Welcome. My name is Rick, and my podcast is about faith, spirit, truth, healing, and looking again at what many of us were taught Like most of us, or most of you, I have my own personal story, and it starts with me being born in Ohio in 1957 to parents who were Depression-era children in West Virginia, and it's quite poignant why. My mother in particular came from a Christian-based family and a very strict one. My dad really didn't profess to any faith until the last few years of his life. His doctor told him he was living on borrowed time. So with that, he felt it was time to make peace with God, and his faith grew, and he did his best to secure his place in heaven I was taught to fear God and Jesus, and the key word here is fear. There are other words that come to mind too, like let's say control, confusion, and nightmares Reoccurring nightmares They started when I was about 12 years old and lasted way into my 20s, and sometimes even way beyond that. But,, they went away eventually. There were all sorts of instances of unnecessary stress. One incident in particular, I was still in high school, and at that time in the '70s, everybody was into black light posters and black lights I don't recall why they let me paint my room black, but they did. And, I had some different blacklight posters in my room, and the lights were-- They were really kinda cool But that didn't sit well with my mom And she met this minister who,, claimed to be a bishop in the Apostolic Church. But in time, this proved he had no such qualifications Yes, it turned out the man was a charlatan But until they found that out, he had quite a bit of influence over my parents. So needless to say, he goes into my room and starts putting holy water all over my walls, tearing down my posters, and excommunicating evil spirits in my room Once I got back home, because I wasn't about to hang around for that, that was kinda creepy to me. And,, just wasn't, and that just wasn't me. I'm not But anyway, I was told I was not allowed to have black lights or posters anymore. And that he had chased all the demons out of my bedroom. I didn't know there were any in there I don't believe the movie The Exorcist was out yet, but it wasn't too long after that or just before that happened that-- of this excommunication in my bedroom. That was the kind of stuff I've been dealing with a lot in my life, hearing about demonic possession and the devil and all that scary stuff. My early church experience was in a Quaker church, which was pretty strict The problem was, the problem that I was having was no matter how I tried, I couldn't be the perfect person they wanted me to be. Christianity is supposed to be Christ-like, but the way I looked at life at the time and the way I still pretty much do, I'm pretty much a person who follows the rules, and all I knew was I couldn't be like Jesus because I wasn't Jesus, and the pressure was just way too much for me to deal with. But all in all, I still had this something inside that told me that Jesus wasn't that way, and the God of the Old Testament wasn't as cruel as I was led to believe. Actually, God's not cruel at all My relationship with Jesus and God is unbelievably great because for the last 10 years, I've been deconstructing all the bad parts of Christianity, holding onto the good ones. 'Cause honestly, some of the best people I ever met in my life are Christians. But having said that, some of the worst people I ever met in my life are Christians, or they claim to be But anyway it's a little bit of, people are people. But because of this, my, my journey-- but this was my journey, and I hope this reaches people who have had similar journeys. You need to take the time to find out who Jesus really was and who Jesus really is, because a lot of what I learned about Jesus was based on fear and control. It seemed like no matter what I did, unless I was walking on glass, I was gonna burn in hell for the rest of eternity. And the simplest things that were considered against the rules would land me in hell forever But the examples you hear along the way as we go into the podcast aren't meant to be about me as much as they're meant to be for people like me who had to endure the same unattainable things that was expected of them to be a child of God On top of that, I was also told that I was born in sin So it seemed like no matter what I did, I didn't stand a chance Throughout the years, like everybody else, I did my best to earn my way into heaven because it's not a given. It was something you had to earn Because of my faith today, I've learned through experiences, through research, and through doing the work I don't really need to worry about those things But that explanation will come at a later time with later examples and the more we get into it I mean, I consider myself a spiritualist today, and that we'll talk about that later sometime too, because I don't really wanna con- you know, confuse the issue. Anyway It took a lot of work to do this. It wasn't easy, and it didn't happen overnight. This was hard work, research, and experience. So I feel I'm very qualified to talk on this subject because I've been on both sides of the aisle And I would like to say this is by no means am I telling anybody how to live their life or who to worship or anything about that All I know is I feel there's a real need with what's going on in the world today to help set the record straight I'm going to be looking into the Gospels. I'm gonna start with the Gospel of Mark, and Mark wasn't the first Gospel, but the, it gets much more to the point than the other ones do, and the other ones seem like they may be just a little bit more embellished than Mark was. But Mark's an interesting place to start And we're going to get into it and compare the four at a different time, and then we'll go on from there. Because this is spiritual work, and spiritual work is a subject I don't think I can ever run out of content. There's always something to say, always something to bring to light This content is for anybody who wants to hear it from a metaphysical or metaphorical point of view, however you wanna look at it, not just how it's laid out. I understand it's against the grain for a lot of people. It's just I've been told this is what I need to be doing for my soul's journey, and that's what I'm setting out to do. And through all this, I know there are people out there like me who love God with all their might, all their soul, and all their heart, but we're just too scared to make one wrong move because of stuff like, what if I do die tonight? Am I going to burn in hell forever?" Just the fear behind that. We're gonna try to work through some of that And that's what I wanna address in this podcast. We're gonna look at the divine source, or God, or wh- whatever you call God, and we'll look at it through compassion, and we'll deconstruct the parts that went wrong. I can tell you with assurance, though, we're all gonna be okay, and your belief might not be mine, but we're all gonna be okay. So once again, I'm not here to tell anyone what to believe. I'm here to explore the questions, to help heal and invite people to think for themselves. This is for other people like me who want to understand Jesus in a more loving, compassionate way. We will focus on Jesus. I want to separate Jesus' teachings of love, mercy, justice, and compassion from political religion, fear control, and false witness What listeners can expect from this podcast. First, gospel reflections Two, angelic insight. Three, spiritual healing. Four, deconstructing religious fear. Five, compassion in politics and society, and that's an important one. Understanding your own story as it unfolds because really we all have one. In closing, I would like to say the word is given. May it be received in love, discernment, and truth. Amen. Amen. Amen. See you next time where we will start with the Gospel of Mark. Have a beautiful day