Thanks to those of you who showed up to watch the movie SiCKO last night. It was a great time of hanging out and great discussions. As we continue to have these conversations in the near future, let’s be sure to invite more people  in.  As we agreed last night, things in our country are messed up, and the only was they will change is if we start to let our voices be heard.

There are many people that I’ve talked with that just say, “The political system in our country is messed up and is so far gone. The only thing that will change it is if we work to get the most moral candidates in office, and reverse the changes that were made in the 60′s.” Well my opinion is that this healthcare issue is a moral issue, and if you want to start to change things… let’s start with it! You have a choice to either just sit back and say nothing is going to change… or be the change you want to see.

Here is a link to the file I mentioned last night. Start here… write a letter! SiCKO alert letter

–Paul

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
Location: Our House (Call for directions if needed) 810.449.7647
Click on this link to RSVP: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=25646

On November 14th, people across the country are going to be gathering in homes and classrooms to watch SiCKO and take the first step in building a people powered movement for Health Care for America.

The insurance companies and special interests, don’t want you to see this movie. They know that people power can change the system. When you attend a SiCKO house party, you’ll see the movie, take action, and call in to a very special conference call with film maker Michael Moore and DFA Chair Jim Dean.
-Paul

So, I’ve decided in the last week or so to open a coffee shop again! I’m pretty close to having the location nailed down, and most of the business plan done, so in the next couple of months plan to move forward and get it open. Some of you know that I had opened one about 3 years ago, and it didn’t work out because of partnership issues. So anyhow, life goes on, and we are excited about the possibilities, and the community interaction we get to be a part of. The location I am looking at is plenty big enough to allow us to have some of these discussions face to face, and will allow us to create more awareness of the things we are passionate about in our community. So stay tuned for more info as we get closer to launch.

Any thoughts or ideas you may have, please be sure to send along… I appreciate the input from you guys.
We are once again do music, coffee, and Internet… but will be adding other elements as time goes on. One of the main focuses will be on using exclusively fair trade, or direct trade coffees, and sustainable and recyclables products. In addition to independent films, books, and cool sustainable lifestyle seminars.

Anyhow, thanks to those of you that supported us in the past, and I look forward to the future with you as well.

–Paul

I want to officially invite you into a movement of change. We are done talking about it all and are going to start becoming! In the next week I’ll have our first gathering date and location posted, so check back next week!

Here is a doc that I developed months ago as we began having some discussions about all of this: journey doc

We have to BE the Change we want to SEE!

–Paul

Over and over again in meeting after meeting I was told that the institution was important and what God had intended! I have been ‘plugged-in’ for the last 20 years to a system that I now see as an irrelevant, time-stealing, over political, non-personal, and controlling. I now believe that a religious institution is primarily about control! Controlling people to accomplish man-made agendas all in the name of God. I have seen so many leaders pull the ‘god card’ and tell people that they have heard from God and have a plan to lead 900 people into the future, while changing what they heard from God at least every year, in an effort to save a sinking ship. If they actually hear from God… would things not be a little different? If they system that they are working in was a system inspired by God… shouldn’t bills be paid without having to continually lose employees? Excuses are all that you will hear! Like: ‘well satan is just attacking us right now because we are on the right path’. How many times have you heard that??? Or ‘well that person just wasn’t the right fit’, or ‘we had to look at things the way other corporations do…’.

I say let’s STOP! It’s time for a new way of living… doing… being… and I believe that we can change the things that we have seen don’t work. I believe we have too!!! No matter what others have said, it is our responsibility to bring heaven to earth. It is our responsibility to care for an nurture each other, our environment, and all of creation. Life is such a fragile, short thing to waste another 2o years in a system that doesn’t work. So instead of complaining about it… let’s be the change we want to see!

No matter what religion or philosophy you have followed or adhered to, you know deep on the inside that something is not right in the world today… something is not right in our relationships with each other… something is not right with our relationship to the earth. So I’m officially inviting you to join us in a journey of amazing discovery. This isn’t about saving another soul from the fires of hell…. it isn’t about convincing people to believe the same as we do… it is not about fear, control, or manipulation… it is simply about learning to live with each other in a world that is desperate for life to be lived fully, and not compartmentalized.

If you follow the way of Muhammad, Buddha, Jesus, or any other significant person or faith… can we all make the choice to follow the examples set by these great leaders, and in the case of Jesus and the cross… let’s not burn it anymore, but follow the amazing example that he gave us and stand against the empires of our day, even if they are the religious institutions that claim to be the hope of the world.

YOU my friend, are the hope of the world!

I know this was written back in 2004, but it is a great place for a discussion to begin for us!

——————————————–
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: July 17, 2004

If the latest in the ”Left Behind” series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:

”Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.”

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is ”Glorious Appearing,” which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It’s disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety.

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of ”Glorious Appearing” and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it’s time to remove the motes from our own eyes.

Here is a brief history from my perspective, please feel free to push back!

Journey of One began as a result of a longing inside of individuals that cried out ‘there has to be more than this going through the motions’. The motions mentioned are the wheels that turn week in and week out inside of what we call the institutional church. The seemingly never ending messages about morality, where if we clean up our lives morally, then we are truly living like Christ taught us to live. If things aren’t going right in our lives, then there has to be some deeper heart issue that we have not acknowledged and confessed as sin, because sin is what separates us from God.

These messages in and of themselves aren’t necessarily wrong, but the never ending cycle that is perpetuated as a result of these teachings, we believe have been the reason that so many are left with low self-worth, and a belief that they will never amount to anything in life… in essence, that life is meaningless. The church’s answer has been to just ‘give our hearts and lives to Christ, and life will have meaning’.  Finding meaning in believing a set of beliefs about who Jesus is cannot be accomplished without the calling of an individual to a life filled with transformation. Transformation begins to take place when we actually start to touch the world that ‘God so loved…’.  

Herein lies that struggle that we have been a part of, and have decided not to stay quiet about. Our movement is not about pointing our fingers, but it is about being and doing; about living and learning; about faith and works, etc… No longer can we just remain numb to the things that challenge our very souls to be stirred to the point of almost exploding within us. Our passion lies in the working out of our salvation, which to us is so much more than a prayer and acknowledgement of the syllables in the name Jesus. That working out is us realizing that it’s not about persuading or convincing the world to believe in our message ‘about’ Jesus, but in living out theKingdom of
God, which ‘is’ Jesus’ message. In doing so, we believe that we can and will be a part of seeing God’s Kingdom come, here on earth, as it is in His heaven.

We are nearing a crossroads in which none of us has ever been, it’s almost as if we are about to cross the Jordan and our name is no longer Jacob, but Israel. The wrestling we are doing right now is causing discomfort, some confusion, and frustration with each other, but I believe this is a natural part of our crossing over. There is not a promise that this longing we have will be easy, and some of us will probably come away with a limp. But therein lies the beauty of God working in and through us in ‘community’, we are not alone, isolated idiots… we are struggling together with all of our differing opinions and personalities. How beautiful a tapestry of diversity, blood, sweat and tears.

May we all with our own individual capacity, begin to appreciate the bringing together of such unique individuals, to accomplish great things in our generation.

–Paul