After all the fun family time at Thanksgiving, we will get to head up to Champaign to celebrate my niece's FIRST birthday! I can't believe she is already ONE!! I love her to death and would do anything for her. It should be a great day! Strong's 3498: (a) adj: dead, lifeless, subject to death, mortal, (b) noun: a dead body, a corpse. From an apparently primary nekus; dead.

Then I'll say to myself, 'You have stored up enough good things to last for years to come. Live it up! Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.'" If from a human point of view I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what did it benefit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. After decades of surviving by identifying others’ bad qualities and either calling them out or steering clear of them as a means of self-protection, it’s time, Mary is showing me, to relax that harshness, turn off the spotlight, and focus on compassion. If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." If I have, as it were, fought "wild beasts" here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."

Coming Up

As I see it, working with Mary on our human selves this way is part of the work of becoming the Christ-Sophia within, activating the Divine Light as a way of being. Toward that end, on Saturday, December 18, I’ll also be offering an online Sacred Cacao Ceremony in which we call upon Mother Mary, facilitated by the gentle mind- and heart-opening plant spirit known as Ix Cacao, to help us all experience that Inner Light more brightly. The ceremony is the perfect accompaniment to the Winter Solstice, the time of year in the Global North that is all about the seeding of the light. Jesus tells us that He is the way, the truth, and the life, no one can come to the Father except through Him ( John 14:6). It is in our surrender of control, identity, and life to Jesus that we receive lifelong satisfying joy. There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: If at Ephesus I fought with beasts, so to speak, what benefit was it to me? If the dead are not raised: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Henry IV Part 2: Act 2, Scene 4 I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine. As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 5 Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five senses. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” As I ran from the building, I heard my friend shout something else out the window, and I screamed, “F- you, b-tch!” Defensive, hurt, self-protective. Nothing is better for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy his work. I have also seen that this is from the hand of God. Strong's 2192: To have, hold, possess. Including an alternate form scheo skheh'-o; a primary verb; to hold. Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.”- Ecclesiastes 8:15 (KJV)