John Lucas song spotlight - Son of God

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Tomorrow, those of us in the States will celebrate America's birthday. It's been a few years since I've been able to partake, but the Kovasckitz family tradition is to gather in the small town of Hope Mills, NC for the 4th of July. My grandparents' house is on Main Street, and the annual parade passes right in front of their house. My grandpa, who passed away a couple of years ago, would dress up Newt (his large stuffed gorilla) in his typical Notre Dame Fighting Irish shirt with an American flag in its hand. Newt would sit on grandpa's lap, and would wave at the floats.

The kids (and the more competitive aunts and uncles - Aunt Di, I'm looking at you), would line chairs and towels as close to the road as possible, but we didn't stay in our seats much. We would scramble for the candy thrown by the beauty pageant queens, the firefighters, and the clowns. Later, we would bring the loot to the living room, where the cousins would wager their Tootsie Rolls and Starbursts within fairly intense Texas Hold'em showdowns for the glory and spoils. We would then play croquet or football in the yard until we got too hot, swim, and then repeat until the fireworks that night. Not to be forgotten, Kovasckitzs are well known for their ability to eat large quantities of food, and our power would be on grand display throughout the day.

I have loved celebrating the 4th of July, and I will do so tomorrow. And yet, I know some of you will relate when I say that the holiday brings with it mixed emotions...especially this year. 

There's a twinge of hesitation to shoot explosives into the air and to holler in celebration of an empire that rose to power through the genocide of the lands' native peoples, and on the backs of slaves pulled from their own homeland. I find it hard to raise my glass to a nation that spends more on our military than the next eight nations combined, which has caused untold destruction and death. This year the United States is in quite lonely company with our decision to pull out of the global agreement to acknowledge and to attempt to combat climate change. It is also no secret that I am not a supporter of POTUS 45: Donald J. Trump...

And yet, this is my homeland. This is the land that I love. And I believe that she is already beautiful, and that she can be made even greater. Not the empire, but the land. The people. 

I'm going to spend tomorrow with my wife and family, grateful for the life that I have been given. I'm going to shoot off fireworks for our friends, Josh and Carolyn, who welcomed their newborn son Jonas into the world today. I'm going to drink to the Redwoods, the Grand Tetons, the coast of Washington State, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

God bless America.

God bless America with eyes for the poor. God bless America with a people that stands up against the empire. God bless America with discomfort. God bless America with a thriving economy of love and compassion. God bless America with humility. God bless America with the ability to see those outside of our borders as equals, as brothers and sisters of the human race - even those with brown skin and without resources. God bless America with death and rebirth.

I am no longer able to pledge allegiance to the flag. I can't place my hand over my heart and say the words. The empire - America - is not my God. And I think perhaps often we get the two confused.

When God is on our side, our economy flourishes.

When God is on our side, our military is victorious. 

When God is on our side, our church buildings are full. The offering plates overflow.

Deeper still.

When God is on our side, we have a beautiful partner. 

When God is on our side, we can always pay our bills.

When God is on our side, the disease goes away. 

When God is on our side, we are a white-American-heterosexual-Christian, a former wretch saved by grace, but now practically perfect in every way.

I think God is less concerned with choosing sides than dwelling within. Dwelling within those inside and outside of our constructed borders. That said, I don't believe that God dwells on the side of the empire...the empires of our nations and corporations, our churches, or our own personal empires.

We all hold empires inside of our chests. We personally pledge allegiance to comfort-food-sex-sleep-entertainment-power-wealth-fame.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Give me the bravery to value the kingdom unseen above the empire that is seen.

I recently recorded an album called "A Thousand Cathedrals". Available on all empires of music: Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Apple Music, etc...

There are a couple of songs in particular that draw on the theme of empires, one of them being Son of God. I've gotten a fair amount of requests to explain a bit of the heart behind the lyrics, which are based on the temptations of Jesus (found in Matthew 4). In the passage, Jesus is tempted by Satan, or the devil...the enemy of God. I see in this being the collection or representation of evil - (at least in this case) it seems that it is an inner conflict, perhaps the ego of Jesus himself. For if Jesus was fully man, he must have battled his own ego, as do we all. On a bit of a side note, I find it fairly interesting that it seems the devil is quite good at quoting scripture...

If you're the son of God...

The song begins with the temptations of Jesus by Satan, and slowly progresses into our own temptations of Jesus. Protect my borders, crush the heads of my enemies. Give me comfort. Protect my empire.

And I believe that the response the song builds to is the response of God, when we act out of a state of empire instead of kingdom. Kingdom being that which manifests God through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Empire is that which builds a kingdom in our own image: jealousy, lust, selfishness, greed, injustice, revenge...

Away from me, I never knew you.

Remember, my creation, my love, that which is inside of you. Be made wild again. 

I invite you to meditate on the passage, and then to listen to the song as you read through the lyrics. And tomorrow, let us celebrate kingdom and not empire.

Thy kingdom come, Father. Thy will be done. 

Amen and amen.

---

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"

Matthew 4:1-10

If you're the son of God
Throw yourself down
Surely your father will heed your call
Surely the angels will catch your fall

If you're the son of God
Then why do you starve? 
Turn the rocks into loaves of bread
Find pleasure in the evening within your bed

If you're the son of God
Then why is there pain? 
Are you weak, or are you not good? 
Oh will you be defeated by a cross of wood? 

If you're the son of God
Vanquish my enemies
Protect my borders and securities
And crush the heads of those who'd rob my peace

Oh praise the son of God
The one who has set me free
He is my passage from the gates of hell
He is my refuge from the infidel

Oh praise the son of God
Who knows my every will
For pleasure is the blessing, child
And I must have my fill

Away from me, away from me
I never knew you
You are the cell that holds my child within
Fling open the doors and be made wild again
Away from me, away from me
I never knew you

Why we're moving into a van

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

In two days, we’re leaving behind our dream kitchen. It’s full of natural light in the mornings, and usually smells of my wife’s coffee. The windows above the sink overlook a wooded area sloping sharply to a creek, and today melting snow lingers on the limbs outside. There are creaky hardwoods underfoot, with deep scratches - probably long ago from a beloved dog - and burn marks showing an outline of where a wood stove used to reside. Its cupboards and countertops are now bare, but cookbooks and handmade mugs were arranged just so on the shelves, with a red KitchenAid mixer on the counter. The kitchen drawers are the ones that you can’t slam shut - push them too hard and they glide into place. On the ceiling are a few yellowed spots from when the roof leaked on our first night in the house.

There’s a full basement below, and a loft above. In the adjoining living room is our rattly propane heater, next to which sat our record player. Bedroom to the left, bathroom to the right, and ahead is the guest room where we kept our large collection of books. Rocking chair and swing on the front porch, hot tub on the deck. From the front porch is a view of some of the surrounding ridges, and when the leaves are full the yard feels hidden from the rest of the world.

Simply put, we were renting a palace.

Danielle and I fell in love with this house a little over a year ago, and we’ve made it our home since. But somewhere in the hot tub, or on the way to the wine cellar (not really, but we do have a wine rack in the mud room…) we started dreaming about what it would be like to live in a van.

I think it was initially my wife’s idea. And that’s one of the great things about her: she’s up for trying crazy things. Because it is crazy. We realize that.

We began following a lot of Instagram accounts of people building out vans, and watched a lot of YouTube videos. We’re not trailblazers (sure, there were the original hippies), but there has been a recent upsurge of people - climbers, surfers, overall adventurers and lovers of travel - that have created a growing community of Vanlifers.

Although our building experience together collectively amounted to nil, Danielle was ambitious enough to believe that we could create our own home in a van, and she was convincing enough to persuade me.

We searched religiously for vans, and inevitably the ones we wanted were snatched away (or turned out to be Craigslist scams), but we managed to testdrive a few in the process. We looked at an older Ford in Waxhaw - not quite up to par, but owned by a friendly man who gave us glasses of sweet tea and eggs from his chickens as we left.

We tested an enormous Mercedes Sprinter - essentially a bus, that through a miracle I didn’t use to kill several people. The lot where it was parked was on a slope, and after putting it in drive I pushed the brakes to the floor (or so I thought), and yet still we were rolling faster and faster towards the road and traffic. It was fast-motion and slow-motion at the same time, and I remember yelling, “It’s not stopping! It’s not stopping!” Cars were coming quickly from both directions, and I rolled in front of one car that was able to stop, and hesitated on the gas before a car (that I didn’t see at all) sped past in the opposite direction. If I wouldn’t have hesitated on the gas, someone probably would have been killed...my wife, brother-in-law, mother-in-law, and the owner were also in the van - as well as the other drivers on the road. We pulled over, and I realized that my shoe had been caught on a lip a couple of inches before the brakes would have been fully floored. I was mortified, sweating bullets, and was fairly shaken up for days replaying it in my mind.

The Mercedes was rusty and had several warning lights engaged, but needless to say, we didn’t buy it. Danielle and I became discouraged with the search, and I vowed to stop looking for a certain amount of time for the sake of both our sanities. After about a week, I cheated and found Wadlow.

Wadlow is a 2008 Ford E250 with a high roof, which - at full height standing within - my head barely grazes the ceiling and Danielle is fine and dandy. Wadlow is tall, white, and a little dorky but loveable - aptly named after the late Robert Wadlow, who stood at 8’11”. He was “The Giant of Illinois”, and the tallest man who ever lived.

Our Wadlow came complete with berber carpet and ugly blinds, so we took it camping the first week. It was fairly functional as it was - before we ripped, unscrewed, and overall demolished the interior and threw its contents onto our driveway.

Sweet Lord, have mercy on us. We don’t know what we're doing.

Thank God for Josh, Danielle’s younger brother. He’s nineteen, and yet somehow has watched enough how-to videos to know how to do an array of handy things with confidence that we certainly don’t have. He was our general contractor; he wandered the aisles of Lowe’s Hardware with us (where inevitably I would become overwhelmed, and Danielle and I would get into a fight), he took our calls when we were in over our heads more than usual, and we bribed him with food to come guide and assist for long days on several occasions.

We certainly couldn’t have done it without Josh, but I’m incredibly proud of my wife and I (cue sequence music). We learned how to use power tools together, we laid floors together, we dreamed together. We sanded, stained, drilled, cut, painted, and we measured twice and cut once (although sometimes we still measured wrong). Building out a van is incredibly difficult. Hardly anything is square - the walls curve, the roof slopes, there are weird tubes and wires to factor, you generally can't drill where you'd like, and sometimes even nineteen-year-old wonderboy doesn’t have the answers.

But looking back and seeing Wadlow now, we kicked ass. Right out of town.

But all of this still certainly begs the foundational question: why? Why give up the palace for the chariot? The palace has ample electricity, a fridge and oven, a comfortable (large) bed, space for family and friends and all of our books and records and instruments and our red KitchenAid and our Christmas tree and our TV, and not to mention running water...leading to things we will unfortunately notably not have in the van - a toilet and shower...

The simple answer is this: because we want to live differently.

Danielle and I work half the month - week on, week off, fully immersed care - at a cottage (which, you will be happy to know, has toilets and showers) living with children within the foster care system. Collectively, Danielle and I pull an entry-middle-class salary, which around $1,000 per month was directed towards the rent and utilities for our house, where at most we were spending half the month. We love to travel, to meet new people and to explore new places, but our living situation made us far less likely to do so with our expensive rental house sitting empty.

Living in a van will cause us to buy less stuff, and to greater value experience and time together. Two plates, two bowls, two spoons…

We’ve been purging heavily over the last few months in preparation for move-out day - which the headache and process of subleasing our house is a novel in itself. We’ve given away many of our possessions and stored the rest that have made the cut, and it’s caused us to ask ourselves what we actually need to be happy. We’re planning on downsizing to one cell phone to share (without a data plan), and my beloved Subaru that I bought when I was eighteen will soon go up for sale.

We bought Wadlow in cash for $13,500, and have put about $2,000 in additions. It has 76k on the odometer, and around $15k for (hopefully) a reliable car and home in one isn’t too bad. No rental payments, no car payments, no debt.

For our time in the van, we want to live simply. We want to read good books and to write. We want to volunteer on small farms in the area when we aren’t working, and to visit with friends and family. We want to hike and camp in new places. It won’t be easy, we know this...we’ll be two people living in 65 square feet. We’ll fight sometimes. We’ll smell bad at times, and probably have a close call or two looking for a bathroom. We’ll measure twice, cut once, and still get it wrong in a lot of areas.

But I think that one day looking back, we’ll say that we kicked ass. Right out of town.

We’re excited to take our home with us on the road, and to see where it leads. I think the real answer to the question of why we’re doing this in the first place is simply this: we have no idea. We have no idea where we’re headed or why, but the unknown is calling and we are answering as practically as we know how.

Follow the unknown and see where it leads. Give up the palace for the chariot in your own way, and you may find that your comfort was a cheap sacrifice for the adventure and beauty ahead. We’ll see you on the road.

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Songwriting

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

I don’t claim to be the best musician, and I certainly don’t claim to be a great performer (although it is an area in which I want to grow and improve, I currently view performing - with exceptions - as primarily a necessary evil...signed, a classic introvert).

However, I believe in my abilities as a songwriter.

I’ve been seriously writing songs for about twelve years, and I’ve been writing (what I consider to be) good songs for about seven years. Notice a lengthy period of songs falling in categories such as being “good for an adolescent”, or “good enough for a church youth group”, etc. before becoming what I consider to be simply good with no reservations.

I was not a child prodigy, despite what my mother thought. I remember as a kid writing a rap about Jonah (the guy from the Bible who was swallowed by a fish), and I believed at the time it was great stuff. It was not. Somewhere on an old home video tape (hopefully destroyed by now, but labeled “Rock Star Luke”) is me playing my hit song, “I’m Just Dancing Around for No Particular Reason” - the title is essentially the entirety of the lyrics.

My parents bought my brother and I a guitar when I was ten (followed later by a keyboard and drums - yes, my parents are truly saints). I took three guitar lessons before quitting...scales were hard and my fingers hurt. I later picked it back up on my own, fell in love with music, and I have learned without formal instruction since. I slowly started getting better and writing seriously, and eventually began recording my on a very used Macbook.

I released four EPs for free through Noisetrade over the years, each progressively getting better and receiving more attention, until I reached the pinnacle of my engineering capabilities and hired Everett Hardin - with funds raised via Kickstarter - to produce and engineer my first full-length album, Promised Land in 2015...an album of what I believe to be twelve good songs. Shameless plug: its 7-song sequel, A Thousand Cathedrals, is coming soon. 

I relay this history to show a bit of the journey, and to show that there is a journey. Good art takes time, and I think that above all it takes perseverance. Your fingers will hurt and you will want to quit. You will write dozens of crappy songs before you write any good ones. You will record something that you finally like, and no one will download it...even when you give it away for free.

Do it anyway. In my experience, this is all part of the process.

I consider myself to be a successful songwriter. However, I am not - at least currently - a financially successful songwriter. And yes, there is a difference. My wife and I have full-time jobs outside of music, and I’m happy if the money I make from what I create pays for recording costs and occasionally a new instrument.

I don’t make music for the money, and if I did I would have quit a long time ago. I make music because it is a part of who I am. I make music to express myself in ways that I would otherwise be unable, as a way to know the Creator through creating, and to connect with others on a deep level. I get messages all over the world from people who relay that my music has helped them through deaths or divorces, from people who have proposed with one of my songs or used one as their first dance at their wedding...or from people that have seen God more clearly through what I write. To me, these stories are greater than financial success.

Although, to be clear, I like getting paid.

I also get a fair amount of requests from people asking about my songwriting process, or if I have any advice or suggestions for aspiring songwriters. Let’s move into some of the practicals...and if you’re not a songwriter but have made it this far, stay with me. Many of these bullets are applicable to any art form, or most things worth doing for that matter.

• Again, persevere. If you feel that there are songs inside your bones, there will probably be a long journey to find them. Practice your instrument often, so that when the words do come, you won’t be distracted by a poor foundation.

• Have easy access to your instrument(s). If you keep your guitar in a case tucked away in a closet, it will not be played. Keep your guitar in a stand, or hang it on a wall where you will see it often. Even something as simple as leaving the keys exposed instead of covered on an upright piano will make you more likely to play.

• Have a place (or several) where you can go to be alone. I am usually unable to get in “the zone” to write when other people are around - even my wife. I like to play outdoors when the weather is nice, or near a window if it is cold or wet outside. If you live in a more crowded environment, you may find that you need to write later in the night or early in the morning. Find a time and place where you can sing and try out lyrics without being heard by others. I usually play and sing random words and phrases, looking for a thread. A thread is a lyrical phrase, a melody, an image...even a single word that you know is special somehow. I realize that there is something mystical about this. When I’m creating music is often when I most clearly feel the presence of the Spirit (whom I believe to be inside of us all)...and songwriting, when I have experienced it at its very best, I would almost describe as a conversation with that Spirit.

Threads do not have to come while you are in a position of writing. While hiking in Washington state, the line “I have the dust on my boots of a thousand cathedrals” came into my mind. It stayed there without further progression for a couple of months before forming into a complete song, later to become the title track of my upcoming EP.

• Once you find a thread, write it down quickly - otherwise you will forget. If it is a phrase with a particular melody, make a quick recording. One of my favorite things about my iPhone is the voice notes app. Keep a notebook or a voice notes folder with threads that you can come back and explore later. Sometimes I am able to hold a finished song in an hour, and sometimes I wrestle with a certain song for months. Don’t get frustrated with the process - if a song is bucking you off of its back, come back to it later. You may need to learn or experience something in your own life before the thread is able to be followed further.

• Many people are stuck with what to write about. Write about what matters; write about what moves you. If a song does not first speak deeply to you, it will not move others, and it will not have authenticity. Do not write what you think other people want to hear. Write from your perspective, write from the perspective of someone you love, write from the perspective of your enemy...have the audacity to write from the perspective of God (I have personally done all of these). Read books that matter, watch films that move you. Serve others, love others. Let your life feed your art and let your art feed your life.

• When you have a finished song, have the bravery to share it with someone else - usually my wife is my first set of ears. A smoky bar on open mic night is not my recommended place for a debut. Show your music first to someone that you love and trust, and move outwards as you continue to write and grow.

Bear in mind that this is all blanket advice from my own experiences, and is in no way a set formula. I’d love to hear your own thoughts, questions, and experiences. I believe that art created with boldness and honesty has the power to change destructive cultural and societal directions, and can bring unity across our constructed borders.

Be brave my friends, and let’s write a new song together.

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The Pursuit of Bravery: This is my religion

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

The pursuit of bravery is the pursuit of love, for love is the purpose; love is the beginning. In the beginning there was love, but love has no beginning for love always was. Love caused the stars to be formed, and love caused man to rise from their dust.

I believe that love, the beginning before the beginning (what always was), the great Mystery or Spirit which can be experienced but not explained, are ways to describe God - among countless others. I believe that God is alive...that the fabric of God is within us and that we are within the fabric of God.

From a young age, I was given the language of Christianity to describe and to encounter God. I still speak in this language, for it is my mother-tongue, and I now believe that this is perhaps the best way to describe Christianity or any other religion: as a language by which humanity attempts to speak to each other about God, and as a means to know God.

Languages are imperfect means of communication, limited by the use of words we have created. In fact, much more is communicated without or beyond words. All religions are imperfect means to know God - a God I believe to desire to speak to us all in a language that we can understand. I believe that what, and how, we communicate (read here: how a religion or faith is acted upon, and how it works within) is more important than the language in which the words are contained. From the pen of the Apostle Paul: “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Cor. 13:1)

I prayed the simple prayer of salvation when I was seven, and I was baptized weeping as a teenager...I meant it. As a child I read the Beginner’s Bible with colorful pictures several times through before I graduated to the one with no pictures and the passages that are often dark and confusing. It too I read cover to cover. The church is where I learned to sing; I played on music teams and led worship services every Sunday for years, and as a teenager I would often lead on Sunday mornings and then again that Sunday night for my peers in youth group. Friday night worship gatherings, Wednesday night Bible studies. All of this to say, I was deep within the culture and I took my faith seriously. I spoke the language and I spoke it well.

But as I approached my college years, I found that I could not wait to go out on my own, away from the church that held much of my identity. This was not because I believed my church to be evil (I have only the highest respect for the community in which I was raised, and the integrity of the people within), or that I myself wanted to go through a “wild and sinful” stage to perhaps experiment with drugs and sex, but rather I had a growing dissatisfaction with, and aversion to, much of the doctrine and underlying messages of the Christianity with which I was presented.

I wouldn’t have had the words for it then, but I wanted to meet God on my own terms, away from the avenues in which I was raised, and to find my own story. What followed were years of deconstruction to the bare bones of what I believed, and the subsequent reconstruction of my faith. This reconstruction is not over, and I hope that I never consider myself to have arrived at ultimate spiritual truth, refusing to grow deeper or to continue to seek God in more fullness. I have much to learn, and I still have many questions...yet I believe my language and life to be richer on the other side.

Much of my spiritual dissatisfaction grew primarily from exclusionism; I feel that within the culture of Christianity, there is either blatantly professed spirit of exclusion, or a mentality found beneath the surface. We hold the one truth; us against the world, either sinner or a saint, saved by the blood of a savior who has done all of the work and heavy lifting for us.

For years I wrestled with the concept of a loving God that would create the earth and humanity full of beauty and innocence, but open to be wrecked...for the earth to become for so many a place of literal hell through wars, genocide, extreme poverty, and other unbearable injustices. And then, at the end of it all, if we did not accept loving and forgiving Jesus as our savior - through a simple prayer, and within the murkiness of human consciousness - we would not merely perish, but we would burn forever within the torments of an eternal hell. The privileged who had accepted Christ would receive salvation and live forever within heaven, a place of peace and fullness - communion with God.

I found that I could no longer believe in this narrative of God.

Richard Rohr writes, “Any discovery or recovery of our divine union has been called ‘heaven’ by most traditions. Its loss has been called ‘hell’. The tragic result of our amnesia is that we cannot imagine that these terms are first of all referring to present experiences. When you do not know who you are, you push all enlightenment off into a possible future reward and punishment system, within which hardly anyone wins. Only the True Self knows that heaven is now and that its loss is hell - now … Heaven is the state of union both here and later.” He further concludes, “If your notion of heaven is based on exclusion of anybody else, then it is by definition not heaven. The more you exclude, the more hellish and lonely your existence always is.”

When hell is solely something to come, we ignore the deep injustice happening all around us. When heaven is solely something to come, we ignore the present existence of God.

I still believe in some form of afterlife or reunion after bodily death, void of the suffering and darkness evident today. But I believe that the kingdom of heaven is to be found - and brought about - here, and now...amidst all of our beauty and wreckage.

I believe that we are eternal beings, and that in some form heaven or hell can be eventually fully entered by our own choosing (for love requires a choice); we can either live from the True nature in which we have been created, or we can choose to live fully from the ego - which ultimately tells us that we are god. The ego is not necessarily primarily evil, but has evil capabilities - unlike our True selves. The journey of shedding our false self, or ego, and realizing and reconnecting with our True self (that which is already one with God) I believe to be the way of “salvation”.

I have personally found the life of Jesus to be the ultimate example to humanity of transcending the ego, and further, that what Jesus represents transcends Christianity. I believe God to be bigger than our religions and the names we have ascribed to God, which divide the “believer” and the “infidel”.

I believe that the truth of God can be found in the pages of scripture, that its writers were inspired by God and intimately knew Him, but that the Bible is a part of humanity’s journey to discover and to know God, and not an overarching guidebook to be taken out of cultural and historical context. I believe that the character, heart, and desires of a living and infinite God can not, and should not, be limited to what we read in the Bible or any other text.

I believe that God is love, and that love is the most universal and fundamental language of all. I believe that God is within us all, regardless of our actions or beliefs.

Many people within the Christian community, many whom I respect deeply, would say that my convictions are at best a watering down of the Gospel, and at worst dangerous assertions. I would submit personally that I have found the true watering down of the Gospel to be a faith that costs nothing.

For if our faith costs nothing, it is worth nothing.

This is not to say that we are “saved” by our outward actions, but if my faith does not change the way that I live and love others, if it does not aid in my treatment of the land and my abhorrence to my own selfishness and greed, if it does not bring forth greater yields of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control, then my faith is worthless. My prayers are empty and self-centered, my heaven is empty and self-centered.

My words are not an attempt to attack Christianity or the church, and are certainly not meant to separate myself from the foundational teachings of Christ. Rather, my words are an attempt to call forth something greater both personally and collectively.

Jesus did not live a life of comfort or excess. He had little patience for religious dogma. He challenged oppressive authority. He broke down barriers and stereotypes. And he gave up his life for love.

I believe that we’re more alike than we are different. We may not vote the same way politically, hold the same beliefs about God (or even agree on His existence), but we all hold love.  

Love is the master key to it all. Love does not stand for injustice. Love does not count differences, it transcends. Love unites, love heals. Love is not a weakness, but a power beyond measure.

My religion is love. My creed is to love God and to love others, no matter the cost.

In this confusing world, both broken and beautiful, containing the first smiles of newborns, nuclear weapons, sunsets, marriages, divorces, poverty, racial discrimination, sex trafficking, favorite songs, the smell of coffee, the touch of your partner’s hand, murder, species extinction, deforestation, and seeds in good soil, God can be found and made known when we love.

This is my religion.

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