On the issue of homosexuality

I figured I would be writing about this topic sooner or later and with all the uproar over Chick-Fil-A in the recent days now seems to be the time to do it.  Now the purpose of this blog was to highlight parts of the Bushido code  and how I might apply it to my own personal life to make myself a better person.  So you might be wondering what the chicken peddler and the homosexual life style have anything to do with me and this blog.  To explain this I need to dive some years into the past.

There is no real easy way to say this nor do I have any desire (or right) to sugar coat it, but as a younger man I hated homosexuality, more so I hated the homosexual.  Why you ask?  Well most likely an error in my own thinking on the idea of what is good and evil which was fueled by this Bible verse:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

At the time this seemed pretty cut and dry to me.  If you're gay well then have a good time in hell.  Really that line of thought is to my everlasting shame and more than likely may have coast me some friendships.  Still life is full of surprises and we are given chances to grow and learn and I feel that as I grew older and learned more about critical thinking and became interested in forging my owns ideas and beliefs I did gradually become a better person.  I realized that rudeness and impolite behavior only demonstrated my own insecurities and weakness.   Still the matter of homosexuality was something I struggled with for many years.   I had become friends with some homosexuals, I learned that some people I knew for many years were in fact homosexuals, and they were all excellent people of good character and I just could not just simply accept that fire was all that was awaiting these people.  

So what conclusion did I arrive at?

Simply this.  Jesus said to love our neighbor as yourself.  I want to be treated with dignity and respect.  I want to treat myself with dignity and respect.  I will extend that to all who cross my path.  I have no reason to be rude or disrespectful.  More so I have no right to be hateful.  Hate is a poison the will slowly choke the life out of us all if we allow it a place within ourselves.  Furthermore I've come to believe that the door to heaven is open to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

So the common theme here is one of

RESPECT

Now more than ever I think we need to seek to understand each other.  Even if we do not agree, we can at least agree to disagree and give each other the measure of respect we all deserve.

"Come now, let us reason together," Says the Lord. - Isaiah 1:18.

Brandt

Change

This past week I accepted a new job which would take me from my current place of employment for the past 5 years and move me to a new location in a supervisory position.  I am excited to start this new position and chapter of life, but I would be lying if I said that I would not miss the people I spent so many years with. However this opportunity is well timed, considering what I'm trying to accomplish. 

At my old job I perhaps said or did somethings that were out of character or unbecoming.  Things said in frustration and anger.  One should not allow this to happen.  Miyamoto Musashi wrote that we should not regret what we have done.  In order to accomplish this we must think about what we do or say before we do it.  We have to seek to better understand ourselves and the actions we take.  If we find that they make us angry or bitter we must seek to understand why and then change ourselves. 

There is a second part to this piece of advice.  Samurai sought to be masters of themselves and in doing so became masters of others.  Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote in Hagakure that “To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.”   Our words are powerful agents and not only must we watch what we say we must carefully judge when, where, how, and to whom they are spoken.

"Act like a man of thought - Think like a man of action." - Thomas Mann 

Brandt

A fresh new take on life

I've always been fascinated by Bushido or The Way of the Warrior. The philosophy which governed Japan's warrior class. While the historical samurai is now a legend of generations past, that spirit, that philosophy lives on today and my plan is to embrace it and hopefully become a better person because of it. So it will be here in my new blog that I will chronicle my attempt at the way of the warrior. While I certainly realize that I do not consider myself a "Warrior" as in the fact I am not a soldier, I do believe we all battle against something and that makes us all warriors in some sense. So with all that being said...lets get to it.