Navigating Life’s Core Values

There comes to the footpath of every man, woman, and child a fork in the road. A place in time where one must choose which direction he or she will follow. Life’s core values help us determine which direction we will choose, but sadly, sometimes in life we discover that the things we thought were true, the things we thought were steadfast, were actually based on societal lies cloaked as truths.

As a writer, I have never believed it is the role of a writer to seek the agreement of the reader. I am not here on this earth to pat the reader or anyone else on the back and tell them they are right. It is my fervent belief that a writer should piss off the reader, stir the emotional pot of the reader’s intellect to where they are forced to think for themselves, and not cave into the mis-guided mentality of those who would demand complacency.

For many years in my life, I attended church and closely followed the Christian faith. There were large numbers of people in the church community who I greatly respected and revered. Somewhere along that journey in my life, spiritual leaders stopped asking people to think for themselves, instead beckoning the church community to simply go along with everything they were told. The preachers and the spiritual leaders of my adult years asked people, including myself, to place blind faith in their words and instructions.

These ministers and church leaders, spoke from the podium of an omnipotent God, and they taught of the power of the Holy Spirit, while demanding that their position never be challenged by the members of the church community. Somewhere along life’s path, my revered church leaders and lay leaders expected people to go with the flow and stop thinking for themselves — such is the way of many a cult environment.

One of the darkest seasons in my life came in the months and years after I experienced a marriage failure. As time went by, and inner healing took place, I met an incredible young widow who stole my heart as soon as her eyes met my own. My own daughter could not get over, in that moment, the “electricity” that existed between myself and that young widow. I was horrified in the days ahead, when the senior minister of my church pulled me aside and informed me that he had the role of “father” to all the women in the church, and that he as well as the church community would do whatever it took to keep me single and available to re-unite with my ex no matter if it took seven years, eleven years or more.

There is nothing worse than a corrupt minister who tries to take on the role of God, for in the heart of these we find our true cult leaders in-the-making.

I endured from my church community a highly destructive slander campaign which destroyed my business, and my ability to make a living in my own community. Forced to stand by, as single women were told that I had a glaring problem which was “stalker-like”, no one cared to tell these women that my real issue was UV ray damage to my eyes which had resulted in cataracts — cataracts which would later require surgical removal. As long as it served the church’s corrupt purpose it was better for them to fan the flames of their ignorance.

For years I was forced to endure the destructive ramifications of the slanderous lies of the church community, but deep down I held onto 5 foundational core values which I express in the form of 5 non-negotiable rules.

My Core Values

  1. I will stay true to myself no matter the outside opinion or influence.
  2. I won’t ask anything of any person that I’m not prepared to try and do myself.
  3. I will not bend my knee to any man or woman save but my God and Queen, and although I no longer consider myself to be a religious man, I do consider us all to be spiritual beings.
  4. To be in my circle of influence, loyalty is not optional, and part-time loyalty isn’t loyalty at all. Only those who prove themselves to be loyal over time will have my ear.
  5. Woe to any family member, friend, or foe who comes between myself and a good woman, for this is my unforgivable sin, and with these people I will burn all relational bridges without the option of a second chance.

In my post divorce years, I watched while my church leaders and church community utilized manipulation, gossip, slander, and serious illegal activity in an attempt to control me into doing their bidding. Piously they claimed it was the godly thing to do. In doing so, they destroyed any chance I ever had of exploring a healthy relationship with not only the young widow, but any other female contender in the years that followed.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing these church people were. People who through their own actions, showed me the real value of their faith. While they spoke words of a deep spiritual belief, their actions told a louder truth that the God they believed in was an impotent, powerless God who needed their lies, their slander, their manipulations, their criminal activity to achieve “His” will. These people did not believe in an omnipotent God as they so claimed, instead they had crafted amongst themselves a mythology.

What truly is religion? Religion is nothing more than a cluster of people who come together to determine between themselves the terms and conditions upon which they will embrace the concept of a god. Spirituality demands something more.

Church people and leaders who I once revered, through their own chosen actions, destroyed every word or concept they once claimed to hold dear.

Foundational core values assure us that we are all born with a brain, and only in bouts of great irresponsible slothfulness should we cast aside the ability and right to use our brains to discern truth.

I ended my faith as these people would define it, for I could never model or stomach the spiritual bottom feeders that these leaders and church people proved themselves to be. When faced with a cross-roads in life, they cheaply cast aside the previous proclamations of their faith as found in the scriptures, wilfully embracing a path which demonstrated the real truth of WHAT they believed in, WHO they believed in, and WHAT THEY STOOD FOR. It is church communities such as these which offer the entity they call Satan, no real resistance, but instead, they bless him with wilful assistance. From these I have turned my back, ashamed of who they really are.

I am a writer. I write free of the tyranny of religion, politics, and societal pressure. In the process, my words hopefully disgust, pushing one to argue in disagreement, but there in that spirit of disagreement lays a form of magic, for one cannot disagree without first giving thought to that in which they would agree.

One of my former professors, looked my class from right to left stating, “I don’t care what you think. I only care that you think!” Navigating life’s core values cannot be done by those who surrender the right to think and believe for themselves.