I've been thinking a lot about God, Jesus, heaven, life, death and what really matters in life.
As always, I read the bible. Usually I wake up, drink coffee in bed, and meditate, read and pray. Today I was reading in Matthew about the kingdom of heaven and about when 'the son of man comes'. It talks about how the king will separate some and how he will say to those "when I was hungry, you gave me food, thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger you took me in." I won't go on with the quote, but this denotes acceptance and love to me, love and compassion no matter what. It seems sort of like a test of our hearts. It doesn't say "I wasn't a drug addict so you could take me in", or "I wasn't a politician, so you gave me drink".....It sort of talks about needs and how the ones the king approved of, filled those needs through regular human beings. I was thinking about how one of the greatest of human needs in our western society is to be appreciated...other than the basic needs of food and drink etc.
How many times have I told people how much I appreciate them just for being themselves? Or for doing what they do, or saying what they say? You get the picture?
According to Maslow's hierarchy of human needs there are emotional needs :
Love and belonging
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs are social and involve feelings of
belongingness. The need is especially strong in childhood and can over-ride the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to abusive parents. Deficiencies with respect to this aspect of Maslow's hierarchy - due to
hospitalism,
neglect,
shunning,
ostracism etc. - can impact individual's ability to form and maintain emotionally significant relationships in general, such as:
- Friendship
- Intimacy
- Family
Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness,
social anxiety, and
clinical depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure; an anorexic, for example, may ignore the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging (from wikipedia.org.
I for one, want to do the 'right' thing because I think Jesus was right when he told us to do unto others what we would have others do unto us. Based on these emotional needs it sort of makes me think, it sort of makes me want to be aware of how I truly treat others and myself.
Jesus and his message of love causes me to rethink the way I treat others and myself. Growing up the daughter of a Jew and a Catholic, I don't want to be a part of any group. At least now I don't. But if I'm honest, which I try to be, in the beginning, when I was younger, I really did want to be a part of some sort of group where I felt loved and accepted. Both of the religions that I was exposed to had the potential of causing me to feel, at a young age, not good enough, or not a part of their systems of belief. As a Catholic, I never felt fully convinced that I was doing what they expected of me. Especially when everything I desired was against their idea of a good, moral person. Mainly my desire was boys....I was a young teen, a pretty girl, and the boys loved me. That didn't go over well with the nuns, to put it mildly.
Later, I wanted to identify myself with the Jewish side of my heritage, and of course because my mother wasn't Jewish I couldn't be recognized as a Jew according to Jewish law.
At a very formiable age I heard about this radical named Jesus who made friends with the 'sinners', the misfits, the whores, the thieves etc. I liked this guy and his radicalness so I decided to read up on him. Sure enough, I was able to be part of his following, I was, according to what I read, accepted, just as I was, didn't have to DO anything. What a concept! What a great feeling to be accepted just as I was.
I guess I had been messing up my life enough to know that I needed some sort of place to fill my basic needs. I found that in following Jesus and actually listening to what was said about him and how he felt about me helped me realize that maybe my idealism wasn't so unreachable.That was almost 40 years ago, and I still follow Him...
I still know that what he taught was true. Even so, he didn't have a lot of good things to say about religion and he sure the heck wasn't the picture of western christianity. He was sort of a mystic rebel who called himself the son of God and wanted people to follow him. An old athiest aquaintence of mine said he thought Jesus was a negative narcissist. Jesus, in his true self, can be percieved in many ways; as a crazy sort of guy, a square peg in a round hole. But I like him, and the more I feel I know him, I can say the more I LOVE him and what he stood for. Although I may never really understand all that was written about what he said.
I can't say that the way I follow the teachings of Jesus are worthy of any sort of greatness, and I certainly don't understand a lot of what he said, but I do believe he is alive and well, and just beyond what we as humans can see with our eyes.
I believe that what I read today in the book of Matthew sums it up pretty well where Jesus talks about how we treat others:
"In as much as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me."
So, there ya have it...I hope you have a great day if you're reading this.....love to you from me.
