Blocks of thought
Have you ever done something wrong and then, because you are human, you try to figure out a reason why, or figure out what went wrong, to explain or maybe justify, your behavior?
The problem with this, (dwelling or putting your focus, on what you did wrong) is that it stops you from paying attention to all the good you have done, or what you are doing, that is right.
What if one’s thought, was like a child’s building block, and thoughts as blocks, were constructs.
Think of the story of the three little pigs and how this story makes the analogy of weak thoughts as constructs of straw, instead of blocks, when someone believes themselves to be mistreated, lacking, unlovable or lazy, like that little pig was. Focusing on THOSE ideas, which are ideas that are like straw, gives us a construct that does not build the kind of house we would want to live in does it? That house gets blown away.
That is why it is important to build something we really want, with a house of bricks or blocks; and focus on words that represent ideas and behaviors we want to see reproduced, that show things like love, peace, courage, and strength.
We have to fill our minds with good thoughts, the same way we would fill a cup up with water.
But how can we get “filled” with the right things, or think about good, when our cup is already full with the wrong things, (because of mistakes or feelings of failure), you might wonder? It might seem impossible or hopeless.
I remember an experiment, where someone put as many big rocks as they could into a cup. And the cup was “full”, but then sand was poured on top of the rocks and the cup was “full” again, but then water was poured in and the cup was “full” again. No matter how many mistakes a person has made, there is still “room in the glass” for water, or spirit.
Our thinking is our spiritual selves, and is like the water and can penetrate into places that seem impossible. Spirit, like water, can even get into places where matter seems to dominate. And we get to uplift our thinking when spiritual perspective penetrates the human matter based perspective, and see how letting God guide us works, because God is good. I think that is why baptism is important because baptism helps us identify our spiritual selves, like the water in our relationship with God.
Being aware of our spiritual selves helps us see the difference between what is good, and bad, so we cannot be tricked into choosing evil. There is a reason for God’s rules and the bible, because that platform of thought, makes it easy for us to be happy and achieve what we actually want.
There is no cup that is so full of rocks that it cannot hold or still be filled up with water. And, not only that, there is no cup big enough to hold all the water that is our thinking, when we understand the realm of possibilities of our thinking as an autonomous and superior construct.
But even when we build a house of blocks, instead of straw, the letters on the blocks might be saying something different to the world than what we actually want. What if our words were not interpreted the same way we meant them, for example, and what if every time we wrote “it”, a computer was programmed to interpret “it” as “internet technology”. Or what if every time we typed the pronoun “they”, the computer was programmed to treat “they” as a gender grouping, instead of as a specific pronoun, collaborating the word in the sentence, in which it was found and not as a gender of its own.
Is our thought process changed by a programmed computer’s misinterpretation or programming? No, it is not, specially if we do not accept that as what was intended.
What we say we want, and what we do, really depends on what we are thinking about most, and what we want to be thinking about is truth, life, and love, even in the midst of all our problems and tribulations.
For example, if I wanted to “lose weight”, I might believe the building blocks of my thinking, are about fitness and healthy weight. But if, at the same time, I am thinking about sweets and treats, and holding on to a cup that has to be full of sugary coke, or sweet ice tea, or sugary coffee, THOSE THINGS are the words on my blocks that I am building, that the world sees. It is important to make sure our behavior aligns with our thinking.
The blocks might be about weight loss, but sugar is the mistake that the world sees, on those blocks, the same way the computer mistakenly is programmed to see “internet technology” when I meant “it”.
What I think about the most, is what I am building. Too much sugar is not a good construct for fitness and strength and it is a house of straw. And a computer is not like water, or created spiritually so it does not fill in the gaps and it is not accurate.
If you are on the internet, is I.T. causing you to think things that are building the life you want? Or is I.T. causing you to feel upset, dissatisfied, lacking? One of my sons once told me that, though he loved computer games, he realized that when I.T. was over, he was not smarter, more successful or more proficient at anything, and he got rid of all the games. (He threw away that cup).
What we look at with our eyes, seems to lead the way, for our thinking.
I know that there was a man named Saul, who watched another man named Stephen be stoned. Then he began to also do bad things to other people, because that is what he had paid attention to and made important, by making it his thinking, every day, using his eyes and behavior.
But one day, God spoke to him and asked him why he was hurting people and he was blinded for three days. I believe it is because for some people, their eyes, or what is being looked at, is the wrong construct and needs to be redirected. Can someone who is looking at everything bad and wrong, construct anything good?
It is much easier to put water in a cup that does not have rocks in it, isn’t it?
If your son wants to have a baby with is wife, he should not be thinking about money, and power and other ladies, and should be thinking about trust, life, joy, innocence, purity, bliss, because these qualities are the essence of babies.
Though we are told that some people think they want love, and not the baby, or want the baby and not love, the truth is that the baby IS the construct of love and they are inextricably linked to each other. If your daughter wishes to be a mother, she cannot be thinking about it as a “choice” because thinking about death is incompatible with having life, as a construct.
Kind of like the movie “Pollyanna” and how she told Mrs. Snow to stop thinking about death if she wanted to be happy, because Mrs. Snow, who seemed to never get well, kept on talking about death, her will and satin for her coffin. Pollyanna got Mrs. Snow to make quilts for the orphanage instead and Mrs. Snow got well.
“Pollyanna” is just one good movie, and “The girl who believed in miracles” is another. Why not watch things that help heal, or help develop our spiritual strength and resilience and delete cable, Netflix etc.? Our minds are not garbage cans.
If your sister wants to be a success in her talented endeavors, then she cannot be thinking of failure or mistakes or how it would be better if she were a different color, or gender or age as these are all “rocks” in the cup.
If she wants to believe in life, she cannot “choose” death. The good (the blocks your sister needs to construct something positive or good) are already there but has to “use” these blocks or give good a platform, by thinking about the positive things, that she actually has.
How does an artist paint something beautiful if the artist never sees anything or believes anything is beautiful? Just like an artist, our thoughts, based on what we see and believe, create our “environment”. Why would any person say they care about life and then choose death? No person would do that. Even when surrounded by death however, our thinking can still be our lifeline to health, peace and joy.
I read somewhere where a woman was stuck in a city that was torn with war. She wanted to get her family out but her husband was gone in the war and she had no way to get out. She kept praying to be able to leave when suddenly one day, she was on her porch and saw a soldier walking, who needed her help.
She was able to help the soldier. That day, she realized that she had been CHOOSING to look at, or see only “death” and war, instead of looking at and seeing “life” and the people she could help. She had allowed her physical location, up until then, make herself miserable. It was her mental environment that needed to shift.
She mentally threw away the cup, (of believing that she had to physically leave her home), and started being grateful for what she already had and began to focus, or pay attention to, the good she was doing right there, right then. Soon after that, the war ended. Peace was restored.
Are bad times something to give a platform to, and complain about, or are bad times an opportunity for us to uplift our thinking, and choose a positive construct, to pay attention to. Are bad times just a test of our understanding of our spiritual nature?
Did one woman’s realization that she could change her thoughts and see something positive, as her spiritual “construct”, and thereby end the war, bring the city back to life, bring her family back together and bring her husband safely home?
I think so.