37. God Calling: What do you want?

Let's play pretend:

The scene opens with you and me in my office. I have a phone headset in my hand and I’m on a call.

I click the hold button on the phone and say to you, "It seems that God wants to know what it is you want. . . "

Now what?

Let's assume that I've got God — or at least some angel or administrative muckity-muck in God's office — on the phone.

Do you know what do you really want?

(It's an easy question to answer badly.)

I have found over and over again that what people first say they want usually isn't what they really want.

When it comes to material things, usually we don't want the trinket as much as we want the feeling that we imagine will come along with possessing it. (That's why we get bored of possessions so quickly, we didn't really want them as much as we wanted what we thought it would bring us — which it doesn't — and so we go off in search of a new bauble or different momentary high.)

15 things

Can you think of 15 things you want?

10 minutes of wants

Most people after writing what they want for a few minutes wind up with very different answers than they started with.

So, I encourage you to do the following personalized, religious experience: for the next 10 minutes write out everything you want. (You'll be surprised at what you come up with.)

With love,


If you care to share what you came up with in 10 minutes, I welcome your wants. Should you want a copy of my list, please e-mail me.

P.S.

After you complete your list, there are a few things to think about:

• What are you currently doing that is helping you get what you want?
• What are you currently doing that is preventing you from getting what you want?
• What is it that you are *not* currently doing that might help you get what you want?
• As a result of thinking about the above — what can you commit to doing to help you to get what it is that you want?
• When will you commit to doing it?

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where the article also went up this week.

36. Apples are blue?

If someone told me that most apples are blue, I wouldn’t get upset.

I’d just know that they are mistaken, incorrect, wrong. It wouldn’t change my belief that apples are usually red, sometimes green, and occasionally yellow.

“Oh well,” I’d think to myself, “they believe that apples are blue. So what?”

But what about if someone told me that I am ugly, stupid, egotistical, or something similarly negative? As long as I know that these unloving remarks do not really apply to me, there’s no point in getting upset.

I’d simply think that they had said something just as silly as apples are blue.

With love,





Finally, some follow-up thoughts/questions. (Some of these are addressed in the comments on the streetprophets site where the article also went up last week.)

• How strong is a person's mind to decide what they choose to beleive? If you are told long enough by enough people that something is so, how difficult is it to think otherwise?
• What does it matter to me what others say if I know that (the) God (of my understanding) believes otherwise?
• How do we hold onto a view of God that isn't the one that is our parents'?
• How do we hold onto knowing what it is that God wants from us when others are telling us God wants otherwise?

35. Sushi & Love

There was a time in my life when I was much more obsessed with the “right” way to do things.

For instance, if I were sitting across from you and we were eating sushi, I might have demonstrated the proper way to hold your chopsticks. Or I would have explained that the soy sauce and wasabi mustard are supposed to be applied to the fish, not the rice and then told you how one is supposed to put fish side on the tongue first.

I used to feel compelled to share such knowledge when I had it.

But, since then, I have grown and matured.

I have learned that unless you care about the proper way for sushi to be eaten, unless you specifically ask me, unless you let it be known that you are the type of person whose dining experience would be enhanced by an etiquette and history lesson — that I would be speaking only to show off my own knowledge and importance.

There is no better way to eat sushi than the way that works for you.

These days all I want to tell you as you sit across from me is that I love you.

With love,


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where the article also went up this week.