THE LORD IS THE REWARD

Farm Land in Placerville

by

Silver S. Parnell

(Copyright 1996, all rights reserved)

New Age thought has crept into the common mind and has even infected some Christians with a philosophy that is contrary to Biblical teaching.

Many have adopted the craven, mercenary idea that all one has to do to ensure worldly success - financial and medicinal - is to "be a good Christian."

Jesus did not come to us for the purpose of giving us more ease and comfort here on earth. That is not the purpose of Christian life. In fact, he expressly told us that those for whom life is MOST comfortable, i.e., the wealthy folk, attaining the purpose of Christian life is harder than for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle (commonly thought to be a rather small gate into the city.)

The Eye of the Needle

Gate in Jerusalem

Our purpose is to attain HEAVEN. Whether or not life on earth is pleasant is irrelevant to that end.

The mystics tell us that heaven can be attained here on earth because heaven is in God and we can attain to that experience while still earthbound. This, in itself, makes life more bearable - at least for the time during which one is absorbed in God Consciousness. The Sermon on the Mount, among other scriptures, speaks to this reality.

Saints and sages of old have managed to remain in that God Consciousness throughout their lives, and that is the real miracle. Winning the lottery is not. Finding the love of your life is not. In fact, everything pales in comparison to merging oneself in the ocean of bliss that is the Lord.

The call of the mystics is what drew me to the Catholic church. It is our treasure and our patrimony, but it gathers dust while we play in the sand.

When I read on social media some nonsense like, "the way to attract friends is to be a good friend," it makes me want to run shrieking around the apartment, tearing my hair out. Christians should know better than to reduce life to these platitudes.

Magical concepts of like attracting like have captured the imagination of the hopeful for generations. It is the basis of all pagan religious practices, but it does not work! Has no one heard that phrase, "no good deed goes unpunished?" What about, "There's a sucker born every minute?" The world is full of people whose entire reason d'etre is to take advantage of the gullible good guy.

How many times have you done a kindness to someone, only to find them stealing from your left pocket while you gave to them from your right?

I am not saying one should stop doing kind things because of this. What I AM saying is everyone needs to stop thinking or expecting that our kindness will be repaid with kindness. Most of the time, we will be disappointed! The rules of commerce may reign supreme here on earth but they do not apply in the spiritual realm.

Think also of the Lord's admonition against inviting people to the banquet who can afford to pay you back. He tells us to deliberately invite people who absolutely CANNOT return the favor. Jesus is constantly telling us to abandon the stingy, avaricious ideals. In countless stories, he emphasizes that we must break the shopkeeper's mentality and deliberately take actions that run counter to the tit-for-tat business of life. We could not possibly pay God what our souls are worth, what salvation is worth. He gives to us freely, and if we are to be like Him, we must do the same.

We do not get earthly rewards for our faithfulness to God. God IS the reward.

Get this concept or lose everything.

Silver

IS POVERTY A PUNISHMENT FROM GOD?

Even though Jesus famously said that a rich person has a hard time getting into heaven. some modern folk have this weird idea that rich people are the chosen people of God. This is especially true in America, where we have a lot of Christians who believe and loudly proclaim that God rewards us in this life if we are obedient to him. They say things like "God wants to prosper me if I obey him."

Conversely, they believe that anyone who is poor has not been "prospered" by the Lord because they have NOT obeyed him. This Biblical bastardization amounts to an excuse to despise poor people and blame them for their troubles. After all, if they weren't "bad," God would have prospered them, right?

Wrong.

"God did not create poverty. We created poverty

because we do not share with one another."

~ Saint Teresa of Calcutta ~

The Bible and our Christian tradition very clearly teach, over and over again, that the Lord gave us free will when he created us and it is human beings who cause each other grief - not the Lord.  If we do not obey the Lord in this life, he will not accept us into heaven when we die. In the meantime, we exercise our free will. We can torment one another or love and help one another. It is all up to us.

If people are poor, it is because others are too selfish with the largesse of resources with which the human race has been gifted. Millions of people have nowhere to live because a few people think they deserve to have gold plated toilets.

Donald Trump's gold-plated sink on his airplane

(There is a toilet to match.)

Lately, I have watched good, sincere and motivated Christians, twisting themselves into knots, in order to put a good spin on some really awful life circumstances - trying to figure out what "God" is trying to teach them by the unrelenting stream of sorrows in which they nearly drown. Because of the bastardization of the Christian message, they are traumatized with self-loathing and blame themselves for their inability to pull themselves out of a crushing socio-economic corner. They do not realize they are trapped in a massive pyramid scheme, along with millions of other struggling people, who have been brainwashed by the incessant propaganda of the wealthy and those in collusion with them.

There is no dearth of resources on this wonderful planet of ours. There is more than enough for every human being to eat and live and thrive and have a little fun while we do it. The lie of scarcity, created by the rich as a tool to dislodge all the wealth and send it hurtling into their always-open maw, is a vulgar insult to the good God who made us all. It is NOT representative of the message of Jesus. In fact, it is the opposite.

"Sell your possessions and give to charity; make

yourselves purses which do not wear out, an

unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief

comes near, nor mother destroys."

~ Luke 12:33 ~

Entire books have been written about how the guys at the top of the pyramid create and cultivate the systems that serve to impoverish 99 percent of humans while 1% take their morning constitutional on a gold plated seat. That is not my specialty. I am a lone voice in the wilderness of the world, with no resources to speak of, either financially or physically, and few people will even read this blog, but advocating for the poor in this small way is all I can do on my short term on earth.

I never expected to be in this position. I am, myself, one of the millions of disabled, poor seniors in America. Ending up this way was a surprise. In addition to my "plan" to make money from my art ( admittedly, an iffy proposition), I was expecting to inherit at least enough to get me through my "golden years" without going hungry. My whole life, my father told me countless times, "when I die, kid, you're gonna be rich!" Somehow, after he got dementia and tried to start his car with a credit card, instead of his keys, I was written out of the will. You can draw your own conclusions about this fairly obvious set of circumstances.

"Open your mouth for the dumb, for the

rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth,

judge righteously, and defend the rights of

the afflicted and needy."

~ Proverbs 31:8 ~

It is because I have been the target of greedy, unprincipled people and then smashed into the corner at the bottom of the pyramid, that I am able to empathize with poor people, as a class, throughout the world. I have experienced, first hand, the greed of those more comfortable than me. I have been the subject of countless lies and misrepresentations, because thieves usually have to lie about the people that they crush under their feet in order to justify stealing from them.

Many thieves camouflage themselves as highly religious people. It is part of the long con.

At the very least, I hope to encourage the poor to take heart in the words of the Lord instead of those "Christians" that try to blame them for their poverty. If I can encourage even a handful of people to take heart and be assured of the love the Lord has for them, I will be happy.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,

where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where

thieves break through and steal."

~ Matthew 6:19 ~

Donald Trump's gold toilet

Silver Rose

GOD BRINGS ALL THINGS TO THE GOOD FOR THOSE THAT BELIEVE

About halfway through the month, I typically run low on food. There are things to eat in the cupboard, but I have to be creative sometimes, and I often have to eat things I'm not particularly keen to have at that moment. I liken it to a type of perpetual fasting and, in that light, it becomes a blessing. Fasting as a method of sacrificing the ego, its will, and its constant need to be fed, enables one to grow closer to God. It has been continually advocated in the Judeo Christian world, as well as in other religions, for thousands of years. God brings all things to the good for those that believe - even when something looks bad at the outset  - even when something is uncomfortable or downright painful.

Tonight I was pondering dinner, when I noticed that I have a lot of half-and-half leftover, as I have reduced my consumption of tea over the last few months. Calculating that the half-and-half was going to go bad before I could use it all if I only used it for tea, I realized that I also had the other items necessary to make alfredo sauce with chopped walnuts. Sunday dinner was delicious. Another thing brought to the good that, on the outset, appeared to be somewhat sad.

If I stop to complain about whatever is going wrong, I may miss the good that the Lord wants to bring out of it and into my life. If I look at the deceptively empty refrigerator and become focused on THAT, it may never occur to me to become creative and make a masterpiece.

The last five years or so have been rough and getting rougher. Someone had me written out of my father's will after he got Alzheimer's. My father died, my uncle died, my son died, my dog died, my cat died. My relationship to the church I loved was destroyed by a callow young priest who ridiculed my weight in front of a group of people, pantomiming how funny it would be if he couldn't pull me out of a chair because my bottom is so big. He disparaged my disability status. He went on to harass me every time he got me alone, and I had to leave the church - the only Byzantine Church in New Mexico. My health has gotten worse and my illnesses have multiplied. Among other things, I am going blind, very slowly, from macular degeneration. My inability to find an appropriate place to live has been documented in other blog posts.

When I became disabled, friends of many years dropped me immediately. The few family who had the resources to help me picked a fight or found some bogus "reason" to be angry with me, giving themselves an excuse not to behave like the Christians they claim to be. They say that family is all one can count on, but but some families are not good. Some families hate God and goodness, living only for their own comfort.

It may never become apparent to me exactly what sort of good the Lord plans to bring out of all this pain. The good may not be realized during my lifetime. It may never make sense to me. It may never make sense to you, but sometime before my story comes to a close, I need to send out a reassuring message, and that is simply this: The Lord is bringing all these things to the good - for me and for others.

This is the blessing of living the Catholic faith, being a member of the church founded by Jesus - even if some of the priests are horridly broken and cruel people - even though I cannot get anyone from the bishop's office to return my phone calls about my vocation - even though our dear Papa is sometimes hard to understand - even though family and friends have left me twisting, by myself, at the end of a short rope - even though I have been suffering continuous pain FOR YEARS. I am being blessed.

Some people mistakenly believe that if we live the Christian faith well, Jesus will reward us with a comfortable life. That is not what he promised. This is what He said:

"Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth:

I came not to send peace, but the sword.

For I came to set a man at variance against his father,

and the daughter against her mother,

and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man's enemies are they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me, 

is not worthy of me;

and he that loveth son or daughter more than me,

is not worthy of me.

And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth

me, is not worthy of me."

Matthew 10: 34-38

Christianity is the hardest gig you will ever do. It isn't rainbows, lollipops and unicorns, as some people believe. It isn't warm and cuddly. It isn't about prosperity. It is the sword and the cross, just as Jesus promised.

May we all be blessed.

Silver Rose Parnell

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All rights reserved.