Awestruck

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known. - Blaise Pascal

To be loved is the greatest of all gifts. To be chosen. Pursued. Valued. Cherished. 

As with all things precious and invaluable, however, counterfeits arise, and with them a culture that has left us on a loveless spectrum somewhere between disoriented and despondent. We have become blind to true love, which embraces who we are, and instead joined the garish system of parading ourselves in costume in front of the masses in hopes of winning first prize. 

First prize, and even the lowest of consolation prizes, is nothing more than two costumes stitched together. When either one grows weary of the wardrobe, the source of union is lost. The love that never was is gone. 

True love wears no costume and expects none on you. The source of union in true love is the soul, and it knows no separation. .

There is an alternative to awaking every day to don your costumes of body image, career prestige, Instagram influence, and whatever else hangs in the closet - designed to conceal the real you in hopes of what at most will be an imitation extract of love. 

You don't have to live this way. You don't have to lure love. 

There is a way to beat the system.

Source Scripture

Love is All You Need: Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22

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Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

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The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

Deprived of bread or the equal benefits of the commonwealth, the person shrivels. Obviously. And that is a clear line to fight on. But when the transcendent energies waste away, then too the person shrivels--though far less obviously. Their loss is suffered in privacy and bewildered silence; it is easily submerged in affluence, entertaining diversions, and adjustive therapy. Well fed and fashionably dressed, surrounded by every manner of mechanical convenience and with our credit rating in good order, we may even be ashamed to feel we have any problem at all. -- Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends

Cultural norms often lure us into a trance where, like zombies, we seek only to feast on whatever life-giving forms are in reach. 

Left unchecked, our society at large and we individually can easily devolve into spiritual dystopia, where people move about and speak and huddle together in clusters of cultural confirmation bias, but in reality they are walking dead, greedily shoving each other in competition to consume. 

This is precisely the character at large of the culture in the first century when John the Baptist first began crying out in the wilderness. And I submit your you that it is also the character at large of the culture in which we now find ourselves.

But there is a way to beat the system...

Source Scripture

Breathing Underwater: Matthew 3:1-12, Mark 1:1-8, Luke 1:80; 3:1-18

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates

The unintended by-product of the scientific revolution is most of us rarely if ever engage in the scientific method. We are merely consumers of the results of their investigation. 

We no longer know how to search. We only know how to google.

This long-term consumerism produces atrophy in our ability and even desire to search for truth. We simply assume we can summon it on demand with keystrokes, as if consuming mere morsels of truth will produce transformation.

The end result is a two-sided fallacy, especially as it pertains to the development of our true selves: we believe that consuming truth is all we need, which means we also believe that the search for truth is no longer necessary when we can google it.

But is is the search for truth that transforms the soul. The consumption of truth offers only a two-dimensional glimpse of that three-dimensional transformation. The search is like a lengthy vacation in a foreign land. Mere consumption is like reading the brochure for a trip never taken.

Just as muscles will not develop by reading exercise plans, spiritual transformation will never take place by consuming doctrine, especially that which is delivered in the inevitable banal language suited to consumerism.

Today, we are going to take a 3-day journey in search of truth. And our guide is a twelve-year old boy. 

Source Scripture

The Search is On: Luke 2:41-52

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Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

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The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

When Albert Einstein was five years old, sick, and lying in bed, his father handed him a compass. He became fascinated by the needle's ability to always point north, no matter how he rotated it. He called it a "wonder" and later in life said this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.

And what do we see Einstein growing up to do? Searching for the hidden forces at work in our universe.

As above, so below.

There are hidden forces at work in you, too. Deep down in your soul. And Awestruck's aim is to lead you on a journey to the center of you to discover those forces.

In this episode, we will review the hidden forces explored in episodes 8-13 and get a sneak preview of what's ahead. And, you'll also get the answer to these questions from listeners...

1. Why do you use Scripture as your source?
2. Why is this podcast called Awestruck again?
3. What is all this soul-centering talk?

Source Scripture

The Birth of Grace: Luke 2:1-7 Treasuring: Luke 2:8-20 Expose': Luke 2:21-40 When You See It: Matthew 2:1-12 How Far Will You Go?: Matthew 2:13-18 Nothing is Everything: Matthew 2:19-23

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

Self-worth is a core value that none of us question. We all want value, purpose, and love.

The reason we struggle with securing self-worth is two-fold: 1) We equate self-worth with feelings and emotions, which are the deepest part of the ego but only the shallows of the soul. And 2) We spend our lives devising schemes that will attend to our ego's perceived needs, which do little or nothing for the soul, leaving us exhausted and discontent.

Today we'll take an honest look at the goals we set in pursuit of self-worth to see how and why they may be missing the mark. We'll also go deeper in order to realign our very definition of self-worth, which will inherently alter our way of life. Our quality of life.

Source Scripture

Nothing is Everything: Matthew 2:19-23

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

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The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

We too often mistake the sum total of who we are for what we feel, think, and do. This dooms us to believe that the deepest fulfillment available to us is experiencing positive feelings. And this assumption leads us to one primary paradigm of living - we must survey the environment of people and things available to us and master the art of manipulation as it pertains to all of them so that we can achieve and maintain those desired feelings.

But wait. If our feelings are desired, then there must be more to us. Where do our desires originate?

We went down this rabbit hole in Episode 10, Shadow Work, but we need a refresher for today's focus. Here is a Dr. Seussian summary of Shadow Work...

The choices you choose Birth beliefs that you use To nourish desires That fuel all the fires Of emotions you chase Which form thoughts you embrace To condone what you do That reveal the real you

Our makeup goes much deeper than our feelings and emotions. And the core choices we make reveal who we are and prompt us to do what we do. 

When we get stuck, as many of us do, in the shallows of believing our depths are limited to just thoughts and emotions, we become desperate to maintain our emotions in their desired states. So desperate, in fact, that we don't yet realize how far we will go.

This is by definition the ego, and the logical conclusion of its pursuit is that we become prodigals, far from our true home, depleted, starved, and wondering if we can ever go back.

Today's episode offers you a divine pathway that will light the way back home no matter how far you've wandered, and keep you close to home once you get there.

It's called meekness. And it's one of those core choices you make way down deep in your soul. Here is a proper definition of meekness.

Meekness is trusting in divine providence over external circumstances so much so that you resist every temptation to exert egoistic forces (such as manipulation and violence) and instead live centered in the soul.

Meekness may rhyme with weakness, but the similarities stop there. Meekness draws on great strength to resist the forces of evil that will inevitably descend. It has at its heart this mantra from Romans 12:21: Do not overcome evil with evil, but evil with good.

Today we will see just how far two people will go in regards to meekness. One will escape in darkness to another continent with his family to embrace it, and the other will embrace the darkness and destroy many families just to escape it.

Source Scripture

How Far Will You Go?: Matthew 2:13-18

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

Our nature consists in motion. Complete rest is death - Blaise Pascal.

When Galileo asserted that the earth was not the center of the universe but in fact moved around the sun, he was convicted of heresy by the church, forced to recant, and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

"And yet, it moves," Galileo would whisper about the earth, despite the threat of even harsher punishment. It took years for all of humanity to awaken to the truth.

The Universe was formerly seen as man saw himself - as within, so without. I am the center. All must revolved around me. But the truth became plain through Galileo's telescope - as above, so below. I am not the center. I am in motion, along with others, around something much bigger than myself. Something full of radiance. Warmth. Light. Life.

Though the outward struggle to believe Galileo's truth no longer exists, the inward struggle to relinquish the ego as the center endures.

How we see ourselves determines how we see the world. As within, so without. And how we see and accept the truth determines whether we know ourselves. As above, so below.

If we allow the truth to penetrate us, we will live freely and animated, centered in the soul. But if we refuse, we will stagnate and wither.

Source Scripture

When You See It: Matthew 2:1-12

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

The shadow is the darkest part of you that works against soul-centered living. Sometimes you are completely blind to it, and sometimes you turn a blind eye to it intentionally because to confront it - to confront yourself - creates too much unrest. Too much cognitive dissonance. And so you suppress, deny, rationalize, diminish, blame shift, judge - anything but confront yourself.

And so you live in the shadow, which inherently produces a state of being that the Hopi Indians sum up in a single word: Koyaanisqatsi. Life out of balance. Off center. The Scriptures also have a similar, single word to describe not only the life out of balance, but also the shadow that produces it: amartia  - or missing the bull's eye. This single, amazing word conjures the full scene of an archer selecting an arrow, drawing the bow, taking aim at a target, releasing the tension, and watching in dismay as the arrow fails to hit the center of its intended target. The result is that the arrow now rests off center.

The only solution is re-centering.. Not trying again. There is no try. You must re-center your life from the soul. There you will find light again, exposing the shadow and placing you perfectly in the bull's eye.

This is called shadow work. And it's not easy.  But remember, we are on a hero's journey to the center of the soul. And every hero in the making must face his biggest fear to continue.

Source Scripture

Expose': Luke 2:21-40

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

The subject on which you choose to focus gives birth to the predicate that composes each sentence of your life's narrative.

Focus on the oft-overlooked treasures pulsing in nature and your soul may stir, leaving you rapt and composing the poetry of the ages.

Focus on the money not present in your bank account and your ego will be in agitation, producing frustration within and self-centered wrecklessness without.

The subject of our focus is our choice. Which means the predicate we live is our choice as well.

Today - we will focus on the hidden treasures all around us that offer themselves as the subject of our focus. To find them, we just need to dig.

Source Scripture

Treasuring: Luke 2:8-20

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)

 

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. Albert Schweitzer

Kindness is a divine force that moves people. Grace, a radical form of kindness, transforms.

Formally defined, kindness is intentional goodwill freely offered to another without an expectation of reciprocity. Grace is the demonstration of unmerited kindness, often in such a way that it involves great risk or is offered to someone undeserving.

The ego-centered life wrestles with kindness. It is cautious, determined to seek a return on its investment - if not from the recipient, then from a tax deduction or boost in reputation or the like. 

The ego even has trouble with receiving kindness, because it lives in suspicion of its obligations to return the favor. Each ego fears the expectations of the other.

And if kindness is rare, grace is impossible to the ego, because it sees no opportunity for return at all. To the ego, grace is nonsensical madness.

The soul-centered life thrives on grace because it is a natural tributary of the river of divine presence that flows from the God of the Universe through us and outward to others.

Today we will see multiple examples of amazing grace that invite us not only to observe, but to participate. 

Source Scripture

The Birth of Grace: Luke 2:1-7

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod Email: [email protected]

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist  (Apple I Spotify)