BLISS

BLISS is my word for the year. I choose one word a year to immerse myself in, to learn all that I can about it, and begin to bring it into my life in a new way. Well...BLISS....is it.

For those of you who don't know, I'm Jewish by birth, my mom was a converted Southern Baptist, and I went to a charismatic Bible college. I think the Buddhists are spot on as to how they view their lives in relationship to the rest of the world. Oh, and I love Yoga.

Yes....I am confused in my ability to define what my faith is.

While I have very solid beliefs about my faith, I often think the church is a sanctimonious bunch that makes rules to exclude rather than include. I often leave a church gathering thinking, "Where's the love"!

The result is that my mother, to whom I no longer speak because of her judgements, thinks that I have a one-way, first-class ticket to hell.

I, on the other hand, think that God has it going on and while I don't quite understand how so many religions can have so many varied views of who this Divine presence might be...or not be, I still believe that he loves me unconditionally even in my poor decisions and bad luck.

This is the year of BLISS.

The Hebrew word for BLISS is

אושר; שימחה

which means to be confirmed or verified. It also means to be happy, but I think that was tacked on somehow.

Confirmed means marked by long continuance and likely to persist.

Verified means to establish the truth, accuracy, or reality of .

So in Hebrew, the word BLISS is an establishment of the truth that is likely to persist.

I want truth in my life. My life has been marred by constant detours into the twilight zone as I followed others that I believed were speaking the truth to me only to find out that I was not being looked after and protected at all.

I want the truth in my life and I want it to persist. Funny how this word BLISS is such a good one for me.

To Jenni - thanks for getting me to think on things that are BLISS!