Urban Haas at his blog, Chasing the Asson, recently wrote a column called There is no Hell.  After reading the column I can say with some certainty that we appear to be on the same page.  Many of our beliefs parallel each other.  I’m having goosebumps even now considering all that I read in his column.  It’s almost like I was drawn to this column by a divine hand.  If for those of you who don’t know and are new to my blog, I’m convinced that when I’m at a loss for what to write about, the divine will intercede and show me the path to take.

It almost seems that’s the case here.  I belong to a blogging community called SeededBuzz.  What the community does is it consolidates blog columns in categories and if you’re accepted you can look through these categories; if a column jumps out you can read it and write about it at your blog and link back to the blog you found interesting.  This way you cross promote and the hope is by doing this you’ll attract readers to both blogs.

Anyway, I was looking through the community on Wednesday and came across Urban Haas and his column.  Here’s an except from the column that I found particularly fascinating, if only because this is TRULY what I believe too:
To me that understanding of God was one I couldn’t ignore. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that the God I did believe in wasn’t one that would judge and discard. That is setting people up to fail. That is malicious intent. That isn’t love.
The God I did believe in was one of love.
When I read excerpts of the life of Jesus that is what I saw. I didn’t read passage after passage of a man who preached how evil people were, but one who accepted the beggars, the whores, everyone for who they were, even if they weren’t of Israel, even if they didn’t follow him like that good Samaritan. The conclusions I came to were of good actions and love of everyone. This to me is where people go astray from his message. Most just claim to be part of the tribe.

This is what Rob Bell and his book Love Wins professes.  Everything Urban writes about in this column is what I believe.  You only have to read my blog to see this to be true.  Urban says:
I can conceive of the notions of reincarnation and Karma. I can see where we need to better ourselves to free us from our past, but I see that as a freeing of the scars we self-inflict. If we lie and cheat and run away from our own issues, our own problems, we have a long way to go to find our personal liberation.

I’ve seen this at work in my own life.  It isn’t until we confront our own past, our own challenges that we can move forward.  If we continue our destructive behavior we will come up against it in every incarnation we have.  There have been times in my own life where I’ve realized this and made the change.  I understand now that I’ve moved passed the challenge and I won’t have it the next time I return.

In another passage, Urban says:
Karma in this sense is the liberation of these past errors by coming to terms with the shitty way we’ve been and actually changing ourselves to be better. It’s owning our responsibility in cleaning up the damage we’ve done.

Karma?  That’s what I was referring to in relating to when I made changes so I know I won’t run into the same situation again.  I was balancing the scales.  I’m the one who made the change.  When I changed the situation changed.  That’s what I had to learn.  When confronting a challenge over and over and again and again, the natural inclination is to attempt to change the situation, which is exactly how I behaved.

Over and over.
And again and again.

I finally realized that the only thing I controlled was my reaction and I changed my reaction.  Once I did so the situation changed.

You can only change your reaction.
You can only change yourself.  That’s the karmic lesson I had to learn.

Urban Haas is right:
The only Hell that exists is the one we create.

The sooner we realize that the sooner we can move on.

Be Happy!  Be Well!  Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
—
Chris