!
15. Finish what you start. And if you can not finish early, finish on time.
16. Listen to older folks. They have walked the road ahead of you and if you ask them, they can give you a pointer or two on how to steer clear of trouble and what they would have done differently.
17. Pay attention to people that
18. Open your eyes to how others go about making life choices. Keep the good and discard [but learn from] everything else.
19. It’s really OK to say “No!”. Say “No” to drugs. Say “No” to “abuse”. Say “No!” to disrespect especially of people who are different and are struggling to stand up. Say “No!” to “lying”.
20. Say yes: To liberty and justice for all.
21. Stand up for the oppressed.
22. Give your voice in behalf of those who don’t have one. Maybe because they are young, or old, oppressed, hidden from public view, sick.
23. Protect the weak.
24. Let everyone have their say. You don’t have to agree. You just need to give them enough space to make their case.
25. This is a sure way to make money: exchange your time and your abilities to help others reach their goals and alleviate their burdens. In other words, Work!
26. This is a sure way to keep money: Save some !
27. This is a sure way to make money grow: Invest!
28. Time-span is only one way to define your life but an important one. It’s supposed to kick you into action because time wasted on this side of eternity never comes back.
29. Money earned represents a portion of your allotted time-span during which you made a choice to invest your life: 10% of your gross income goes to “God”; 10% of your gross income goes to ”You!”, 10% of your gross income goes to “Your Community!”. Learn to live on the rest. Yes, you can!
30. This is a sure way to make money stop coming to you: spend it!
31. Become a money magnet: provide a solution to someone else’s problem and get paid for it.
32. Negative peer pressure has the potential to put at risk my health, to de-rail my future.
33. It’s OK to ask for help. If you ask, someone will give. It may not be the 1rst, or the 2nd, or the 100th person you asked. But someone will help you. They are on this Earth for that purpose. Don’t stop until you find a willing one.
34. Persistent effort expended toward some worthwhile endeavor will give you the necessary space when make up for a lot of inability until you gain the necessary skills.
35. say “I need help…”
36. Eternity has two sides: The side I see while a citizen of the Earth. The side that God sees. You have a choice on whether or not your life can extend to both sides.
37. God is outside “time” boundaries. God sees Eternity past, Eternity Present and Eternity Future. At the same ”time”!
38. For God, Eternity is always an ever renewing “Now”. God is Eternal. Therefore, seek to connect with Him who is Eternal and you will connect with a realm where “all things are possible and possible Now!”
39. There are very few absolutes. If we must choose one to live by one let it be “I will Love”.

Becoming One: Marriage ConnectTao

When you and your partner decided to marry you said “Yes” to this process of becoming “One”, and you agreed to together becoming a completely different person from who you are on your own. If marriage could be described by way of a mathematical formula it would not be stated as a 1 + 1 =2 process but as a 3 x 3= 9. First of all, you are not your partner’s better half and they are not your other half. You two are “whole” people coming together to birth a person that has not walked on the face of the earth prior to your coming together. Your uniqueness and their uniqueness ensure that a completely new person, a whole person, can come out of this marriage process. What person will that be? That is one of the questions each of you has a part in answering. A whole person is made up of 3 dimensions that blend and merge into a “1”. These dimensions are spirit, soul and body. And it takes time for each of the parts of your being to become “one” with the other “one”. But wholeness at one level implies being unhurt, enjoying freedom from injury and wounds. Who’s free from that, really? The good news is that being whole also means to have been restored. But marriage offers the opportunity to broken, hurt, injured persons to become restored, to be healed, to become emotionally and spiritually sound. Do you know that if you act “whole” you can become “whole”? It’s like those people who start building their homes in government-owned property and 20 years later they become “owners”. Even though everyone else called them “squatters”, they saw themselves as owners, called themselves “owners” and took steps to become it when they were not. Marriage is not merely two people picking and choosing which of these dimensions to add into this marriage mix. It’s two people adding the total of their dimensions, their whole being, at a much rapid pace, into the mix. Multiplication is faster than addition; it’s actually addition on steroids. I would rather have someone give me $100 x $100 than $100 +$100. The rate of “wealth”, of “wholeness”, of restoration is faster under multiplication, when everything I need to become whole is on the table, not just bits and pieces. Are you putting everything on the table? Or is it just the bad stuff, the negative things? Are you bringing your whole self into the mix? Are you seeing yourselves married? Bring your whole selves into this process. Sure, many obstacles get in the way. But it is not just external stuff: it is mostly the junk you deal with internally: most particularly the way each of you think, the way each of you communicates, the way each of you has learned to cope with fears, threats, past failures, bad times, times of challenge and also times when everything appears to go well. This is not hopeless. Because in saying “I do” you’ve also released the power of agreement: nothing you’ve set your mind to from this time forth will be impossible. If you are set on not talking, guess what? You will not talk. If you are set on not getting to the bottom of your unspoken issues, guess what? You’ve just agreed to not get to the bottom of your unresolved issues. Why not agree on increasing the weight and presence of the positive things? Have you two set your mind on anything else beyond agreeing to live under the same roof? Are you really turning off all the noise and distractions and focusing on how to build the house, your house, your marriage? God The Father, in His Word, cautions us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” [Hebrews 12: 1 -3] Marriage is one of the most important races marked out for you. You will grow weary and lose heart when the focus is off love and onto the noisy stuff. What is still hindering your marriage that you have to decide whether to throw off or not? Throw off everything that’s hindering your marriage! Sin is each of you knowing to do the right thing and not doing it. What sins are you still committing in this marriage toward each other? That is, what right thing must you do that because it is not being done it is creating entanglements hindering how well you are running in the race? Throw off every sin that is keeping you bound and not allowing you to become fruitful. There is a cross in marriage that is to be endured, but only for a brief season, to get to the joy that’s behind the cross experience. It is a cross experience to get to know each other. It is a cross experience to become vulnerable with the other one. It is a cross experience to give up pride. It is a cross experience to suffer the attacks and opposition of those who are supposed to love you. It is a cross experience to do the right thing especially when it means admitting we’ve made mistakes. It is a cross experience to relearn to communicate. It is a cross experience to admit that we can be wrong. It is a cross experience to ask for forgiveness and help. But the joy behind that is the unveiling of a treasure: love that remains and grows. To get to the joy you must be willing to go through the cross. But becoming this “one” is becoming a different kind of “one”. And that will not occur over 12 months, or 60 months or 120 months. It’ll take your whole life. There will be stormy days. There will be dark nights. If you know that, then you’ll have your seat belts fastened for the ride of your life. When you are at the top, you’ll know it. When you are in the zone, you’ll know it. When you are down, and there’s friction, and irritation and it looks gloomy, you’ll want to despair and wonder “What did I get myself into?” Just don’t stay there for the long-term. It’s OK to seek help when it’s needed. It’s OK to seek your own space when it becomes a bit suffocating. What you’ve got yourself into was a life adventure where those seasons need to become opportunities for the truth that brought you together to forge this “One” person. And a tender One it can become. Don’t come half-heartedly to this process. Don’t withhold your self. Give it your all: spirit, soul, body. You’ll look back after 20 years and say” Thank You, Lord, for not letting me give up on loving and being loved!” I ask that your eyes be filled with such light that you both are able to experience the joy of being that grateful.

Very few remain and we don’t know them well.

In life we start out knowing very few people. The circle of life is at first, at least on the surface, small. Hospital folks, mother, maybe a father, and nuclear relatives come into that small circle. As we connect with the outside world, or as the outside world recognizes our presence in it, we discover a characteristic of the circle: it is elastic and therefore it expands to accommodate all the connections we begin to make. But if you think about the number of people you’ve ever met, with how many have you been able to stay connected long term, for reasons other than blood ties or obligation? How many remain in the circle because we know them and want to keep dwelling in the uncovering of being? And of those that remain, with how many are we able to connect, long term, below the surface, in meaningful way? What is family? Who is family? Who is a friend? What is a friend? How come we do not connect, in a positive way, with everyone who crosses our path? What is it about the way we see life, what we believe, perceive that creates the barriers that cloud the connection? As times goes on, very few “outsiders” or non-blood related people remain in the circle. Why is that? And of the ones who are related by blood, the relationships occur at a surface level, never really getting to know the real person. Why is that? How is it possible to live under the same roof with a group of individuals, such as one’s parents, for 18 years only to realize that “I don’t know who these people are?” How is it that even life shaking events, as a brush with death, an illness, good fortune, success, failure, may not result in a bringing together of those estranged?