.                   The Tightrope                         . 

To quote Timothy Keller “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” In society there has always been a fight against the norm and those who seek to live in a place that is beyond the status quo. The few are often persecuted by and hated for having the audacity to believe beyond the things that they are supposed to be allowed to do, think, feel, and be. As Keller points out we all crave love but the way that we go about achieving these things is what helps to define our character and our society. When people fight the system they have equally chosen dexterity and isolation. This choice is one that is necessary to the worlds progression. As we look back at history we see that people who have allowed themselves to look beyond the most basic commonly heals beliefs we also see the innovators and the pioneers who made our lives possible. People who dared to ask if we could be, do, and feel more than the people of our time believed was real or possible.

With this level of dedication to evolution beyond the things that we collectively believe comes a sort of  hope and aspiration to help others to reach the highs that they are capable of even though they may meet your evolutionary thought and individuality with scorn and hatred that has been birthed in fear. To know your audience is to win them in the sense that an individual that possesses elevated thought is also one that can meet those in their lives with a unique brand of affection and reliability that allows those who have long feared their own existence to live into who they were meant to be. If we look at the best orators and activists though they felt and thought in a way that was vastly different from the norm they were capable of understanding the position of the vast majority and consequently relating their call to the masses to the masses. For example, Martin Luther King had a great love for the people that he knew and those he hoped would someday live beyond the struggle of their fathers. King’s relation to his audience allowed him to fast track the civil rights movement.

Never be afraid to live outside of the bubble. Sometimes the norm just is not working and will never be good enough for and extraordinary individual who could be so much more than they are in the moment.

There is what we know, what we think we know, what we do not know and what we do not know we do not know.

What is Truth?

What do you know to be true?

What do you really know?

Who are you?

Life is a narrative told from within When we ask what knowledge is we must also ask what is truth.

We know that throughout time people have believed one thing to be true until they believed another. We know that the western world once believed that the earth was flat, the center of the universe and even within our own lives Pluto was a planet until it was not.

In medicine once we believed that to cure mental illness we only had to cut a hole in the skull of the afflicted individuals head so that the spirits could escape.

 In hindsight it is obvious why this approach killed many and saved none but clear vision now does not save those we have lost.

Throughout time our heroes, the people who have stood against the times with a divergent thought were persecuted and hated.

Copernicus (Galileos predecessor) was burned to death for asserting that the earth was not the center of the universe, Martin Luther king was assonated, Nelson Mandela was locked away for 27years, Lincoln was assonated, Aung san suu kyi was arrested for 15 years, Malala Yousasazi was shot, John & Ted Kennedy were assonated, even Jesus was crucified.

 All of those that fight against the status quote have been scared or whipped from the face of the earth. But what does this perpetual naivety say about us and where we are going if we continue on this path of intentional ignorance.

Truth is a collective figment of a populations imagination as far as time has told. The group sees some facet of the world and agrees with the knowledge that they have at the time. Then that belief governs their world and this is the danger.

All believed whole heartedly in these truths regardless of how faulty to the point of taking and surrendering their own lives.

When the earth was flat people lived in fear of sailing off of it. This was common sense. Because they believed it was true in their actions. Their flawed perspective kept them from progressing beyond their own knowledge.

Because church officials believed that the earth being any less than the center of the universe conflicted with our own understanding of the bible we burned a man to death for heresy.

We have all heard about the people who follow an occult into a mass suicide and judge them for their stupidity but we fail to acknowledge the ways in which we are similar.

Whether it is the story we hear on our favorite news channel or the ideas we believe are possible we have the choice every day to step out beyond our constructs of reality and live life more freely knowing that we do not know what we believe we know but instead choosing to realize we know not and can learn more.

Take nothing for what it seems there is a world of mystery in every morsel of existence. 

.                        True love                         .  

Love, what is it really? We hear about it all of the time but do we truly know what it is? Since we were children women were raised to fall in love and become wives and then mothers. We have all seen it the little girls dressed up in high heels and wearing makeup. They read us stories about Cinderella, snow white, Rapunzel, sleeping beauty, bell, Mulan, Jasmine, and even Pocahontas all finding their princes. From the baby dolls we carried around when we were younger to the easy bake ovens they used to teach us how to cook we have been in school learning how to be women since we were girls.  But when statistics tell us 50% of marriages fail we have to ask ourselves what exactly has happened to the happily ever after that we were raised to believe would someday be our own.

We have all seen it the little girls dressed up in high heels and wearing makeup. The statistics that show how young girls are when they enter into their first serious relationship. Today if anything is clear it is that we all hunger for love and seek it but it seems that happily ever after has an expiration date.  In my own opinion we all have a responsibility to fight culture as it teaches us to fall head over heels for a boy and expect him to be a man. A movie where a woman spends several years learning the heart of her potential suitor before she decides to commit to his once he has purposed to her may not be a best seller but it does teach young girls to look deeper than the “romantic” actions we promote now in media. Girls should be trained to look at the character of a man and ask herself if he treats her in a way that honors her worth not if he loves her enough to steal her heart. We should be teaching young me n to look at women as a precious and not in the terms of possession but instead in terms of communion. If young males were raised to tame their urges and only pursue a woman in hopes of romantic relationship to give of themselves and love her with all of their minds, hearts, souls, and bodies. The young mind is so precious and should be molded consciously. When we look at the issues we have in romantic realms we must first ask ourselves what we believe, what we feel, and where we have learned to believe these things from.

Never forget you are valuable and do not have to settle or sell yourself short love is not just a word or a feeling it is also a promise and a commitment.

100% of people want love you can know what it truly is!

Build A Wall? 

On America's Undocumented Population.

In America there is what we claim and what we do.

America was built on the backs of immigrants. From the Railroads that were notably built by Chinese, African and Irish immigrants to the lucrative slave trade (forced immigration) that directly supported economies in Brittan, West Africa, and the West Indies, America is an immigrant’s nation.

                                                                                                

Currently however, the land of Freedom where dreams come true has become a land of Nightmares for those hoping to make it home.

According to a Gallup poll 77% of Americans identify as Christians yet the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% (of American's) are for building a wall. On a moral front this stance is difficult to reason with.

Especially when we look at Bible verses like:

Leviticus 19:34

'The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

Hebrews 13:2

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

To name a few others that directly address The Christian relationship with foreigners:

Deuteronomy 10:19, Deuteronomy 14:29, Deuteronomy 26:11, Deuteronomy 24:19-21, Deuteronomy 26:12-13, Ephesians 3:1, Job 31:32, 3 John 1:5, Leviticus 19:10, Leviticus 23:22, Leviticus 25:35, Matthew 25:44, Matthew 25:35, Matthew 25:38, Ruth 2:10, 1 Timothy 5:10

There are those who do not claim religious affiliation and would not consequently be subject to the verses above but trust me when I say they too are misguided if they are indeed hoping to build a wall.

A couple of common Americans complaints are that: immigrants take jobs intended for Americans crashing the economy; that aliens use tax dollars yet do not pay taxes; and reform would reward lawbreakers.

Yet again, these claims have no basis in truth and seem to be entirely ignorant of certain undeniable facts.

Firstly, The National Immigration Forum reminds us that we are spending an average of $5.05 million a day on immigration detention (jailing illegal immigrants). This is where the tax dollars are going, not into the pockets of disenfranchised and alienated individuals in need but instead to detain them for having the same dream we do, for desiring the same liberties we give to our children as a birth right.

Donald Trumph has proposed we build a wall between Mexico and the southern united states ranging from 35-90 feet tall. To build the 35-foot wall would coast approximately 25billion tax dollars and maintenance would exceed building coasts within 7 years.

The Guardian points to the hundreds of American citizens were sued by the American government and forced to relinquish rights to their property in the construction of Former President George Bush’s Secure Fence Act in 2006.

Secondly, The Washington Post notes that the solid majority of immigrants work low wage jobs as farm Leigh borers. As for this wrecking the economy a Study conducted by the Manhattan university N.Y. contradicts this thought entirely. The study finds “An additional 182,000 foreign graduates in science and technology fields would have remained in the U.S. Their contribution to GDP would have been $14 billion in 2008, including $2.7 to $3.6 billion in tax payments.”

Immigrants are also less likely to commit violent crimes that their native counterparts!

The stance that we would be rewarding law breakers is a slanted claim given that we could easily invite people to become citizen with less barriers to citizenship for less money than we are spending and have spent to aggressively combat immigration.

The law as in requires hopeful citizens to comply with restrictions on everything from where they live to the languages they must be able to speak though America does not have an official language. If all of that is not bad enough you should see the test.

If you would like to try your hand at a sample citizenship test:

http://www.test-guide.com/citizenship-test/free-citizenship-practice-tests/citizenship-practice-test-3.html

And do not worry If you did not pass. We are Americans no test can prove that we are or are not and they should never stand in the way of us being able to protect and provide for our loved ones. America was intended to be a land of freedom and liberty for all by our founding fathers who also hoped to escape unjust laws and fierce oppression by the hands of a government that saw men not as men but as property. We are America and we have the unique opportunity to transcend the mistakes of our forefathers.

 We can remember that we are all descendants of immigrants who were treated unkindly.

We can choose to truly make America great by stepping beyond ourselves into unity.