https://otter.ai/u/rI2he1V1HFWCka0q6gu0c1VtCfg

One of my friends said God couldn’t have a personal interest in each of us.

I countered this claim by talking about integers versus the reals. There are a finite number of humans on the planet and ever in existence. However, the real numbers are infinitely greater than each and every integer.

If God is infinite, God’s not going to be the infinity of the Aleph Null integers. God’s going to be infinite like Aleph infinity infinity infinities plus one of any infinity that humans could ever imagine, much less articulate.

My friend is a mathematician. So he understood this description probably better than I do, and said it gave him something to think about.

In my mind, it is a simple proof that God, of course, can pay attention to each of us uniquely separately individually. Not like the small number of relationships that a human can form but a literal, infinite number of relationships, each in full Technicolor and care and attention

In addition to this, God can trivially have an infinite number of relationships per person, which has led me to addressing God as both daddy and mommy and brother and friend, and employer and mentor and allowing me to sink into all of these relationships, whether they be played out via humans, or played out in my heart.

They’ve been helping me stay more focused on moving in the right way. The most amazing thing for all of these is this sense of gratitude, which I’m still kind of playing with to see what it is or what it means, but somehow, gratitude seems to make things better. That’s as simply as I can articulate it at this point. It’s like the, you know, early days of discovering magnetism or something. It’s like “wow metal things are attracted to this lodestone” and you know, naming the the rock after the island where they were first discovered.

Now it’s like, “huh joy in my life is attracted to gratitude.” I recently had some experiences, a few synchronicities in a row related to my friend Jess who lives in Bondi Beach. When thinking of calling her, I looked up and saw Bondis Ocean Club cafe. And this cafe is near my station. But I had never seen it before.

Now, granted, I didn’t walk this particular route very often. I went a long way so I could have more privacy during another phone call. And yet, it’s just an amazing, interesting synchronicity. And I guarantee that I thought about calling Jess first before I saw the thing, and there’s been lots of physics, in science and different, whatever’s saying that time isn’t what we think it is. And space isn’t what we think it is and all this stuff.

So I’m just kind of like, poking at the edges of what anything might possibly be. And just seems the gratitude makes a difference in the physical world. The This has nothing to do with the synchronicity story, but like having the synchronicity I remind myself to have gratitude. And it’s just such an interesting cool thing. So I had this phone call with Jess in Bondi Beach and then later while having a conversation about her, she texted me. And I was like, oh, that’s also pretty cool. Now, granted, it’s not doesn’t mean anything. In particular, we had just been texting that days. So the odds are pretty high that we would text again, but it was just at the same time that actually someone else was talking about her so yeah, really, really interesting. synchronicities happening.

Is there a way to really tune in to a higher power at all times? Is that what enlightenment looks like? Or is that another description of enlightenment to simply be in tune with spirit all the time I’m just kind of blabbing about it. But it’s just so interesting that my life goes better when I’m feeling gratitude. And it’s easier to feel gratitude when my life goes better.

And so, taking this to an extreme, so to speak, like this feeling gratitude about everything I’ve heard phrases like imagine everything is happening for me, instead of to me like things are happening on my behalf including breaking my finger and I’m seeing all the accidents I’ve had in my life but like, stitches are on my hands or face or just whatever. And you’re breaking bones. Or my back or my head and your breakups being broken up by girlfriends or having to the fights with with my wife just somehow, staying present to this idea this is happening for me and expressing gratitude for the thing.

Now, I’m not always able to do that by any stretch, but when I can, it helps. It helps me stay present. For example, when Lin and I are having a fight helps me stay present. It helps me be able to recover, so to speak much more quickly. It helps me be able to stay calm and have it be able to help her stay calm as well. We went to a therapist who talked about my tendency to be quiet if I’m under any kind of duress, and Lin’s tendency to go under duress if she’s feeling isolated. So there would be this pattern happening that I would feel that she’s not listening to me or something to that would put me into a bad state. So I would just shut up and the why would I talk? Why should I talk if she’s not gonna listen? And so then Lin would feel like I’m running away from her so she would get more anxious and more talkative and are complaining and you know, and then therefore not able to hear me. So this is a second little vicious cycle. And having the awareness of that cycle, helps me a lot in recognizing how to let go of it.

By not engaging or just be it by being aware. But taking that a step further. Like having this cycle is for me, it’s a gift. It’s all for my benefit that this has been happening in my life. And so I can say, well, for example, you know, I get to know myself more or I get to have more joy with Lin, by getting out of that situation more quickly. And I recognize that that’s like saying that having the door locked allows me to unlock the door, which in itself maybe isn’t a gift but yeah, just this whole kind of sense of gratitude makes a big difference. Is very intriguing to me like what’s the metaphysics of gratitude? You know, why? Why would that be helpful and the YouTuber, Teal Swan said something like, “Don’t you like it when people express gratitude to you and it tend to want to do that thing for them more.” She say, well, Spirit is the same way. And it’s a funny way to anthropomorphize God, saying God is like a person which I just started this whole chapter by saying God’s not like a person but

Imagining that spirit likes to be given gratitude is a good way to, to think about spirit as a human. How actually correct is that? What does it mean? Perhaps it’s like, having gratitude vibrations around me attracts people who are also in gratitude and therefore more willing to engage with me in a good way. That kind of makes sense, you know, like, law of attraction kind of thing. And yet at the same time, I don’t need to figure it out. I can simply be grateful that I know the secret so to speak.

I can just use this knowledge or this this kind of skill, of being grateful for all the things happening in in my life. continually asking God to give me guidance and grateful for the guidance or, to me being grateful for the guidance. So yeah. Gratitude, ね。 That’s really really interesting.