Services Launch!

Well, instead of my usual topics for discussion this week, I am writing a blog post to highlight the imminent launching of other services I plan to provide. If you stumble upon my blog through my website, then you of course already know the nature of it's purpose. If you're reading my blog directly or from an RSS feed though, some of this will be news.

In the very near future, I shall be launching and promoting my personal domain. Actually, I've already began doing this to an extent but as my website is not complete, I haven't been talking much about it. I've spent the last few months trying to get the content finished but it has been a challenge finding the time. People are more than welcome to stop by and take a look though, add it to your bookmarks and check back often because it will get finished:
MinisterButler.com

Next, you will notice that in the body of my blog messages, I have inserted a small button icon advertising my status as an BitWine Advisor. This is in line with my attempt to get back into one of the things I enjoy most, counselling and helping people. If you click on that button, it will send you to my BitWine profile where you will be given the opportunity to start chatting with me.

BitWine is partnered with Skype, so the possibilities are really great for the type of service I wish to provide. I can stay within the realm of text chats or I can transfer to Skype for audio as well as offer a direct phone conversation. The site even comes with a scheduler so I and others can schedule appointments for sessions. As a point of note, I'm also listed on the Keen.com Advisor network but I am not heavily promoting my phone service at this time as the BitWine approach makes life somewhat easier for me.

All of this has been VERY slow going for me as sometimes I tend to overload myself with ideas and have to let them kind of stream out in whatever order they want. I plan on providing written works of encouragement and guidance as well but these are going to be even more time consuming. Some of these materials will be free downloads and others will be in the form of downloadable ebooks and actual booklets, both for a small fee.

This brings me to one of the struggles I've had to deal with in pursuing all of this. Even when I was a Pastor, the idea of getting paid for my interpretations of scripture seemed a bit wrong. I'll grant you that being there for people as a counselor and spending hours putting sermons and lessons together does take it's share of toll on the mind and sometimes even the body.

So, I have decided to have an equal balance of free material and paid material. People will get a vast majority of my "core" teachings for free, only paying for the more in depth works. The same holds true for my BitWine counseling, one reason I chose to go with them. The services allows me to control the "meter" so to speak. This means you do not get charged for simply starting a chat with me, gives people a chance to feel me out and allows me to stop the charging process if I need to go into an indepth explanation of something I feel doesn't warrant the caller paying money for during the course of the conversation.

It is my hope that by doing this, I can show people that I am not in this for money and my rates will reflect that compared to similar people offering similar services. I hold a full time job on top of my spiritual pursuits, so I do not feel the need to bleed people's pocket books. My ebooks will never cost more than 5.00 and any printed material I end up publishing will be equally as fairly priced as I plan to do all of the publishing myself.

Dividing Line In The Spiritual Sands

Something has dawned on me today that I can't help but write about. Are these not interesting times we live in? Moreover, I believe these are incredible times! Yes, that's right, with a world economy in shambles, natural disasters on the uprise, general states of human suffering still lingering on and on and the constant threat of worldwide violence ever present, I still find a place for hope regarding the future. I'll grant you, I'm just as concerned about current events as anyone else out there and I have my own stresses in life to deal with because of how the world is right now. I have found that it is important to not lose sight of the big picture though, to see where all of this could in fact be going.

I don't know if any of you have felt it as I have but change is in the air, a very unique and very different kind of change. Some are calling it a "Shift" of consciousness and I believe that this is dead on accurate. The even more interesting thing is that the lines of change are being drawn and there is still some division on either side of this line. This is why I still do what I do, I care for people and I don't want to draw people to my side of the line, I want to erase the line all together.

Have you ever heard the expression that things get at their worst just before they improve to their best? Look around at the mesh of different things going on in the world. I don't have to explain all of the troubling parts but has anyone stopped to see the good that's mixing in with it? There is a shift going on in the world where things like religion are concerned. The world at large is taking a good hard look at what religion has led it too and the overwhelming majority are waking up and realizing that they have had enough.

People in countries that once held great economic superiority and influence are beginning to find that the powers of corruption and greed are finally tearing down the walls that for so long have made them feel so secure. Citizens within these countries are also waking up to the fact more than ever, that they truly have been misled by their governments and businesses. The vast majority of these people are also waking up to the realization that enough is enough.

Countless millions are realizing that war and death are direct products of religion and greed and the more we as a civilization of people unite under these realizations, the more the powers that be lose their hold and control over circumstances at large. You see regimes tightening their grips, governments throwing every effort at restoring order so people don't ask too many questions as the truths that have been masked by decades of complacency, finally fall from under the veil.

As these things continue to unfold, we are beginning to see where these lines of division are drawn among the general population. I see it directly in my everyday life! People who were once planning for bright futures, thinking of the long term, no longer bother to even plan so much as a month ahead because people really believe that their entire world may very well fall apart from month to month, that's crazy! Yet, I myself have had to fight really hard to keep from getting caught up in the drama. Even those whose wills are strong and their hope secure can get strung along into the stampede.

This is where the importance of things like sharing and witnessing become so very important. The end result is going to be good but how good will it be? My belief is that some will reach a breakthrough not just of spirit but of existence entirely and others, just will not have the energy and ability to take that leap. It will not be a separation of good and bad but I do believe at some point humanity will indeed split. One group will advance to a new grade level and another group will repeat a grade level that's the closest analogy I can make.

You have a choice if you are one of the people who finds themselves trapped in a stampede of uncertainty and stress. Simply take a breathe, and step out of the mess around you, put yourself above it and around it so that you can begin to help influencing rather than being drug along by it. I see people like this at my job on a daily basis and I have been starting to actively try and shift these attitudes more towards love and positive thinking because this is the only type of "ministry" the world needs.

This is the choice of some, but the call to all, that we come together under these banners of positive thinking and try to reduce the negative impact the current world changes have on the population at large. These things *must* happen in order for the good and better days to begin, we can't stop the continuing struggle of the powers that believe they control our world, to hold on to that illusion and it's going to be a bit rough from time to time as they fight to hold on. The more we as a people bring our desires for a different way together, the more our consciousness as a race will shift and begin to point mankind into that direction.

We have the power within each and everyone one of ourselves to actively induce the changing of the world. It begins with self awareness, and truly understanding self and from there taking that understanding and passing it on to others, willing the conscious energy you share with those around you to retune itself into a harmony of positive thinking and universal love understanding. Remember that analogy I made earlier? Well, we are going through periods where love *seems* to be lacking but the universe is love, the real and agape kind, we cannot escape that. Existence will naturally flow towards that which is love light and light love, it's inevitable.

The path to that may not always seem smooth however and indeed may not be a path all of our beings can transverse but why on earth is that a bad thing? We're all developing differently and eventually, we'll be in the same spot. This is the storm, these are the days of great trial that will bring about mankind's awakening to a new and better way of existing. The excitement really is mounting!

Anger Management

This week, I would like to talk about something that is to this day still a huge struggle for me. Is there really a full proof way to overcome feelings of anger, resentment, and hostility towards others? Let's face it, we all know people that really make us angry and sometimes, those feelings are well justified. We've all been manipulated by someone at some point in our lives, we've all worked with people who drive us crazy and we all know individuals with poor ethics and personality qualities that make us want to scream.

Those of us who have sat under any amount of spiritual teaching, have heard about the concept of unconditional love towards are fellow man. After all of these lectures, I'm sure some of you felt just like me, a little bit guilty about the ill feelings you harbored towards that guy that cut you off on the freeway, flipped you the bird after running a stoplight, or got away with sitting on their butt at work while you busted yours. You probably have made many commitments to never feel that way toward anyone again only to find that after the sermon, on Monday morning, the real world slaps you in the face and the cycle starts all over again.

So what is the secret to this deeply philosophical concept that when mastered, brings us closer to God and each other? Well, given my experience, I'm sorry to tell you that there isn't one. Emotions are an insanely complicated thing to master and if there is anyone out there who can back up a claim to have fully tamed theirs, please, share your thoughts with us. Now, I do believe that as time goes on and as we make a conscious effort, we can control the intensity of these negative emotions but to rid ourselves of them entirely? Not sure it's possible at this stage in our human development.

As the title of this post says, it's about management, not full control. Let's face it, we're all going to encounter negative feelings, it's part of life for anyone who lives and works in the real world. As a 9 to 5 man myself, I run into it on a daily basis and it is a huge challenge to keep those feelings at bay in the face of dealing with how our world works day in and day out. Oh, and believe me, if you bite your tongue and treat people nicely on the surface and yet still feel the enormous rage and anger in your heart, you're not doing a bit of good. All you're doing in that case is seething and aren't really exercising work towards unconditional love.

So, how do we begin to counter balance this nasty habit of ours to get upset and angry in a spiritual way that doesn't cause us to be in a constant state of repentance and anguish over failing to live up to our religious world's high moral standards of holiness? First of all, throw the standards out because they don't work for everyone just as what I'm about to suggest may not work for some of you. My beliefs have changed so much though that confronting anger and rage with my current mentality makes life a lot easier to bare.

First of all, you need to tear down a very significant wall by viewing yourself differently in order to view others, differently. For me, this began when I tossed out the idea that most modern religious organizations would have us believe. This belief is that we are products of the creator, each a unique representation of the creator's personality. This puts in the "rat in a cage" spot, driving home the idea that we are "creatures" the end result of a thought or idea the creator had. This notion also puts a division between us and the creator.

What if this is not the case at all? What if *we* are the creator? By that, I mean what if instead of being the product of a creator's thought process, we are actually and active part of that process? We then become more than separated entities brought forth by the creator and instead become a part of the creator's personality, a conscious representation *of* the creator, not something made in that creator's likeness. So, if we can imagine ourself as being a unique thought of the great consciousness that is a creator, I think it can begin to change our self opinion.

Using that idea, how then does it pertain to others? You see, I believe that the creator is expressing and experiencing himself *through* us as a conscious and independent extension of himself. Now, I realize this is a really strange thing to grasp at first and I'm working on it! I'm preparing a booklet of sorts about the subject of the creator as one vs the creator and the creation. Simply put though, we are all individual parts of one larger consciousness.

So if this is indeed the case, the argument shifts from being "God must have had a reason to create a person the way they are." to "Ah, the Creator is trying to experience himself through these various personality complexes and how they interact." which if you stop to meditate on it, really can help in relating to one another. Keep in mind though, that the ultimate goal of the creator is to have these experiences and at the same time, grow in unconditional love. This is the one facet of the creator religions have right, he is a creator that exists in love, the Agape kind.

Also, I say "he" only because it's easier for me to put a pronoun to the creator. In reality, gender is not an issue. So, what do you think? If you can wrap your mind around the concept that we are all the creator trying to experience existence in every way that he can, does it make how we view and perceive others change any? I can tell you that it has for me. I still get irritated at people and I still lose my temper on occasion (though like everyone else, I'm trying to work on it) but after I reflect, I begin to understand that our creator is giving himself the fullest extent of experience possible by manifesting each of our individual natures.

Put simply, we are an active thought process of the creator. So, while we may not understand how people can be the way they are at times, try to see if you can understand why the *creator* would choose to experience that type of person. also, try to remember that your reaction is yet another experience for the creator. When we "wake up" to this self understanding, it opens the doors not just for anger management but an entirely new outlook on where we're going. The closer we get to experiencing unconditional love, the more in tune with universal consciousness we will become and that friends, is when we shall be truly enlightened.