Burky's Blog

I just got an email from Andy Willard.  I don't know if Joel knows him, but he is Curtis' "best" friend, who went to Penn Valley Christian Retreat once.  That email was rather fascinating.  It talks about Chuck Norris and his newest book, Black Belt Patriotism, which mentions about America being in $66 trillion debt.  $66 trillion?!  Now you get the feeling that America will collapse simply because of poor economy?

   A short life lived courageously is better than a long life lived in fear.

   Blessed is he who hath powerful enemies for they shall make him a hero.

   When injustice become law, rebellion becomes a duty.

   Why is there enough religion to incite a war, but not enough religion to instill tolerance?

   People who lack strength are always trying to tear down those who do.

   Small minds condemns anything they fail to understand.

   Don't give up, Moses was once a basket case.

   Better to be a open sinner than a false saint.

I like those bold statements.  I know they would scandalize those who are more for sweet submission.  Still, we know that Jesus was a "rebel" in His day, or He would still be in the synagogue.  The kind of people that really loved him are the ones who are common people, or sinners.

I am reading the book, Jesus, Mean and Wild by Mark Galli.  It gives me a fresh look at what kind of Jesus He is.  It is something that most of us don't often talk about.  But the Bible did mention that Jesus didn't come to make peace, but a sword.

This week was going smoothly.  I am thankful for that.

Oh dear, I am feeling need for bed.  

Another day.  Looks like we are in for a beautiful day.  Unless, God is playing tricks.  Now let's finish this letter...today...if I can.

What stood out to me about that quote, "Small minds condemns anything they fail to understand" was that it reminds me of how I used to think about Frank Thiessen and his wife.  I thought that they were baptized when they were younger and decided to become Christian should suffice.  After all, Jesus died only once, and that is symbolism of baptism--Jesus' death and resurrection.  That is why I disdained on the idea of being baptized again and plus needing to be immersed.

Now I am doing the same thing.  Or so I hoped.

That's why I resisted Lewis' encouragement (well, I felt like he was forcing on me) to take immersion.  His idea was that if I baptized the right way, I live a better Christian Life.  Now he probably would read this and say, "Did I really say that?"  He often say that if I recall his words, his concept, or his implied persona (beliefs, attitude, or behavior) whenever we discuss Bible.

But now that I found the secret of happy Christian living, I rejoice.  I finally hit that "ah" moment and understood what it means.  And when I hit that moment, it is funny how suddenly everything changed.  My perspective on life changed.  No longer am I legalistic or licensed to sin.  No longer do I feel need to entertain other people (which is why I often have filthy communications).  No longer do I feel need to do right things in order to gain righteousness.  No longer do I feel insistent that other people must do it my way, or they are in danger of judgment.  Now I am attending Weaverland Mennonite Church more regularly, although these Sundays like today and following two Sundays will find me at First Deaf Mennonite Church, simply because Weaverland Mennonite Church are having communion and I don't know what Martindale Church are planning.

And I am thinking I want immersion.

I thought about October 31 would be 15 years since I was baptized at Meadow View Mennonite Church when I was 16 years old.  Now I understood the true meaning of baptism.  The Greek definition of baptism was immersion.  And it make sense if we are comparing Scriptures with Scriptures.  If we consider Acts 6:4, we would noticed that Paul was talking about baptism as a symbolic of dying with Jesus and rising up into a new life.  Immersion definitely give a better picture of symbolism of baptism than just sprinkling. 

If we consider the book from Rod and Staff, Wolves in the Flock, I would think there could be some connections here.  The few changes such as infant baptism are considered wolves in the flock by that book.  So if we go by sprinkling, it would deviate from the real picture.  I do recall some say it is Holy Spirit pouring upon us, but nowhere in the Bible do you find that picture connecting to baptism.  Even if you think about Jesus' baptism, consider it happened after he was immersed, and He is our perfect Example.

But like I say, sticking to the Greek definition of baptism (baptizo) would be like sticking to the Greek definition of headship veiling as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11.  It is important to note that the Bible never said you would go to hell if you are not baptized just as much as not wearing headship veiling.  Those are just works, just rites.  I believe in approaching them with "why not?" attitude than "must do" attitude.

So Lewis, would you baptized me somewhere on October 31 evening?  And I welcome all of you to come to my baptism if you can come.  At least you can pray and be with me in spirit from wherever you are on that evening.

I rejoice in the fact that I did rise above the surroundings.  On Friday, I was having a good time brainstorming about different things at work.  As my habit, I like keeping things looking new as long as possible, so I like to take down the stop signs at the end of color line at work and then put them up again after we are finished spraying that color.  Then Jeffery found it and directly spray powder on it before hanging it up again!  Of course, I was mad for a minute, but I decided that it is not my own, so I shouldn't act so possessively about it.  So I decided to let Jeffery do whatever he wants with it.  From now on, I won't bother taking down the stop signs (or should we call it end signs).  What is so interesting is that it happens the same time when I was trying to scrap the floor of the booth for color change.  I was irritrated by short walls that Adam and Jeffery put up to keep the powder from blowin toward the opening like where I stand to spray powder.  Because of them, I can't just scrap the floor as smoothly as I used to.  I would have to work around them.  With two negative affects occuring the same time, I would stay mad for a long time before.  Thank God for freedom from sin, so I didn't stay mad for long.  Adam did apologized, but I ask him if he would change.  He say if we change those strips of "walls" to accommodate my wishes, they won't stay up.  Then I felt there is no point of apologizing if he agreed beforehand he won't change.

However, I was back to good mood in few minutes.

Another experience I had was about the second week of November.  Rachel Raber had mentioned about that she is coming to Youth Bible School.  When she told me about it, I thought I would like to go in the evenings to enjoy the meetings.  To think there are two girls from Belize that are talking of coming, and Rachel is trying to convince her new friend from Idaho to come to YBS too.  If they all come to YBS, then there would be enough deaf people for me to enjoy going.  But that was forgotten when Jay was pushing me for going to Las Vegas.  He bought the tickets to go to watch bull riding in Las Vegas.  It is a finale for this year, and he want to go.  But he has a hard time finding someone who would go with him, so out of my soft-heartedness, I decided to go.  Plus, it would add Nevada to my list that I have been to.  Suddenly on Thursday, I realized that YBS and my trip to Las Vegas would overlap.  So I asked Jeffery when was YBS.  He said from November 2 to 9.  And I remembered that my trip to Las Vegas is on November 5 to 9.  Bummer!  I would far more prefer going to YBS than to go to Las Vegas.  I know I have been to YBS, but I love being with Charity people.  Plus, Jay is so quiet that it is almost boring to be with him.  Immediately, I started brainstorming of advertising and whatnot, trying to find someone to replace me to go with Jay to Las Vegas.  But there are one problem, Jay already got airplane ticket with my name on it.  Even then, I am sure there are a solution, even if the ticket is non-refundable.  For a hour or so, I was raging within myself, trying to find a way out of going to Las Vegas.  When I realized that I was not exactly at peace, I look at the whole picture.  I am going to Las Vegas, mostly for Jay's sake.  I want to go to YBS for my sake.  That seem selfish, even if YBS is more Christian.  Then I remembered the quote of Erica Jong that I read recently and wrote on the dry-erase board at work, "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."  I was thinking of asking advice from other people, but when I remember that quote, I decided to take a fresh look at my mental war.  I knew that my calling would be going to Las Vegas after all.  Immediately, my whole being got peace.  I was at peace again.  Never mind the fact that if I am going to YBS, I won't miss out my work thus getting my normal paycheck and YBS is free, except for gas to get there.  If I go to Las Vegas, I would be losing $900+ for something I don't really love, and will lose few days at work, making the following paycheck smaller.  Also the fact that Jeffery and I would be off the same time, leaving our manager at work grappling for someone to substitute us.

I went to Renaissance Faire on Saturday.  It rained too much to enjoy it to the fullest, but we did enjoy it.  I took my deaf-blind friend, Andy, with me to spend the day there.  I even got to see Andy's computer and how he read emails and stuff on Internet.  It was really nice that Andy could have one more thing in life to enjoy.  That computer would be a good way that he wouldn't feel shut off.

But because it rained so much, the interpreters left early.  I was disappointed.  So many plays were cancelled.  Liz, the interpreter's agency manager, was kind-hearted enough to give us free tickets for next time.  October 11 was the next deaf day at Renaissance Faire, but it wouldn't suit Andy as he want to go to his class reunion.  So we are going this Saturday, October 4.  I believe we would enjoy the time together.

I just saw in newspaper, the ad about the horse show.  It looks like something that Amy wouldn't want to miss.  But I would have to find out how much the tickets cost.

Last Sunday, Marlin was a good preacher.  He shared many thoughts that confirm my learnings in the last few weeks.  I am still learning, but last evening's conversation with Lisa Biddinger by videophone tells me that I seems to be more relaxed and she felt more free to be herself around me.  The message on Sunday morning was about doing what God called us to do and not complain about that other people have seemingly better calling.  We are to rejoice if someone else may gain popularity, if that someone is doing God's will for his life.  After all, the same Spirit that moves us moves them also.  Popularity isn't everything, but God's pleasure in us is everything.

Sunday was Ashley Logan's birthday.  We have a  small birthday party for her.  We did have a good time playing Black Trump much of the day.

I was pleased to be able to go to bed at 9 or 9:30 all weekend, and I was pleased that I got up at regular times, just like it is a weekday.

One thing I noticed about myself is now that I felt I can be a committed Christian, and am looking forward to October 31 for immersion to show that I will stay committed, I can be committed in other areas as well.  I exercise regularly in the mornings, and I am starting to eat ONLY ONE kind of food at a time.  I eat 5 times a day.  My weight scales don't show any difference, but I felt that eventually, my weight loss would be more apparent.

Until next time....it is September 30 today.  Happy Rosh Hashanah!  :)

P.S.... I send this email to few extra people, simply because I want them to know about my October 31st.  Oh, I am feeling so merry!

--
Omar Burkholder

From fear to love

A change of paradigm
A shift of consciousness
A golden vision for learning
A change of paradigm
To focus on love
A golden vision for learning
To awaken
To focus on love
The time is now
To awaken
The place is here
Something important is happening and you are part of it!
Experience what happens when Fear meets Love....

As Albert Einstein said, we are either full of fear or full of love. Love and fear: the two main forces that make the world go round. Two paradigms and one choice.

Fear is not always negative. As has been said, a hero is someone who has lived through pain and fear and has been transformed by them. But fear can be an obstacle to love when it limits us, when it holds us back from acting creatively or courageously. This article focuses on "inappropriate fear," that pathological fear that is a mind-killer; the fear that stops us from giving our best, feeling our most and achieving our goals. The fear that shuts down our capacity for being connected to our heart. Our intention is not to stop feeling the fear, but to avoid being stopped by it. The good news is that we have a choice, that we can decide whether to plant seeds of fear or seeds of love.

Seeds of Fear = Fruits of Death
On perceiving the fruits that stem from each paradigm we can consciously choose, we can create the reality we want to live. In a culture of fear, we are sure to find these fruits:

• perfectionism 
• competitiveness 
• violence 
• rigidity, blame, guilt 
• jealousy and envy 
• pessimism, and ultimately 
• disconnection = death

Every time we aim for perfection we are putting ourselves, our children, our students in a state of guaranteed unhappiness, because perfection is only for God... The self-esteem answer, which stems from the paradigm of love, is to aim for progress not perfection. Similarly, when we compete against others we are necessarily creating tension between winners and losers. In the end, we all lose because tension spurs conflict. From the paradigm of love, the key is to compete with ourselves in order to improve our performance. 

When standing in fear, it is almost impossible to express our wants and needs, and we can turn violent. Most of the time when we are afraid, we need to cover our mistakes, and we become intolerable and rigid. We can experience a momentary relief from judgment of our own actions by finding fault in others, demonstrating their wrongness and our rightness. When we stand in the paradigm of love, we choose to be happy rather than right! A word of caution here: forgiving does not mean allowing abuse. A healthy personality is shown by being able to set boundaries.

In order to forgive it is necessary to understand. How can we understand jealousy and envy? If we peel away these feelings we will find that the soft core that was originally filled with harmony and love is surrounded by layers of self-doubt and insecurity that undermine our love for ourselves and create a lack of belief in our own worth. We may be able to see the light in others -- and we may want to have it, even steal it -- because we cannot see the light in ourselves. Yet that light is still inside each of us. 

As Marianne Williamson said, "it is not in some of us, it is in all of us," but it may be necessary that we do some work on ourselves to find it. It means to have the courage to look at ourselves in the mirror, to recognize our masks, befriend them and let them go. To find our light again we need to embrace our shadow first. It takes a lot of courage to do it because the shadow is the unconscious side of ourselves that we do not want to see... Indeed, it is an act of courage to stop being a caterpillar and become a butterfly! As Maslow put it:

"One can choose to go back toward safety or forward to growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again" 

One of the strongest barriers to growth is pessimism as it is the expression of negative anticipation of our future, the feeling that things will go wrong, that we will not succeed, and if we do it will only be by chance... When we deny who we are, when we cover up our mistakes, when we forget our feelings, and do the same to others, we are somehow, dead.

Seeds of Love = Fruits of Life
"Love begins with yourself. The moment you can accept what you are, you awaken your capacity to receive love" Amrit Desai

According to Gerald Jampolsky love is the total absence of fear. Love is letting go of fear. It is a natural state of expansion, without comparison or measurement. When we plant seeds of love, we obtain fruits of life:

• progress 
• co-operation 
• inner peace 
• flexibility 
• appreciation 
• optimism and ultimately... 
• Connectedness = life! 

From the paradigm of love, we need to ask ourselves, "What do we really like and want to do? Why aren't we doing it?" Most of the time... because we scare ourselves by imagining negative outcomes. Many fears are simply created by our minds. Examples of "mind-killers" are: negative images, pessimism, criticism and gossip, limiting beliefs, in essence: toxic attitudes. Thus the importance of paying attention to our attitudes and... limit our contact with people who show toxic attitudes! As Frank Smith said "we learn from the company we keep." 

I believe we become the company we keep. Such is the power of the people who surround us. We learn from them, we gain knowledge through shared experiences, time after time consciously or mostly unconsciously we absorb wants and needs; thoughts and beliefs; actions and reactions. 

In a nutshell, to stand in the paradigm of love it is necessary that you make a conscious choice to let go of fear, especially when things go wrong, when the plan has failed...It is then when you need to embrace all your parts -- both your light and your shadow -- with the same attitude. It is then when you particularly need to surround yourself with inspiring people, inspiring thoughts, inspiring attitudes. It is when nothing works that you can choose to be your best self, not your unattainable one. It is then that you can compete with yourself to improve your performance, rejoicing in your progress, even if very small. Keeping in mind what Carl Rogers expressed: "What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly."

Above all, express joy and gratitude as much as you can, when you do this, something magical happens, because when fear meets love ... it melts!