A letter to my Son; an Epistolary Essay

Epistolary Essay

 

Dear Sherman,

 

In the race of life, there is no finish line, other than death. I've been a sprinter in this race since entering college, living fast and hard. Early on in my life, I was the complete opposite. A long distance runner, I let things come to me and learned from other's mistakes. Before beginning or becoming involved in anything, I always investigated the people who attempted something before me. I always analyzed the situation, never making pre-judgments to whether it would be a detriment or beneficial to me. What made this person screw up? What led this group to succeed? I didn't have a problem being behind at the beginning of the race, because through my search and inquiry for truth, I knew that I would catch up with and pass the others. Being a very patient and virtuous child, I didn't let many things hinder me from gaining knowledge. In my childhood I was extremely reserved, compared to all of my peers. Sure, I did some ignorant things, but not without calculation. I wasn't the kid who didn't care about being caught. Hell, my only fear of doing something WAS getting caught.

I clearly remember being a bright-eyed child in kindergarten. One day, I felt the need to kill the classroom goldfish. Unknowingly letting someone in on my plan to destroy those funny looking fish, it was almost foiled by the teacher. Nevertheless, I waited and waited, and as soon as the teacher lost her attention on me…CRASH. A note was sent home to my mother shortly after, stating that my mother should watch what she was teaching her child because I was 'too calculated' to be so young. It wasn't my mother's doing however; I felt the need to do something destructive. My mother never punished me, citing that in order to be prosperous in the world one must be able to calculate their steps. I did get scolded for using one of my strengths for negative, but hey, I was 5.

Growing up Christian, I learned and understood at an early age that God laughed at the plans of man, yet he would still bless the footsteps of those who walked with him. With maturity, I formulated new ideas and thought processes on things, becoming quite the rebel. As I grew older and encountered new things, the knowledge that I had acquired through the study of history and people's actions, both past and present, guided me. I didn't understand why I was going through certain things or how I was even getting through these things in one piece. Confidence growing with each passing test, the world became a playground. I was growing out of my 'conditioning' as a long distance runner, and transforming in to a sprinter. Maybe this is a natural process with every human being. Learning and amassing knowledge as a youth, only to form your own opinions and ideas on what it is to be wise could be seen as an innate human characteristic. Gaining knowledge at such a young age, where rebellion is the sole thought on an impressionable teens head, led me to think that without making personal mistakes I would never grow. "Fuck it and fuck you" became my motto because even though it is an extremely vile way to think, in my heart, I felt that I had the wherewithal to do what I wanted and that it would be beneficial to me and others. Studying the teachings of One God led me to dictate to others that what I was doing was for the betterment of everyone, regardless if you liked it or not. This backfired on me however. Due to having fun and 'living,' whatever that is, my life became encompassed with late nights, early days, lots of drugs and girls. My life was becoming nuts and filled with the ignorance that I shunned as a child. But I wanted to live. In my youth, I understood living to mean doing what you wanted, when you wanted.

Around the time that my world turned into a playground, total independence loomed in front of my face in the form of car payments and apartment bills. Seeing that I was now a grown ass man with grown ass responsibility, I gained fast twitch muscle and my sprint began. With this sprint, and seeing how fast life was declining, God brought me back to his feet. I started reading everything again, as I did at six and seven years old. The only difference in my readings of the past and the present, at the time, was the interpretations that came into my mind from them. It seemed that God wanted me to speak for him, and I did not understand how. I still don't to this day. I honestly feel like Mohammad, Moses, Noah, and even Jesus. A reluctant spiritualist, I am not one to push myself or my thoughts and beliefs onto anyone. I am for the world and every enticement and blessing that can come with it, like Mohammad, yet I yearn for learning and understanding of the science of God, as Jesus did. As I immersed myself in the teachings of God, I soon realized that I had been mistaken in my transition from running cross country and sprinting. Life was not about doing what you will, even though it is best to live and let live. I found that to live meant to not be hindered, not be biased, not be inclined to operate your mind in ways that would lead you to negativity, no matter how fun.

In my sprint, I have passed many people, yet I still feel as if I am behind. This sprinting has helped me tremendously, as I have seen and done things that most 23-year-olds can only imagine. I have met people and traveled thoroughly. Experience trumps argument, and I have a shit load of experiences that I could share with anyone. These experiences have come at a cost however. I sometimes wish that I would have slowed myself, not become so immersed in the thoughts of One Self, One God, and One Man. As aforementioned, through my sprinting I have amassed a great amount of knowledge, yet it has always been in hindsight: living and learning. The old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and I am a living testament of this.

In the footsteps of characters such as the mystical Yeshuoa Ben Pandira, found in the Hebrew tale The Talmud, I am often in opposition of elders, from their views on subjects to their philosophies on life, love and religion. The story of Pandira is a trying one. He is the bastard child of a mother who marries a man that can trace his lineage back to King David. Soon after marriage, however, she is raped by a neighbor, begetting Pandira. Her husband leaves her at this time as well. Pandira is a virtuous child, blessed with extreme wit and intelligence. He often times is scolded, and is known for being a crude and mean child, especially to adults and elders who view his thoughts as ignorant and premature. He views their ways as old, minuscule, and irrelevant to the day's age and is hence deemed a heretic. Pandira performed miracles and resurrected the dead in these stories and spread a mass of knowledge, yet he was never accepted by his people. His idolatrous teachings led to his demise, due to him being shunned away by his Jewish mentor. Starting his own sect of Jewish belief, he was viewed as pagan. Death came to him early in life. Some say he was murdered by his own people while others say he died alone. This story is awfully similar to the story of Jesus Christ, who was a child born to a distinct and removed sect of Jews called the Essenes. He too was a bastard child, born to an unmarried virgin mother whom later married a man named Joseph that ironically traced his lineage back to King David, as did Pandira's father in the Talmud. Jesus Christ also was a child prodigy, as he was able to teach priests' and sages more about their belief in a higher power than they could imagine. Framed and murdered due to his supposed idolatrous teachings and claim that he was the manifest flesh of God, Christianity is now the most practiced organized religion in the world. In this realm, you must know, that the good of God cannot be hid; only covered. You will find truths; I advise the Book of Barnabus. Born a Christian, I studied the laws of Jesus first. In his life, Love and Truth were the inspiration for his lessons.

Love. Live. Learn. It took me 22 years to realize that these three words, which in my opinion are more like concepts, make life what it is. In all reality, life is what you make it, but without love, living, and learning, you will never appreciate or grasp life. When you were born, I saw God in you and I was in awe. I want to teach you that no matter if you sprint or run a long race, you have the ability to dictate what you will and won't do, as long as God is on your side. There are a lot of things that you will encounter in life, some for the betterment of you, and some for the demise. In the grand scheme of things, everyone will end up loving you, regardless of what you do.

A Child; an Analytic Meditiation

Sherman Smith

Analytic Meditation

A child; such a selfish and mindless creature. They behave in the darndest of ways, saying the darndest things and act out in the darndest of fashion. Loud, obnoxious, and sometimes overly playful, the nerve-racking mini-me's of the world, seemingly make life a living hell. I only have one, and at this very moment he is driving me absolutely insane. Often times, when I look at my son, I think that he is the punishment of God bestowed upon me, due to the erratic behavior of my past that often times became detrimental to not only my health, but others as well. A wild child if you will, I now have been forced to reign in my flamboyant and rambunctious character, in order to fulfill the role bestowed upon me as a great father. Many days, I sit and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing if I did not have a child, and then, the reincarnation of myself smacks me in the face, jerking me back into a surreal reality. I say surreal because it is like a dream to me; how I have become what I have become, and also what I have been able to manifest into the world.

Children can be your greatest dream or worst nightmare; I suppose it all depends on how you judge them. Some people, who think that children are the worst, will never know the joy of having them. Others, who enjoy children and may enjoy having their own even more, may never know the joy of living a life without them. In a sense, once you have children, your life revolves around them and not your own self. A gift and a curse; you are brought happiness from your child, yet are constantly yearning for a life of complete freedom and a lot less responsibility. Children, like good and evil, can take your life on one path or another. Some parents discard their own dreams that they had during their childhood, in order to work and be able to provide. Others chase their dreams and goals, in order to be able to provide for their child in the manner that they wish, while also showing their child that they too can do anything that they put their mind too. I grew up with both types of parents. My father was 46 years old when I was born and 48 when my younger brother was birthed. He pretty much had lived a full life and did everything in it that he wanted to do. A tryout for the now defunct ABA Kentucky Colonels is something that he often wishes he had not passed up, instead opting to join the army. He often jokes about this time in the army however and how he has another family living up in the mountains, due to being stationed in Seattle. Looking at pictures of his Hot Rod cars and car races is his most pleasant past time, and sharing stories with his now adult children of the women that he had. He didn't have many big dreams or goals anymore after we were born, he just wanted to work and raise his kids, which is quite alright. A college education wasn't a big deal to him; especially coming from the small town of Earlington in western Kentucky. Worked as a supervisor at General Electric factory for over 35 years before he retired, my father knew hard work. Day in and day out, he awoke and went to work, even if he didn't do much while there. He retired when I was in eighth grade if I am not mistaken, making it easier to interact with his two boys. During my childhood, my father made sure that we were involved in numerous sports and that we knew that we were supported to the fullest. I can say with vigor that my father never missed a basketball game, football game or track meet from the time I began playing organized sports at 5, until I graduated high school at 17. My mother on the other hand, was rarely able to make games due to her rigorous work and school schedule. Very much like myself, my mother was considered a wild child in her youth, and a wild adult in her 20's. Kicked out of Eastern Kentucky University at the age of 18 and coming back home to Louisville to live, my mother was able to do what she wanted as an adult. She was also in the army like my father, but faked crazy in order to be released early. Living in Florida at one time and Antigua, a West Indian island in another, she was in her first marriage at the age of 26. She even spent numerous years in New York City, even getting her associates degree in Nursing at a community college while living there. All the while, my mother had goals and dreams that she wanted to pursue, however the drive or reasoning per se, wasn't there. Her mother, my grandmother, was the head of one-day surgery at University Hospital for over 30 years before she retired. How could a daughter not attempt to follow in those footsteps? She almost didn't and nearly became the black sheep of the family. Once I was born, my mother went back to school and has never looked back. Over 22 years, my mother has received her bachelor's degree in nursing science, two master's degrees, and is currently working on her DNP or certification to be a Nurse Practitioner. Named an Adult Black Achiever in 2005, being a professor of upper division nursing at UofL, and being published in numerous nursing magazines are amazing accomplishments for a person that had to raise two children as well. Having parents from both 'sides of the fence' has shown me how children affect the minds and actions of man. Being raised in a 'dual' household if you will, has created the understanding in me that I now need in order to raise my child. To my father, raising a child meant being involved, under circumstance. To my mother, elevating yourself to the fullest extent possible is key in the development of children. As a child becomes older, maturation occurs, and one can 'see' the workings of one's parents. I understand that hard work is the key to reaching goals, yet I also understand that without dreams, you may stifle your children's own ambition.

My son. My sun. It is often said that a child is a parent's world. I agree, to a point. Yes, my son is my world, because everything that I do revolves around me bettering everything, for my child's sake. A look deeper into the science of the Sun however, would lead one to investigate the origin of the name of Son, bestowed upon a person's male child. My Son has become my Sun, because my world revolves around him and only him. He is the light that shines bright onto me every morning when I am awakened by his loud slap of my face. He has revealed to me all of the wickedness and malevolence of my past as wrong, and made it so that I know I cant be innocent like him, but I may mimic his innocence and be in his mold. He is the force that drives me to 'rise and shine' and revolve or move, so that he may have a stupendous life. Without the Sun's light, plants would die, the world would be cold, and there would be an amount of nothingness in the world that encompasses infinite. When my Son wakes and shines onto me, it gives me breath; it is the catalyst for my force. I am able to get up and do what I need to do, without reservation. Just like the Sun, my Son can bring wonderful tidings and at the same time, cause mass destruction. In my opinion, the Sun in the sky is the most powerful thing that exists in our universe. It has the power to destruct things, as well as protect. Life is at the mercy of the Sun, and in my life, I am at the mercy of my Son. If the Sun does not shine on the world, what good would the Sun be? What good would the world be, for that matter? The Sun is going to keep turning and keep existing. In my studies, I have come to examine the Holy Bible, and the Son in it. In the bible, God shines his light onto the world in the form of his Son, a manifest angel and human figure, in laymen terms. With this light, the Sun is able to reveal the darkness of action and thought of the world's inhabitants. Jesus or the Son of God, brings about perceivable change and revolutionizes the views of life and death, good and evil in the eyes of the people. The Sunlight or the Son's Light, has never wavered from earth, even if it seems as if he has forgotten us. To this day, The Son is still shining light onto the world, and his life is being used as a base for the correct standard of living for peoples the world over. Innocence.

Church and Connection to Self

Church. It is often defined as 'a public worship of God or a religious service in such a building'.

When I was a child, I thought that church was held in a building with people of like faith and demographic that one is of familiarity with. I couldn't have been more far from the truth, but I can only speak from my own experiences, and as a child your mind is not mature enough to understand that what you think, speak, and encounter may be totally different things. I would sit in church, Pleasant View Baptist, and experience the same thing Sunday after Sunday. Opening prayer, scripture readings, an offertory prayer followed by personal tithes, musical selections, Sermon and finally a call to Christian discipleship, were all that I knew of church. The same step by step dictation of the word of God was imbedded in my head, almost a brainwashing of sorts. My early days of attending church were forced upon me, by parents and grandparents, respectfully. I was made to read at four years old scripture from the Holy Bible, in front of a few hundred people in the congregation. Singing in the choir was a requirement that I had to fulfill up until the beginning of my high school days. In elementary and middle school, I followed what I was told to follow and did not question any one thing that was told to me. I agreed with what my parents and teacher's thought was correct. Seeing that I was the pupil, and coming from an environment where everyone seemingly followed the same rules of living, it didn't even cross my mind to expand and broaden myself. In my mind, there was no point to challenge what I was born believing in. Everyone around me was a practitioner of the same organized religion, and with no understanding of what this meant to my psychological being, I adhered to it. However, with age comes maturation, and with this maturation comes to fruition the creating of your own existence; to deem yourself as what you want to be deemed. Along with the want to be your own person, comes rebellion. Rebellion from the norm, rebellion from family, rebellion from everything that you thought you were. Christianity, considered a wholesome religion, is in my opinion the most intolerant. To my knowledge, it is the only religion that states that you must be a Christian to get into heaven and be sanctified in the Lord. The 'baby' of the three main organized religions of the western world, Christianity can drive a person to act in a very demeaning and disgusting way to practitioners of other faiths. Seeing this happen not only throughout the world but also in my public forum of school, work, and church, I wondered why this was and questioned the views of Christianity. In my mind, I began to believe that faith was a powerful thing, but that blind faith had been and will continue to be the downfall of many peoples. I became more and more uncomfortable attending church, reason being that I started to realize that it was all merely a lie. Now, don't get me wrong, the fundamental aspects and principles of Christianity were not to blame for my realization. The hypocrisy that Christianity teaches to swear against was the grounds for my consciousness. As a youth I was enthralled in Christianity because it was what I was conditioned to. As I grew in age and understanding, I was able to form my own opinion. Why live a lie? Why follow a faith wholesomely if the men and women around you, even down to preachers and priests do not fully follow. In my opinion, a man who is telling the word of God should not be placed upon a pedestal. Even Jesus Christ himself shunned the upper echelon of society. Now, priests and preachers are 'King-like' in their roles. The Pope rides in a bulletproof car and wears A LOT of gold while Reverend's in the western world ride Mercedes-Benz. How can a pastor of a church own a $100,000 car and expect his starving congregation to give him tithes? How can he sit idle and let members of his flock miss rent payments and pile up past due bills. Catholic priests molesting young boys and married Baptist preachers having sex with members of the church. This is a worldly problem with Christianity. Most organized religions have fallen into this fate due to them being man made. The creation of factions has been a problem to the goodwill of all human beings since the beginning of time. People with similar agendas band together in attempts to overthrow others, all the while gaining animosity for one another until they have no reason against oppressing their enemy. Organized Religions, in my opinion, were man-made weapons of mass destruction. This weapon has severely impacted the people of the world due to its unique ability to separate people and make them hate. And even within these religions are factions, separating people by lifestyle. Why are there so many different types of Christianity? Catholic, Baptist, Costic, Methodist; they all worship the same God and prophet. Maybe it was youth drove me to not be fully engaged or maybe it was my conscious. As I grew older and able to form my own opinions, I began to understand church as being something more yet something simple, but I could not quite place my hand on it. Getting older and experiencing my own sets of trials and tribulations helped to push me away from the normalcy of church, and I began to 'see' the truth.

Pleasant View Baptist Church had always been and still is a place where I can go and find love. Almost all of my family living in the Louisville area attends the church. It's been the only church that I have regularly attended since my childhood. A familiar place with familiar faces, I enjoyed church as a youngster. As high school came and went, I attended less and with college came even more time away. During this time, I did a lot of research, study, and prayer. I became encompassed in everything that had to do with religion, from Judaism to Islam to Freemasonry. Going to college brought me peace. As I learned about religion and attended class, things seemed to come together. I began to take Pan-African studies classes. These classes, along with the knowledge that I was gaining from reading up on organized religion opened my eyes and also made me want to figure the origin of organized religion. With rage and fury I began to immerse myself in learning of ancient knowledge, wisdom and secrets of the world. As time went on, I picked up philosophy classes and engaged in discussion with professors and students. I came to understand that the place of most knowledge being spread throughout the world was Egypt, where even Greek and Roman aristocrats and students came to become scholars. Ma'al, the 'land of the blacks', was a city where famous names from Socrates, Plato and even Aristotle came to learn. Have you heard of the Holy Trinity? Jesus, Mary, God or Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Egypt's trinity pre dates early Judaism, and Ancient Kamit described the same formula but in names Auser, Auset, and Heru. I was taught about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and how Christianity was spread to the enslaved Africans, by both European and African slave traders. Hearing about pregnant women being hung upside down by their toes and getting their womb cut open and strewn around was one thing, but actually reading about the massacres that took place for 300 yrs and the systematic oppression of a people by way of an Organized religion shocked me. Brainwashed to say the least, the only African people to rebel against this were the ones who were sent to Haiti, and look at the situation that they have been in for a few hundred years. I even learned of the contradictories of the Holy Bible, such as Lillith, Adams first wife being omitted and also Muhammad, father of Islam. It is ironic that Jesus is mentioned in the Quran. Chinese people were sold into slavery as well and the same type of oppression was afforded to them as well. As I began to develop a sense of direction for my life, I examined more closely. Throughout my studies, I always found new similarities and differences in organized religion. One factor that stuck out to me was that out of the main western organized religions, none were polytheistic. All only worshipped One God; the same God. The problem was that people use a different prophet to connect with God. Why should a man be separated from other men solely through a belief in a different prophet, when the principles in teaching are the same?

Church. It is often defined as 'a public worship of God or a religious service in such a building'. I do not attend organized church regularly, only on occasion. But because of the early years I spent in the church, I have come to understand that church can be had anywhere. I have had 'church' with people of different religious denominations, background and demographic and have come to enjoy it. When I have 'church', it is not discriminatory of your views, because in the grand scheme of things, we worship the same God. Stripping the vices of organized religion down to the fundamental principles of a connection with God has bettered me as a person and led me to a higher path than I was following. Organized religion and the hypocrisy of it led me from one church to the next, and I couldn't be happier.

Flesh of God

Humans are the flesh of God. We are not the mind. Religion, is mans mind attempting to dictate the mind of God to other men. Men cannot govern men, they were not created too. Only God can govern man. Man is oppressive of man, which is directly proportionate to the attempt to become God over other men.

Moment of Honesty

What is Jesus Christ? Not who. I know who he is. He is a character. There is no 'real' visual image of Jesus Christ. From history lessons, you will find this to be quite true. Refer to Ptolemy and Yeshu Bin Pandira; Sepparis of Ancient Egyptian antiquity. Christianity calls for blind faith in a human god. In my opinion, God is not human, and if he is, then why can't I be? Yet, that may be the point. Jesus Christ is the Christian faiths visible view of the invisible God, however, Jesus Christ being an actual and factual physical entity, is so incredibly ridiculous that only one true meaning could possibly be formulated from the story of Jesus Christ. This formulation is the principle of viewing Christ as a way of life. The story of the life of Christ is an amazing one. No other had shown the compassion and love for everyone on the face of the earth, for humans, than Christ, the anointed one. All in all, the life of Jesus is meant to teach us the ways of love, and how to become Christ-like, in all aspects of life; to become anointed, chosen. There are many ways to reach oneness with God and the universe. Becoming Jesus Christ, is in my eyes, the most perfect and beautiful way to reach universal oneness with God. The shunning of the world and the compassion required to live a life of love, as Christ did in the Bible, is hardest but also the most rewarding way to become one with God.

I understand why Muslims' have a deeper understanding and knowledge of Jesus than the average Christian; they study more, search for more. They understand the connection from Jesus to Mohammad, because without Jesus, there would be no Islam. The principles of Mohammad and Jesus are similar in the actuality that they both require one to acquire knowledge and shun many worldly things. However, with Islam, Mohammad made riches, war, conquest, and other worldly things permissible, after finding God. The way of the Anointed, shuns these things, and is only after the glory that comes with being selfless. In Islam, man is in search for God, yet with true Christianity, God has come for the people; in search for them. You should not have to search for God, for he is all around you, in everything.

Due to man's selfishness, man eventually turned Christianity into the devil that it is today. Jesus is not the devil, but the use of Christianity can be considered as such. Likewise, Islam is in the same space as its counterpart. The oppression that was reinforced through misinterpretation of these organized religions and the Holy Grail's associated with them is a terrible way to spread the stories of their Prophets. Do not take the story of Jesus as a man literal, for it is a fable. The story of his lifestyle is what should be applied to you as a person and in one's life.

 

Follow Me

In the Holy Bible, Jesus says "Follow Me" 74 times. He does not say follow Christianity. He does not say follow Islam. He does not say follow Judaism. He says "Follow Me". Following Jesus takes more than accepting Christianity as your organized religion, getting baptized or christened, telepathically communicating with zombies or having blind faith. Following Jesus means to walk with him, to follow his footsteps and way that he lived his life. Following Jesus requires the shunning of worldly and earthly things, as well as showing love and compassion to and for everybody. Accept and love people, have relationships with them, regardless of their perceived ailments, religion, superstition, viewpoint and opinion.

Jesus was not judgmental and neither is God. They both love each & every one of us fully and wholly. God doesn't condemn us and Jesus didn't either. Only we as humans condemn ourselves. Good is the only thing that comes from God, and following the teaching of the anointed is the most perfect passage to Good, more or less.

 

Gift To The World

In the Bible, it states that 'The Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ'. If the bible were to be taken so literally, it may have said 'The Gift of God to the people is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ'. The way of life of Jesus is what God wanted to save. God's gift is that he will live eternally through the story of Jesus regardless of the questions behind the origin of Jesus. God will live through the anointed, which could be anyone and amount to any number of people. Understand, that if the reign of the word of God was to come to an end, and man was forced into their own reign, the world may go in to peril. Without the written teachings of the man of the anointed, disaster and misfortune would beset the world. Without the way of life of Jesus as a guideline to healthy living on earth, the world would fail to unite, and the salvation of mankind would be doomed. The teaching of Jesus is one without negative connotation, without conquest and war, and holds no bias towards other frames of mind and peoples. I am not speaking on Christianity, which has been well documented that many times over Christians of Eurocentric realms have murdered in their God, Jesus', name. I am speaking solely on Jesus as an entity, not the humanistic characteristics of power and deceit. The way of life of the anointed is what is needed by each human in order to unite. We must all, in essence, turn ourselves into our own Christ's; Anointed Ones. If we become our own Christ's, we will receive the ultimate gifts from God; everything that man yearns and wishes for.

The gift that Jesus brings to the world is eternal life. Wonder why the story of Jesus has still lived, even after mass murder and demonic minds twisted the meaning of The Life, to enhance oppression in their favor, by instilling fear into the masses. Directly related is the concept of hell that is so oft-used as an accurate depiction, created recently, in context with thousands of years, by Roman Catholics. The concept of Christ still lives today for the simple fact that his life and the teachings of his life can be applied to any person, so that they may rise to their own Christ-like state. Anyone, from rich men to poor women, can elevate themselves.

As his life is well documented and known in U.S. history, Bill Gates may be one to obtain eternal life, on earth, literally. Bill Gates has done many great things, through the power of his wealth and power of his mind, in equation with the Rich Young Ruler, who sought out Jesus for his advice on obtaining Eternal Life. When asked this question, Jesus replied that he must give up his wealth. The Rich Young Ruler had adoration and love from his settlement and people, as well as for the people. He practiced and obeyed all laws and commandments, and was aware of the goodness in his own heart. However, upon hearing the words from Jesus that he must give up his wealth, he turned his back on Jesus and walked away sad. The Rich Young Rulers own selfishness; his love for money, was larger than his love for Jesus, the people, and his own hopes for eternal life. Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler that in order to receive everlasting life, like he wished; he must overcome his sin of selfishness, something that withholds us all. Jesus wanted the man to give up his money, pass it around and share it with his people.

Like the Rich Young Ruler, Bill Gates had and still has love and adoration from the people. However, unlike the Rich Young Ruler, Bill Gates has given an immense amount of his fortune away, and has shared it with people from all ranges and demographics. Without the people and their support of his technologies, he may not have amassed his fortune to begin with. Through countless charities, scholarships, and giveaways, he may in fact live eternally through the minds and hearts of others, and history, for the good he has done for others with his wealth. The Gift of Eternal Life that Jesus' way of life can grant can be obtained through comforting, loving and developing the lives of other people.

 

Closing Prayer

The Gift if God is Eternal Life though the Anointed. Though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, no fear shall encompass me, for I am of God. I can do all things through my anointing from God who strengthens me. I am anointed through the Power of God, and all things are possible, bowed before him. Jah Amen-Ra