For example, any negative thoughts and feelings I have from time to time surrounding money and those who have it, holds me away from it in precisely that equal measure. Your subconscious will never allow it in, and do everything it can in its power to sabotage and “protect” you from it, whatever that thing is. So every time a negative or jealous thought arises, I question it and decide whether it’s still all that useful a belief to me to hold on to or not. Money, despite being a neutral tool when not in play, tends to be a hot issue that has a lot of emotions and memories attached to it for most people, which is why I’m using it as an example. But really this concept works with everything we want while holding volatile feelings about. Shedding guilt and fear around wealth seems to be a continuous process and requires quite a lot of maintenance to stay on track but it steadily pays off with each shedding. I think of these awkward tweaks and adjustments as investing in my future self.

ANOTHER manuscript from a different part of the world tells the same story. Makes a lot more sense than the claim of a lifetime of celibacy. Mary Magdalene wasn’t a prostitute. That was said to discredit her. Many manuscripts claim her as one of the disciples, his favourite disciple even. Unfortunately the books that made it into the Bible were canonized and translated by man, not God, so we should be less frightened we might be wrong and more open to revisiting which books written by women, some of whom claimed to also be disciples, should also be included in the Bible, along with MANY other manuscripts written by men and women that corroborate so many stories about Jesus that the church left out because it didn’t fit in neatly and tidily with the “Crucifixion Story” or the “Son of God / Holy Trinity” story. And instead of reading translations of translations of translations, we COULD get access to some of the originals stored under lock and key in the Vatican by insisting, and translate them again. Because quite frankly, there’s a whole lot of people on this planet who believe word for word a lot of bigoted, sexist, racist, narrow minded nonsense from some letters cobbled together (for the best political gain) and poorly translated, used as a political/power tool at the time it was made and since then, that has caused people to kill each other for centuries now. And instead, we could have a Bible that is rich with Truth. Something that would bring us all together, not separate us. Otherwise, what’s the point!

If Jesus ever does come back, he will probably have a fit like he did in the temple and burn a bonfire of Bibles that claim to be “The Word of God”.

As more and more people want to live simply and sustainably, so many tiny homes are popping up, but these days they are usually out of the box or another company has designed them. The price ranges are outside of many people’s budgets. Couple Jess and Dan designed and built theirs themselves, together, on the cheap from reclaimed wood and gently used stuff off Craigslist. They live in just 125sq ft of space, and its pretty obvious that theirs is a pretty close relationship focussed on the more important things in life. It’s very sweet, and encouraging to see.

You can read their full inspiring story on Custom Made.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI[/youtube]

Neil Gaiman – Inspirational Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts 2012