The emperors new jeans

Eevie and Damon recently had a sleepover at my house, and when it was time to go to bed, Damon brushed his teeth, said his prayers, and easily went to sleep.

But little miss wanted to build a “kitty cat bed” on the floor upstairs with pillows and blankets and wanted me to sleep right beside her up on the sofa. I did not mind accommodating her, but later in the night, when I went back downstairs to get a drink of water, she woke up and thought I had left and she got upset.

When I tried to get her to go back to sleep, she said that sleeping was “boring” and that in a sleep over we needed to do something “fun” like have a midnight snack and play with toys. SOOOO….

That is exactly what we did. We quietly tiptoed down the stairs, whispering and giggling, and went into the kitchen to make our late night snack. I thought she would be happy with a small bowl of cereal, but NOOO she wanted macaroni and cheese.

So I had to get out the pot, place water in it, and wait for it to boil. Then, while we waited, we played with “toys” and she wanted to take the magnetic Minnie mouse and Daffy duck, and dress them for a party in their magnetic clothes.

So we did, and yet when we went over to the stove to check if the water was boiling, a flower that was on Minnie, fell off onto the floor and we searched for ten minutes for that silly flower. (I have a feeling it stuck to the metal chair she was sitting on)
Then we got our bowls, and had some mac and cheese and went back upstairs.
We talked a little bit about her new friends at school, Colton, and Tiara, and others and eventually went back to sleep.
To me, from start to finish, the entire evening was like experiencing “the kingdom of heaven”, including attending the baseball game playoffs that afternoon, because all of it was pure, joyful, equitable, and harmonious.

Recently I spoke with someone who is a spiritual leader about the kingdom of heaven with regards to helping to heal a problem, and his words that stuck with me were that “the kingdom of heaven is within you.”

I thought about that a lot with regards to myself, children and the world.
What does it mean?

After much thought, I decided that to me it means that the value of who we are as spiritual beings, is intact, no matter what seems to be happening on the surface or in the world around us, and our happiness is connected to that ever present good, which is heaven.

This is an important understanding because there are a lot of things that would seem to be able to take good away from us if we paid attention to the world belief. But Spiritual beings reflect God, because we are the image and likeness of God, and that is something that cannot change.

With regards to the unchanging nature or value of good, I remember Joel Olsteen once talking about a hundred dollar bill and how it has the same value, even when it is old and wrinkled, as it does when it is new and crisp.

Likewise, a princess, is royalty no matter whether she is poor or rich, because royalty is not about what one has but about who one is. And when each of us understands our value as God’s child, it helps us recognize which things in life belong to us and which things do not.

As God’s children, all that is good belongs in God’s kingdom, and all that is not good, does not belong. Simple enough right?

With this knowledge we can decipher that things that SEEM good, but have a hook or a “condition”, also do not belong in our kingdom.

I tried to think of a better example and I thought about children’s stories. One story that came to mind was the emperors new clothes. In my version of this story, what if the book was called “the emperor’s new jeans”. In the original story, the emperor had new clothes and everyone admired them and praised the king, but all the praise was artificial because the clothes did not really exist and no one was willing to say anything. The new clothes, and the “good” that they represented for the king, came at the cost of lying to him.

In my story, what if the emperor made new jeans for all his subjects to wear as a “gift”instead of having new clothes for himself. But what if when the subjects wore these new jeans, they could not work because they would ruin the jeans. So they had to wear them at home to protect them.

And what if they had to take money from the king for food, because since they could not work, they could not earn a living. The money the king gave them might seem like a benefit or like an act of kindness, but if it were not for the original “gift” of new genes, the people would in fact still be working and making much more money.

This act of kindness that supposedly was meant to benefit the subjects, instead made them weak. Apparently the ultimate purpose of the gift by the king, was to firmly establish his power over his subjects instead of to benefit them.

So in my story, the “good” that the king bestowed on his kingdom, which made them weak and dependent, had a catch or a condition attached to it. That type of “good” is in fact the opposite of good.

In God’s kingdom, the good we receive is pure and unfettered.All the good that we do, builds upon itself because good was not meant to bless some individuals and not bless others.

I thought about another children's story, the story of Hansel and Gretel. These children were banished from their home and tried to find their way back with white pebbles that shone in the moonlight. The good that these children deserved, were like anchors in their lives or white glowing pebbles, guiding them back to safety.

But when they used bread instead of stones, they were not able to find their way home because birds ate the bread. I thought about how bread as food provides temporary satiation and how people got manna in the desert but it did not come down to them forever because it was only a temporary fix. The bible says that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Like the children’s story of Hansel and Gretel, the bread or manna in the desert, also did not provide long term solutions.

So what are the words that proceed from the mouth of the Lord? These words, that have endured for centuries, are those inspired words, recorded in the bible, which can be a timeless playbook for us as Christians. I personally choose a random bible verse every day in order to find relevance in an ongoing daily way for these timeless words.

But back to the story of Hansel and Gretel, their being away from home, is similar to kids going off to college or leaving home to start work in a new place. All that is familiar is gone and the kids many times feel like they are unable to return home…and then, like Hansel and Gretel, they may find themselves face to face with an enticing gingerbread house …full of sugar and gum drops and chocolate squares and icing.

But the “condition” of having access to this sugar feast house, is that the children are then at the mercy of a wicked witch who wants to eat them. In other words, it is easy to be dazzled by a display of things that most kids think they want, but these things which are not earned and do not line up with our moral code and sense of fairness and balance, will usually cause us trouble.

When we place our trust in God and his words, instead of in the temporary satisfaction gained by a sugar rush, we will have the guidance we need to find our way out of problems and difficulties when they arise.

Even Eve, had problems when she listened to evil suggestions by a snake. It SEEMED like she was missing out if she did not eat of the fruit of the tree and she was a bozo for listening because it caused her to be booted out of heaven. Eve was the original person allowing herself to be victimized by FOMO.

Each of us will have many suggestions aimed at us, to try to make us do things that take us OUT of our own heaven, or the garden of Eden. But we can be steadfast like Jesus was, when he was tempted by the devil, and say begone satan, and we can keep experiencing heaven NOW. We are in fact told that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That means it is not some distant place, it is right here right now if we choose to see it and live it.

I decided to write a poem about this, to make my own personal stand against evil suggestions in a way that was strong and unyielding. I decided to use my own words applied to the song “unwritten”, because to me this song was saying that in order to be happy we need to REwrite our own lives, by listening to things that made us break rules or go against inhibitions.

But I believe that good is already written and it is the perfect story. Each piece of good is already in place in perfect order. To me, as an example, if each of us is like a note in music, we all participate in the harmony of heaven in a multitude of ways even when we are just one note. Every time new music is created, we play a role in it.

We would not need to explore all the ways notes can be discordant, or go against “harmony” when every way that is beautiful and harmonious is available for us to participate in. To me, using music as an example, good is the one right answer, and the perfect key. We do not need to explore all the wrong answers or notes that are tone deaf, because to gain that “knowledge” is to gain knowledge of evil, or knowledge of what is destructive to harmony. Evil is not heaven and is not harmony.

My poem was to take a stand against evil, and to take a stand against the evil suggestion that human will can do better for us than what God has already created(that there is value in knowing the discordant notes, value in knowing about disease, death and sin).

God gives value to each individual creation of humanity and his will and his creation is only good. So God does not create good and then create the destruction of good. God only creates good and does not put conditions on good like evil does to try to trick us.

Causing the appearance of good, yet attaching itself to evil, is what causes destruction and is what comes at a cost to others, and has conditions that contradict good. The only way evil suggestions have any power at all is when people choose to listen to these suggestions instead of listening to God. God already has us surrounded by his love and nothing can take that away.

To read my rebuttal of what Eve did, read my poem Un-bitten, in my previous post. Have a great day because socialism is now dead, dead and gone. =)