A suggestion for prosperity work

This just occurred to me while I was tweaking my own situation just a bit. It's not traditional, but it might be worth a try.

When you're doing a "steady work" job, you want to convince the prospective employer that you are the best person for the job. But another way to describe yourself is "the missing piece of the puzzle," the one element needed to make your new workplace purr like a finely tuned engine. So next time you want the cosmos to send you steady work, get yourself an old jigsaw puzzle, and include a piece in your spiritual work – the name paper in your shoe, the mojo bag, or the honey jar.

"Now we can do Big Things for love"

Preach it, Brother Geek!



... with thanks to Rev. Jack at the Pirates of the Unitarians blog.

I believe...

Well, I gave my friend Lakisha a copy of Get Right Church for Christmas. She told me she was going to take it home and listen to it during a nice hot bath, where she could relax enough to concentrate on the message. Now, Rev. Cleveland knows how to raise the roof, so I was surprised she wanted to listen to jumpin' happy music at such a time.

Anyway, we got on to the subject of the message. "I can't stand to hear anybody sing about 'before it's too late,'" I said. "I can't believe that you don't go on learning after you die, so you could still grow enough to repent."

"Well," said Lakisha thoughtfully, "it depends on what we come back as. If you're gonna come back as a ladybug, you're not gonna learn nothin'."

I had an answer for that, and it was interesting and possibly even wise, but also totally irrelevant to my sermon story tonight.

"Be exactly what you are," said Rev. Franklin, "and let God work it out."

Or, as an unnamed gentleman told me at a Friends of Negro Spirituals event I went to, "We each have to interpret these things in our own way."

Maybe Lakisha doesn't believe in reincarnation, but she was willing to entertain the idea. No, it was she, not I, who brought it up. I guess it was the handiest way for her to make sense of my idea, of learning after death.

But, you know, I was a Christian once, and I sure wouldn't have stepped outside my belief system to carry on a conversation like this.

Mad props to Lakisha! And more Happy New Year!

A great dream for the new year!

This morning I dreamed of a mysterious plant with a blue, trumpet-shaped flower and a stem like a jade plant; I cut it preparatory to placing it in some kind of rooting medium to start a new plant.

Wikipedia says that the jade plant is also called “friendship tree” and “money tree,” and is very easy to propagate; a great dream symbol for someone who needs to catch up on their networking. Looks like my task this year is to be a true friend to the folks who know what I need to know.

What, me worry?

When I burn a candle, I prefer free-standing ones, because I like to read the wax.

I'm burning a series of candles for personal power, as you can tell by the color. Tonight I melted the top layer of the wax from the previous candles - and when I had the candle affixed I noticed that it was "standing on its own two feet," "standing pat."

A coded message

Lately, since I'm still figuring out the real-life marketing thing, I've been feeling pretty hopeless about working for myself. It's the first poverty-tantrum I've had in a long time.

I was thinking of praying Psalm 23 to receive guidance in a dream (as Secrets of the Psalms recommends), but I had a powerful dream last night before I got the chance!

I was working in a big, handsome office. A homeless man was trying to get in to harass the employees. A coworker named FAITH – a strong lady whom I know and remember fondly from real life – was keeping him out. (Come to think of it, one of the most energetic women in my small business class was named Faith.) I sat down at my desk to call the library and ask for a book. Instead, a lady named "Joan Mendez" came on the line and addressed me as "Sis." Meanwhile, I noticed that a little green eraser on my desk had caught fire. Without any bewilderment or trepidation, I put it out while talking to Ms. Mendez.

So, after I found the links highlighted above, I googled "Joan Mendez," and found:

• Joan Mendez was the sound person on a documentary called After 45 Years of Working
• a Joan Mendez has a one-man contracting business in Kissimmee, Florida
• ...was an early explorer of the Philippines
• ...was a sister of the founder of the Lima Lima Flight Team, "The world's original six aircraft civilian formation aerobatic team!"

So, Joan Mendez is a signifier for independent work, an end to drudgery. Financial independence is my sister; this is what I must learn down to the marrow of my bones!

But still no practical marketing tips :)

(At 6:37 pm, it occurred to me: in my dreams, I often get names wrong. I know a real live person with the same initials, J.M., who has given me a number of punchy, inexpensive marketing ideas. In short, I already have the tools in my hands :)

"Who can stand to hear it?"

I take my text :-) from John 6:60 (Amplified Bible)

I haven't been back to Starlight Cathedral in about three weeks. The last service I attended really did a number on me. I said (see below) that it aroused "memories of far too many years of legalistic church life." That was something of an understatement.

Mother Hughes said of the Church, "This is the hospital." Healing and curing are not the only things that happen in hospitals; there is also pain, trauma, fatigue, and the prospect of mortality.

Medicine does not always work easily, painlessly, or "naturally." Medicine includes surgery, bone setting, and chemotherapy. Nobody looks forward to any of this. Nobody looks forward to pain.

Medicine also includes misdiagnosis. There are many diseases, once thought to be common and treated aggressively, which are now known not to exist. There are whole classes of treatment which are now known to be ineffective.

Maybe there is such a "disease" as "sin." That doesn't mean it can't be misdiagnosed. That doesn't mean that treatment for it can't be mis-prescribed.

I know most people need some kind of "fixing." But I also know -- from experience -- that to the pure, all things are pure.

Now, I realize that the scripture I just cited is about not overthrowing "the work of God" for the sake of physical pleasures. But I'm not sure it's that easy to overthrow the work of God, or disconnect from -- you know, a phrase like "the love of God" just isn't strong enough! But that's another Sermon I'll Never Preach :-)

What I mean to say, at least this time, is that there are other ways of overthrowing the work of God in the name of preserving it. ("We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Or, to put it biblically, "Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire and declaring you unworthy and disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement.")

To put it bluntly, my life has convinced me that many of the things that even the Bible calls "unclean" may be beneficial. I realize that when the apostle Paul said that "to the pure, all things are pure," he was talking about the Holiness Code of the Old Testament. He did not have in mind gay rights, medical marijuana, or religious pluralism, any more than America's Founding Fathers had those things in mind when they wrote the Constitution. But I believe history has proven that those things are latent in the Constitution and in the Bible.

I don't know how to develop this any further, not today.

It's all about the law of Love, people.