{"id":19,"date":"2015-04-03T06:05:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T06:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/?p=19"},"modified":"2015-05-01T17:57:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T17:57:03","slug":"its-about-me-not-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/2015\/04\/its-about-me-not-him.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s About Me Not Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently was walking down the street and a feeble-looking man was asking for money. At first I walked by. I couldn\u2019t get him off my mind, however, so I turned around and handed him a ten dollar bill. <\/p>\n

A few minutes later, a well-put-together man walked up to me and said: \u201cYou know you are just enabling him. Giving him money will not help him out in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about it for a while. And he was probably right. What I did was not going to lead him to self-sufficiency. It may in-fact lead to more of the same behavior.<\/p>\n

But . . . . I did not give the money for him. <\/p>\n

I gave it for me.<\/p>\n

At the end of life, on my deathbed, I\u2019m pretty sure I will be more satisfied to have been a giver rather than a non-enabler.<\/p>\n

Life provides us with the power \u2013 through our decisions and actions \u2013 to create ourselves. It provides us with little, if any, power to create others.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, life is about selfishness \u2013 the creation of ourselves. <\/p>\n

Cut the Crap: We are empowered to create others.<\/p>\n

Bring in the Change: We are empowered to create ourselves.<\/p>\n

Timothy Velner is a husband, father, attorney and author living in Minneapolis. You can follow his daily blog \u2013 a series of discussions between the worry-self and the present-self \u2013 at: thespiritualgym.me<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently was walking down the street and a feeble-looking man was asking for money. At first I walked by. I couldn\u2019t get him off my mind, however, so I turned around and handed him a ten dollar bill. A few minutes later, a well-put-together man walked up to me and said: \u201cYou know you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's About Me Not Him - Cut the Crap Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/2015\/04\/its-about-me-not-him.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's About Me Not Him - Cut the Crap Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently was walking down the street and a feeble-looking man was asking for money. 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I remember on those Sundays righteously thinking \u2013 I\u2019ve got my crap together. All my friends are at home sleeping, and when it all comes to an end, I\u2019ll be standing tall. After college I continued to trudge through life dotting my i\u2019s and crossing my t\u2019s \u2013 all on my way toward a supposed happy ending. Through the early part of law school I continued with church every Sunday and even picked up a teaching gig \u2013 Wednesday-night catechism. I was checking boxes and nothing was going to stand in my way \u2013 double-toothpicks would never know the likes of me. As time went on in law school, however, things slowly began to change. Training to be an attorney required that I to pay attention to my words and actions. No more doing things just to do them. Success in law school demanded that I understood why things were said and what they meant. It was a new experience for me \u2013 personal responsibility for my thoughts and actions. Little did I know, however, I was on a crash course with religion. As I continued with church and teaching catechism, things started to unravel. I started thinking about what I was saying. And a lot of it didn\u2019t make sense. In fact, a lot of it seemed quite absurd. How could a loving God condemn someone to hell? If God was all-powerful, why would hell even exist? How could there be one true church when much of religion was determined by geography? But what really got me was the selective adoration of God. If someone was cured of cancer, it was always through the grace of God, but where was God when someone died a tragic death? The religious hypothesis for life failed the consistency test. Too many things just didn\u2019t make sense. But who was I to question religion? Besides, questioning took a lot of work and left a lot of uncertainty - It was much easier to do what I was told, and hope for the best. So I plowed ahead with the prescribed formula \u2013 be nice, go to church, believe in Jesus and maybe dump a little money in the basket. But as the weeks and months went by that formula revealed itself as more and more contrived. It smelled crappy - of humans trying to control each other. I wanted to cut ties, but was scared to leave. I still needed something to help me with the uncertainty of life, and didn\u2019t know where to turn. So I reluctantly continued down the same path. As time proceeded, however, that path became more and more restrictive. I had become a caged bird and was looking for my keeper to open the door. Slowly I began to realize that I was my own keeper. I started exploring other religions, philosophies and spiritualties. I attended churches of different denominations. I spoke to anyone who had an interest in the topic. I took it all in, and it slowly digested. I began listening to my own voice. My keeper was ready to open the door. But one question continued to nag me. What if I was wrong? What if my inner-voice was leading me astray? What if a happy ending really meant holding firm to one certain belief? With double-toothpicks at stake, I needed to be sure. So 1997, I quit my job as an attorney, sold my house and moved to California to attend Divinity School at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. It was through that experience that my keeper finally had the courage to turn the key and open the door. I flew free to experience a new world. A world that was always right in front of me but hidden through religious fear. I no longer look at life through the eyes of religion where we are being watched and judged by a father figure. I no longer look at life as something that must be undertaken through a prescribed formula. I no longer look at life as though someone else has the answers for me to follow. I cut the crap from religion, and went rogue. The following blogs will provide some insight into the crap I cut and the change I experienced. I don\u2019t proclaim to have any answers \u2013 only my own experiences that I am willing to share with you. If what I share doesn\u2019t resonate, toss it aside and move on. Finally, if I\u2019m wrong about all of this and end up in double-toothpicks, I\u2019ll just blame it on law school. At least I\u2019ll be in good company with all the other attorneys. Thanks for reading. You can follow my daily blog \u2013 a series of discussions between the worry-self and the present-self \u2013 at: thespiritualgym.me","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/author\/timvelner"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cutthecrapspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}