The Common Thread

I think I have a form of A.D.D.  For me, all of my writing flows out of a mind that is constantly working.  I tend to live more in the realm of my thoughts than in the realm of the world going on around me.  Yes, I'm aware that this is probably not a positive thing.  It makes interaction with the world around me - particularly relationships - somewhat challenging.  I often find it difficult to concentrate on the task or project or relationship at hand if it is not somehow connected to what is going on in my mind.    That's been the case with blogging.  Let me explain.

There are three arenas of thought that I find occupying my mind most of the time.  The first arena has to do with the liberty of the human heart and mind.  That's why I began this blog.  I believe that optimum life is found in breaking free from the bondage of a painful past, perceived limitations and shortcomings, and learning to look beyond what we see in ourselves and our circumstances to become all that we are meant to become.  And what we are meant to become is a force of unimaginable good in the world around us.  This is life.

The second arena of thought that I find myself consumed with from time to time is the liberty of the human spirit from the control of religion.  I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  And I believe that he alone atoned for humanity's evil and made a way for us to experience the optimum life I mentioned above.   I have been a pastor.  And I have come to believe that the greatest bondage of the human spirit can be found in the religions that we create for ourselves.  There is a story in the Bible about the nation of Israel in the earliest days of her existence.  God desired for them to exist as a people free from human control.  But they began to look at the nations around them, noticing that all of them had a human government with a king, and they said to God, "We want to be like the nations around us.  Give us a king."  God granted their desire.  And they came under the rule of a long succession of human disasters (with a few good ones here and there) that eventually led to their destruction.

I believe that followers of Jesus Christ have done the same thing.  We are meant to live as a community of redeemed people with Jesus as our head.  Yet we have, and continue to, create religious governments to manage, control, and feed us.

Well, there's a third arena of thought.  That is the liberty of the American people.  I am one who believes that at one time the United States of America was the greatest nation on the face of the earth.  We were great not because of our wealth, not because of our military might, but because of our freedom.  I believe that our founding fathers and our constitution were divinely inspired for the purpose of creating a people on earth who would demonstrate the beauty of God-given freedom to the rest of the world.  However, I am also one who believes that our country is in a death spiral.  Our constitution is no longer revered.  Our founding fathers have been forgotten.  Our government is no longer a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."  And our "Republic" is being supplanted by an accelerating movement toward socialism.

These are the mega-themes of my mind.  I am seldom fully engaged in more than one at the same time.  So when I have a blog that focuses on just one of those themes, it falls silent as I enter into seasons of thought in one of the other arenas.  I do see that there is one common thread running through my main areas of interest, and that is the thread of liberty.  So, instead of managing one blog with one focus, I am creating a "network" if you will of three separate, yet interconnected, blogs with each one devoted to one of these three mega-themes.  There will be a "feed box" on each blog scrolling the latest posts on the other two.  This way, if one of the blogs falls quiet for several days, you will be able to see what I am writing on the others.

The blog focusing on the liberty of the American people and the necessity of our activism for the preservation of liberty will be called www.keepusfree.net.  Don't go there yet, it's not live at the time of this writing.  And the blog focusing on the liberty of the human spirit will be called www.churchdetox.net.  Likewise, this link is not yet active, but will be soon.

To those of you who have become part of this blog community here at "A Look Beyond," I hope you'll stick with me and become a regular at the other blogs as well.  I'll let you know as soon as they go live.

Comments

[Chris Lang]

Bill,

You don't have ADD and there is nothing wrong with how you think. You, I believe, allot like me, find what we think about much more interesting than the mundane, boring, simple existence that makes others very happy.

I do miss the days of working a 8 hour a day job, drinking a beer at happy hour and heading home to what ever else and not really worrying about much else.

I happen to be fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes on the Internet. I love trying to figure out what it is that makes me rank #1 on Google one minute and then gone the next, just to reappear a few hours later at #4 and stay there for months.

Or why no one signs up to my newsletter list and then I get a 50% opt in rate for months after, just because I did one thing different.

The solutions to those and others makes for great blogging, great thinking and great products that I make my living from. I love both, so what makes that wrong?

Ask my ex-wife, she will be glad to tell you.

[Lea]

I too tend to be deep into my mind and thoughts. I don't consider myself ADD, but a thinker. I agree that being into one's thoughts and mind too much can prevent one from living in the moment and something that I am always trying to alter.

[Lea]

I too tend to be deep into my mind and thoughts. I don't consider myself ADD, but a thinker. I agree that being into one's thoughts and mind too much can prevent one from living in the moment and something that I am always trying to alter.

[Lea]

I too tend to be deep into my mind and thoughts. I don't consider myself ADD, but a thinker. I agree that being into one's thoughts and mind too much can prevent one from living in the moment and something that I am always trying to alter.