Well, Hello, I'm Back--Link-up with Multiply

Well, like the title says, I am back. I am still learning what I need to know to make this blog work. I am determined, though. I am way too much into being intimidated into loading code into settings at appropriate times, but that's just part of living life and learning new things. I am fascinated with the Internet. I sometimes will go for days and never think of how incredible this medium is, which is, in terms of its popular use, just a few years old, and yet has transformed the way people do business, pursue democratic change and express opinion, educate themselves and their children, and even pursue a spiritual life. I still remember doing all my research papers in university and graduate school, and most of law school, with old Smith Corona typewriters, and that was only 20-25 years ago.

Anyway, I am going to post copies of what I am writing on Multiply, which is now where I do most of my blogging. I'm keeping this blog on Blogger because I want to keep my options open, in case the work I do begins to grow. Everything is rather fluid and uncertain in what I am doing, so what I decide today may not be the way I choose next week. Sometimes I feel like I'm not very sensitive to the will of God, but then I do read in the Bible about certain things like this happening (example: the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings going from Egypt with Moses to the land that bears Israel's name today. So I guess I'm in good company.

Well, here's the entry on Multiply. Hope you like it.

It has been a very difficult day, but I am thankful to be alive and living in the blessing of God. I want everyone who reads this to know that I am thinking about you, and keeping you in my prayers. I just had the opportunity to invite all my international contacts from Yahoo to join my contacts on Multiply, and I hope to restart friendly contact with many of them this way. If you're one of those I've contacted, please, by all means join Multiply and send me a line. I think you'll be glad you did.

I want to invite you to check out a truly wonderful group, that has taken the name of one of the most incredible best-selling books that has ever been around. For the last two or three years The Purpose Driven Life (www.thepurposedrivenlife.com), written by Dr. Rick Warren, has sold somewhere between 40 and 60 million copies, in at least nine languages, and counting. It is literally, next to the Bible, the biggest selling book in the world over the last 3 years. Dr. Warren is the leader of a Christian community just 75 miles north of my home city of San Diego in the town of Mission Viejo, California.

The notable thing about The Purpose Driven Life (www.thepurposedrivenlife.com) is that it takes Christianity's message, straight from the Bible, and changes it from something religious bound to a culture that existed 2,000 years ago, and makes it modern, current, applicable to this world. The problem that so many have had with the Christian faith is that it has been so taken up with religious ritual, arcane arguments of ideology, and outdated notions of what is acceptable personal and moral conduct.
It has been on the wrong side of so many issues of culture, art, education, race, poverty, and especially science, that it has basically dug its own grave in the eyes of most people.

Indeed, its hypocrisy (the recent sex scandals in the Catholic Church an example) have truly poisoned the ground of the hearts of the world in general. That faith in God and Jesus of Nazereth has continued to endure, and even to flourish in many areas, is a testimony to the compelling character of the faith's "Mighty Founder", to paraphrase Charles Dickens, rather than any credit to His followers.

And indeed, this condemnation does not solely rest on Christianity. The bigotry, oppression, and spiritual disconnection between religion and the people they would serve is universal. Look for enlightenment and prosperity in the Middle East and Africa with Islam, or India with Hinduism, or Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, or rural China with Buddhism. Or what secularist Marxism has done to the former Soviet Union, or North Korea, Cuba, or the yearnings for freedom in China. Or for that matter, the yearnings for meaning among non-spiritual humanist Europeans and North Americans whose living for self, wealth, and personal gratification have brought emotional and relational emptiness, that all the drugs, sex, and money in the world cannot fill. When it comes to meeting the strongest yearning of the soul of those it is to serve, religion's sole and all-consuming task, religion has almost universally failed.

But The Purpose Driven Life (www.ThePurposeDrivenLife.com) seems to disconnect the faith and life offered by Jesus (or Jesu, Jehu, or Isa, or however your language calls Him), off of religion or religious activity and returns it to the purpose of true spirituality. That purpose is twofold: to link us individually to the God who made us, and to each other as fellow human beings in one community. That two-fold link is the heart of what Jesus came to do, to reconcile us to God, and to reunite us to each other. In 2,000 years Christianity has never really figured that out, neither has any other religion or philosophy. But Warren returns those who read his book to the source of spirituality, and endeavors to strip out the baggage that has come with it.

I'll talk a little more about that tomorrow, and share a little bit of what I've learned. If you can get the book, do it. If you need to connect with an appropriate website, get in touch with me. I don't mean to try to shove religion or spiritual matters on you, and if it seems like I am, please pardon a sincere desire to share something with you that I believe will change your life, to something far better than you could imagine. There's very little traditional about The Purpose Driven Life, and I think you will be very pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, I'll be back. I have different links and information to pass along. I'll also be working on building my home page on Multiply. I'll also be copying some of the past few blog entries onto Blogger, particularly on Shiloh House, CA(www.ShilohHouseCA.blogspot.com). There all a bit threadbare, but I'll work on them. I'll let you know about it all later.

But let me know how you're doing. I miss getting good human contact, here in the house where Gail and I do all our work, all our conversation with others, and even most of our shopping now, especially online. Even if you're not interested in hearing about this particular book I just talked about, that's ok. We just hope to hear from you, and about what is happening in your life. Bye for now, God bless.

Regards, and friendship,

Floyd Fernandez
San Diego, CA