{"id":20,"date":"2011-01-31T12:46:15","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T12:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html"},"modified":"2011-01-31T12:46:15","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T12:46:15","slug":"a-simple-observation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Observation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Today I have just returned to N. Fort Myers, Florida from New<br \/>\nYork City (where Steve and I reprised our play &#8220;The Ice Cream Man Cometh&#8221;) and had a simple observation I wanted to share.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As I was thinking about writing a blog, it occurred to me how<br \/>\nmuch we are affected whenever there is a change in scenery.&nbsp; Perhaps this is why<br \/>\nso many feel recharged after a vacation. While I would agree that the primary<br \/>\nreason for feeling recharged is directly related to freeing the mind from the<br \/>\nstress of everyday life, I would say that it is because there is more interaction<br \/>\nrather than reacting taking place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In Prophet or Madman, I said that we have only two options<br \/>\nwhen it comes to experiencing each moment. The two choices we have are to<br \/>\nreact or interact. As I have discovered through years of observing myself and<br \/>\nothers in this world, for the most part human beings are reactive creators. By<br \/>\nthat I mean that as humans, when our surroundings become very familiar, we tend to<br \/>\ndevelop patterns and thus react rather than interact. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Although reacting may appear to be your natural state, once<br \/>\nyou awaken to your true spiritual self you will find most of your reacting to be nothing more<br \/>\nthan&nbsp; conditioned responses. You\/we are so much more than that. You\/we are<br \/>\ninfinite spiritual beings. The moment you open your spiritual eyes, it becomes<br \/>\nobvious that anything other than interacting is not fully living.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Regardless of what path you may find yourself on, or what<br \/>\nreligion you practice, anyone who wishes to awaken and live awakened in this<br \/>\nworld will have to deal with their own struggles. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">More to come&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Love and Light,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Brother Bruce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Today I have just returned to N. Fort Myers, Florida from New York City (where Steve and I reprised our play &#8220;The Ice Cream Man Cometh&#8221;) and had a simple observation I wanted to share. As I was thinking about writing a blog, it occurred to me how much we are affected whenever there&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":234,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[74,101,97,100,99,98],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enlightenment","category-spirituality","tag-fort-myers","tag-interacting","tag-new-york-city","tag-reacting","tag-response","tag-spiritual"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Simple Observation - Prophet or Madman<\/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\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Simple Observation - Prophet or Madman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Today I have just returned to N. Fort Myers, Florida from New York City (where Steve and I reprised our play &#8220;The Ice Cream Man Cometh&#8221;) and had a simple observation I wanted to share. As I was thinking about writing a blog, it occurred to me how much we are affected whenever there&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prophet or Madman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-31T12:46:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Simple Observation - Prophet or Madman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Simple Observation - Prophet or Madman","og_description":"&nbsp; Today I have just returned to N. Fort Myers, Florida from New York City (where Steve and I reprised our play &#8220;The Ice Cream Man Cometh&#8221;) and had a simple observation I wanted to share. As I was thinking about writing a blog, it occurred to me how much we are affected whenever there&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html","og_site_name":"Prophet or Madman","article_published_time":"2011-01-31T12:46:15+00:00","author":"Chris Johnson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html","name":"A Simple Observation - Prophet or Madman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-01-31T12:46:15+00:00","dateModified":"2011-01-31T12:46:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/#\/schema\/person\/4e94f88eb1ed2f6bd6fcd5a2059a3d6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/2011\/01\/a-simple-observation.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Simple Observation"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/","name":"Prophet or Madman","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/#\/schema\/person\/4e94f88eb1ed2f6bd6fcd5a2059a3d6e","name":"Chris Johnson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe2f70f83a998bab664fad98361c017x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe2f70f83a998bab664fad98361c017x96.jpg","caption":"Chris Johnson"},"description":"Chris Johnson has been an ordained minister for forty four years. He says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So you'd think I'd know a thing or two about these spiritual matters. On the contrary, the deepest profundity I've been able to manage is to try to live my life in accordance with the Golden Rule. So that's what I do and have advised others to do through my social work as a founder of the National Optimists Party. Yet on a personal level, the fact of the matter is that while, over time, I've found myself with an increasing sense of awe and reverence for the magnificence of creation, I've experienced a receding sense of understanding and familiarity with the Creator. Imagine my good fortune to run into Bruce Adams, a fine soul whose ears are directly attuned to the Creator's frequency. I'm looking forward to learning a lot and enjoying myself immensely as I join Bruce and my good friend Steve on our lighthearted spiritual journey all across this great land looking for and ministering to the souls of America.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/author\/cjohnson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prophetormadman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}