http://happylittlecrittersband.com/

Happy Little Critters Band, 10 Archbishop May Drive, St. Louis, MO (2025)

10/28/2025

“A MIND TO SUFFER”
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

After a lifetime of persecution by the Chinese Communist government, Pastor Samuel Lamb died at the age of 88. One of his favorite slogans was: “Persecution is good for the Church.” He made that statement after his imprisonment had driven the membership of his “independent home-church movement” from 200 to 2000. When he died, 30,000 people attended his funeral.

Pastor Lamb also was known to have said: “Have A MIND TO SUFFER, [or] you’ll be broken.” We don’t mean to put lipstick on the “pig” of pain; nor do we want to romanticize it, to use it as a weapon or to teach lessons. (E.g. “Join Jesus on his cross.” “Kill your persecutors with kindness.” “God wants us to suffer, to learn….”)

“A MIND TO SUFFER” is simply a mind that embraces NECESSARY suffering. Yet our controlling minds keep insisting that suffering and pain are not necessary—crazy thinking. It’s like a football coach telling his players: “We will win the Super Bowl. But there will be no broken bones. There will be no concussions, and there will be no pain.” We are not pure spirits; we are animals who must accept the reality of pain.

I admit that my own personal life has been incredibly free of suffering; my pain is nothing, compared to the agony others endure daily. But since my situation could change in a heartbeat, I must prepare A MIND TO SUFFER—everyone has to have a right attitude toward suffering—or “be broken,” when pain comes.

One way to prepare is to regularly reflect on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. Mentally joining the pain of Jesus prepares us for the painful reality of our human existence. One does not need to be Catholic (or to believe in Jesus) to benefit from the practice of meditation. By spending a couple of brief periods of time each week reflecting on the nature of suffering, anyone can train their controlling mind to surrender.

THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES OF SURRENDER:
1) (Agony in the Garden) Mental pain stops when we admit that we have no control—“Not my will.”
2) (Scourging at the Pillar) Physical pain can never be completely avoided—even a hangnail hurts.
3) (Crowning with Thorns) People may persecute us, but their judgment does not define our worth and value.
4) (Carrying the Cross) Pain accompanies us throughout our whole lives—pain does not have a pause button.
5) (Death) Controlling minds must surrender to their finality—nothing of our minds will last.

A zillion clever sayings advise us how to take the “lemons” of life and turn them into lemonade. But we’re not interested in fooling our minds, making light of pain or pretending to enjoy suffering. We simply want our conscious minds to embrace the reality that we are not in control. At best, we can only manage suffering. So, go ahead and mourn pain (EVERYBODY’S pain)—it sucks! It’s okay to do everything possible to relieve pain.

Whether our physical and mental suffering is great or small, we accept that all discomforts end with death—the same is true of pleasures. No one carries pleasure or pain beyond the grave. HERE and NOW is our ONLY chance for happiness. By developing A MIND TO SUFFER, we can walk this Earth without letting pain deter us from experiencing all things as discoveries and opportunities for INTIMACY.

The Happy Little Critters Band insists that absolutely nothing is earned or deserved. Everything is part of the ONE ORGANISM (God). Whatever happens to the least one happens to God. So, developing A MIND TO SUFFER eases the pain for all those “persons” (the deceased) who now share the ONE ORGANISM (God Life). Meanwhile, we on Earth are free to fully dedicate our attention and energy to enjoying life, here and now.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

10/20/2025

INTERCESSORY PRAYER
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

This message is very personal to me. If you tell me that your mother died, your husband lost his job or you have been diagnosed with cancer, I’ll listen and tell you that you are in my heart and in my prayers. What do I mean by prayer? What do you understand by INTERCESSORY PRAYER? But first, let me ask another question.

Where do tomatoes come from? I don’t pretend to have a green thumb, but I learned a lot about tomatoes when I was a kid. I came up in the city during World War II, and we grew tomatoes in our “Victory Garden.”

Even if it was snowing outside, we planted tiny seeds in a box of soil inside the house and covered the box with a piece of glass. When the seeds sprouted, we removed the glass and thinned out the growth, so the remaining sprouts were evenly spaced. As the plants grew, we transferred them into individual pots. Next, we put them in the garden. When the plants were too tall to stand on their own, we tied each one to a stick.

Now, that’s how tomatoes come—from within tiny seeds. I have witnessed it and can testify to the miracle of growth. Yes, it is a miracle, but it is not magic. Miracles happen all the time, as life grows, develops, blossoms and heals from within. Magic requires a force from “out there” that pushes buttons or pulls strings.

Human minds are capable of making up stories to explain how powers from “out there” are the source of tomatoes and other miracles. In ancient cultures, people imagined a fertility goddess who was responsible for producing vegetables. They created a god for everything. I am not joking. The 2022 movie THOR introduced us to Bao, God of Dumplings. (He looked just like the “Pillsbury Doughboy.”)

Most folks today don’t take gods of mythology or of comic books all that seriously, but I have little doubt that the majority of people still prefer to believe that there are forces “out there” that CONTROL how things work here. So I want to draw attention to how tomatoes come from within seeds right here. What we know about tomatoes might help wean us away from immature magical thinking.

One of the most common examples of magical thinking is how most folks think of INTERCESSORY PRAYER. They believe that we ask someone to pray to God, who is “out there.” Then God steps into our lives here, to magically change things, to the way we want (of course, “Only if God wills it”). Even more healthy variations of that scenario, always require some force from “out there” to change things here.

The Happy Little Critters Band believes that there is absolutely no such thing as “out there.” Everyone and everything is part of the ONE ORGANISM (God)—even those who have gone to the grave are right here. When I pray TO or FOR someone, I am in touch with them, just as much as when I was watering and caring for my tomato plants. The same power flows from within, throughout all the parts of the one God Life.

Whatever people call the common force within an organism (“spirit,” “soul,” “energy,” “power,” “life” or some other name), we recognize that all the parts are organically connected. Think how water fills and nurtures myriads of life forms, including the billions of parts within our own bodies.

It is okay with me if you reject a magical (“out there”) “God.” I believe in the Real Presence. My God is the air we breathe and the water that sustains every living cell of our being—a God in whom we live and move and have our being—where what is done to the least one is done to all, from within the ONE ORGANISM (God). INTERCESSORY PRAYER is my tiny input into the overwhelming force that flows through every cosmic particle, lovingly embracing everyone and everything.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

10/14/2025

SHARED FAITH
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

Every Tuesday at noon, I get together with a wonderful group of 6 women (7, if we count the cat). We take turns sharing the elements of our religious faith—our ongoing relationship with God. We experience God’s presence in prayer and in our relationships with others. We share the richness and excitement of those encounters, and how we spread an awareness of God’s presence with the people in our lives.

I am truly grateful to those women and to all who share their faith with me. Faith doesn’t have to be religious doctrines. Faith is an awareness and conviction of the presence of things unseen. For instance, not even scientists have ever seen an atom—even with a microscope. Atoms are ONLY known by faith based on consistent signs, honestly reported and shared. We learn of gravity by observing the things we drop.

Faith doesn’t have to be something mysterious. The arrogance of many religious people is to think that only they know of things unseen. The arrogance of many non-religious people is to think that nothing exists unless it can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched. In truth, EVERYTHING we humans know is known by faith. Our senses only discern signs that can, when accurately interpreted and reported, give us clear clues to reality.

Professional magicians and ordinary liars regularly and intentionally fool our senses. It is really not all that difficult to fool or to be fooled. But, in the long run, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." It took ages, but we now finally agree that the earth is not flat and that the sun is not moving across the sky.

I find that my weekly sharing of faith has the same effects as scientific experiments. One woman experiences herself breathing in union with the cosmos. Another reports that, while walking among the flowers, with birds chirping and the breeze blowing, she wonders, “Could this be the garden of Eden?” And another of my “faith scientists” experienced the presence of her deceased husband, when a bright red cardinal flew to her window.

Without a doubt, my friends and I need to properly interpret the signs we experience. However, we are not starting from scratch. We build on the faith of those who have gone before us. In the long run, if honest people keep reporting the signs of unseen realities, I believe that humanity will eventually agree that all (everyone and everything) are parts of the eternal, cosmic ONE ORGANISM.

Our Happy Little Critters Band offers us the simple concept that all things are parts of ONE ORGANISM (God)—a life that shares itself with “PERSONS.” This is an absolutely logical and plausible interpretation of the signs we experience in our own lives—and of what poets, philosophers, mystics, scientists and religions have consistently experienced. It guarantees our absolute UNITY and DISTINCTNESS at the same time.

What is most important for society and the happiness of individuals is the assurance that our BELONGING within the ONE ORGANISM eliminates any need for (or even possibility of) CONTROL. Think about it. Most of the important actions of our bodies (organisms) are not CONTROLLED—the heart, nervous system and other essential bodily systems work automatically. Most of the time, we’re not even conscious of breathing.

Manipulative people are easily fooled. They ignore objective signs and jump to conclusions. They’re like fish, lunging at any bait that’s dangled before them. In contrast, if we are people of SHARED FAITH, we are bound to strengthen our conviction that we already BELONG—safe and sound within the divine ONE ORGANISM. As we get better at listening and sharing our faith, we expand and enjoy the wonderful world of INTIMACY.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

10/06/2025

LOVE IS A DECISION…REALLY?
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

One classic episode of the comic strip FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE portrays 7-year-old Michael fussing, and evading his mother Elly’s efforts to get him to his room for the night. Finally, she has him in bed and is about to turn off the light. The boy says, “Mom? Aren’t you gonna kiss me goodnight?”

Rolling her eyes, Elly says, “To tell you the truth, Mike, when you behave like this…. I don’t feel much like kissing you.”

Michael replies, “But Mom…that’s when I need it most!”

When we encounter ugly conduct or situations, we draw on the saying, LOVE IS A DECISION—we have to make an effort to love those whose behavior is unlovable. But, is love (unity) REALLY a decision, or is it the very immutable nature of reality? Our Happy Little Critters Band (HLCB) thinks that “LOVE IS A DECISION” is misleading. It sounds like we (including God) have a choice to NOT love.

My seminary high school teacher shocked us when he announced: “There are some things that even God can’t do—God can’t make a rock too big for him to move, and God can’t hate.” The HLCB is saying the same thing, when we assert that permanent SEPARATION cannot be maintained—it is impossible.

Our HLCB says that everyone and everything is part of the ONE ORGANISM (God). How do we tiny little critters expect to successfully resist the magnetism of cosmic LOVE? Our efforts to divide can be no more successful than a child’s claim, “I won’t go to sleep.” That sleep always wins the battle is not REALLY a decision, but reality. We MUST love; we ARE love. Our ONLY choice is to SURRENDER—now, or later.

Yet, when ancient and modern-day saints urge us to love, they make it sound as though we ultimately have CONTROL. It’s obvious that almost everyone still believes in SEPARATION—the very definition of sin. Even saints are prone to sinful thinking—even theologians think that LOVE IS A DECISION.

For those of us who see God as the ONE ORGANISM, it is not a mystery that God can look beyond our faults. We accept that “faults” and “failings” are temporary conditions, and they BELONG just as truly as all the other transitory conditions within the ONE ORGANISM. Judgements and comparisons about “perfection” and “flaws” only make sense for those who insist on seeing people and things as SEPARATED.

Though we cannot conceive of SEPARATION within God, we demand that the boundaries of each part of God must be respected (just as each part in our own bodies). Co-dependency (the inability to distinguish parts) is just as destructive to healthy unity as the inability to see our oneness. Both co-dependency and individualism flow from an assumption that everything is SEPARATE, unless someone makes it hold together (CONTROL).

Our present society is a strange mixture of people doing other people’s business (co-dependency) and people refusing to admit to their need for others (individualism). The only way to get out of this deadly trap is to agree that we are ONE ORGANISM (God). Yet each of us has our own absolutely distinct “person,” who will be assumed by God (beyond the grave) to share everything with the three eternal divine “PERSONS.”

Those who join the Happy Little Critters Band can relax in the absolute assurance that nobody (including God) has to make a decision for us to BELONG. We can now find great joy in shared INTIMACY, at our own pace.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

09/29/2025

EVIL IS REAL, BUT….
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

Most everything we say about EVIL is true. However, what we usually think and say about the source of EVIL is a damn lie. Adam and Eve, when caught eating from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” blamed someone else. The truest thing they said was, “The snake tricked me” (Gen. 3:13). What we still have failed to own is that the “snake,” the “most cunning of all the wild animals,” was (and is) our own human mind.

Tons of psychological studies demonstrate how we project our own wrongs onto “others.” We even invent a “Satan” to blame. Satirists love to lampoon our compulsive deceitfulness: The kids in Bil Keane’s comic strip FAMILY CIRCUS create “Ida [I Don’t] Know” and “Not Me” (depicted as little ghosts) to deflect guilt from their wrongdoings. Comedian Flip Wilson’s naughty character “Geraldine” loved to say, “The Devil made me do it!”

However, our Happy Little Critters Band (HLCB) sees an invented “Satan” as anything but a laughing matter. True believers in the devil and his legions are dealing with a deadly Frankenstein monster. Good, dedicated people will stop at nothing to totally destroy those they identify as EVIL. Dictators and charlatans have long labeled some people as EVIL to manipulate their followers into killing their supposed enemies.

The horror film FRAILTY (2002) depicts how “Dad,” a decent single-parent father involves his 10- and 7-years- old boys in the ax-murders of those whose names are on his “revealed list of demons.” When the elder son protests that their victims are people, “Dad” insists that they are devils.

Jesus resisted the notion that even food can be EVIL: “Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile…. But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these EVILS come from within….” (Mark 7:18-23).

The HLCB explains the origin and nature of EVIL: We claim that all humans are wounded by the trauma of birth. That experience of division from our mothers has scarred everyone with the “Original Sin” of believing in SEPARATION. The PTSD of birth (our fear of alienation—getting lost, abandoned and rejected) continues to dominate our minds, being triggered throughout our wounded lives.

Historically, a whole species of more or less unhealed (sinful) humans has resulted in our chronic need to find ways to CONTROL—what religious teacher Brian McLaren calls Domination, Revolution, Isolation, Accumulation, Purification and Victimization. Childish bickering and unhealthy codependency in our families inevitably escalate into war, genocide, starvation, pollution, slavery and abuse (physical and sexual).

EVIL IS REAL, BUT IT ALWAYS ORIGINATES IN OUR MINDS. Believing in SEPARATION, we desperately seek BELONGING through dominance or submissiveness. Thus, HLCB equates EVIL with SEPARATION. EVIL IS REAL, BUT…it is ALWAYS illusionary—temporary, strained, near-sighted and artificial (man-made).

Fortunately, our language helps us distinguish between the “natural” and the “artificial.” Natural includes what is historical and scientific; artificial includes what is a lie, fictional or figurative. While all are REAL, we must sort through them to separate the “made-up” from the “truth.” The HLCB says that the only natural, historical, scientific truth is that everyone and everything exists as part of the ONE ORGANISM (God).

DEATH, SEPARATION and EVIL are merely “ARTIFICIAL REALITIES.” We who believe in the ONE ORGANISM (the “Body of Christ”) have no need to CONTROL. We are now free to consistently think and live in INTIMACY.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

09/22/2025

GOD IN THE MOMENT
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

Most people shy away from complicated and esoteric theology. Although the Church usually bestows the title “doctor” on trained theologians whose teachings were particularly clear and accurate, it is noted that the same honor has also been given to a young, cloistered nun Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897). Theresa is popularly known as the Little Flower, and she had a simple and practical message—the “Little Way.”

Brother Lawrence (1611–1691) is another religious whose life and teachings have attracted many people to practice the “Presence of God.” Like St. Theresa’s “Little Way,” Lawrence’s life demonstrates GOD IN THE MOMENT. Our Happy Little Critters Band (HLCB) gives us the rational basis for such simple methods.

As long as we start with the assumption that God is elsewhere, as long as we assume that God is (only) spiritual, as long as we divide everything into the Natural and Supernatural, as long as we think that our mission is to escape “This World” to be with God in the “Next World,” as long as all these assumption dominate our thinking, finding and serving God will remain “complicated and esoteric.”

The HLCB has totally changed those assumptions that make life with God so difficult. We not only say that God is IN everything (panENtheism), we say that God IS everything that IS—“I AM who I AM” (Exodus 3:14)—“In [God] we live and move and have our being….” (Acts 17:28)—Whatever you do to the least one, you do unto me (Matt. 25:34-45). Indeed, everything is ONE ORGANISM (God), with coexistent “PERSONS.”

How could the knowing and loving ONE ORGANISM (God) be happy without “PERSONS”? Even our organic God (with evolving parts) could never be happy alone. “PERSONS” are not the ONE ORGANISM, but they need an organism to exist. They are like shadows: Run a finger across the table and watch the shadow(s). The shadow is not the finger; the finger is not the shadow. Yet, the shadow(s) cannot exist without the finger.

[NOTICE: If we have more than one source of light, a single finger can cast multiple shadows.]

Once we establish the existence of eternally distinct “PERSONS,” we can logically and plausibly accept that we are all parts of the ONE ORGANISM (God). This organic unity of God and “creatures” gives a rational basis for the practice of “Presence of God” and the “Little Way”—both of which are practical ways of finding and serving GOD IN THE MOMENT. We are the parts of God’s Body caring for each other.

We find and serve God, by recognizing GOD IN THE MOMENT—neither the past nor the future exists. Catholics make the Lord’s Supper (the Eucharist) “the source and summit” of their ritual life together. They gather at an altar, and taking ordinary bread and wine, they proclaim “THIS IS MY BODY.” But that’s not all. They are sent (“missa”) to recognize and treat EVERYONE and EVERYTHING as the ONE ORGANISM (BODY) of God.

Father Richard Rohr reminds us that Brother Lawrence and St. Theresa are not alone in their instinct of GOD IN THE MOMENT: “Of all the things I have learned and taught over the years, I can think of nothing that could be more helpful than living in the now.… So many leaders in so many traditions have taught the same thing: Hindu masters, Zen and Tibetan Buddhists, Sufi poets, Jewish rabbis, and Christian mystics, to name a few.”

Brother Lawrence believed that God is present in all times and circumstances: ”All this reverence must be done by faith, believing God is really living in our hearts…. Infinitely excellent and with sovereign power, [God] deserve[s] all that we are, and everything in heaven and on earth, now and through eternity. All our thoughts, words, and actions belong rightly to God. Let’s put this into practice.”

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

09/15/2025

VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

“Why do we kill people who kill people, to show people not to kill people?”

Many years ago, our criminal justice ministry (CJM) occupied free office space in an old school building that also housed the pre-school program Head Start. One day, an astonishing transaction occurred in the hallway. Evidently, a teacher had witnessed a four-year-old hit another child. The adult grabbed the offender and insisted that the victim hit back—“He’ll never learn, if you don’t hit back,” she said.

Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek.” Was he asking us to be stupid, weak or just stoic? Or, was he asking us to be smart? How can people learn a better way, if we don’t demonstrate a better way? When we hit back, we only show that “might makes right.” What we need to learn is that VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE.

For ages upon ages, parents have used CONTROL (“VIOLENCE”) to teach children “to obey.” Really? More likely, their kids have learned “to behave.” Even dumb animals learn to behave through external CONTROLS—rewards and punishments. We can only evoke “obedience” by stirring an inner desire to surrender.

A parent struggled to get their eight-year-old to go to bed. The adult sighed, “That kid is so stubborn.” But a psychologist observed, “Who’s being stubborn here? Is it the child who just wants to play a game, or is it the parent who is forcing their will on the child?”

Parents who CONTROL their children think it’s the only right way, but CONTROL BEGETS CONTROL. In reality, countless generations of CONTROLLING parents have created a whole species of liars, cheats and sneaks. (I freely admit that I am a lousy liar, I don’t cheat very well, but I am a world-class sneak.)

A few parents are trying to break with tradition by raising their kids without external coercion. One such mother said about her eighteen-year-old daughter, “No matter what else you may say about that girl, she is the most honest human being I have ever met.” Unconditional love tends to always breed truthfulness.

Jesus said, “The truth will make you free.” Yet, most Christians and other good people are so terrified of the truth that they cannot even be honest about their own feelings. They think it is a virtue to hide feelings and help others to “get over it.” The consequence of such deception is disastrous—inevitably, it is VIOLENCE.

Pastor Peter Scazzero, in his book EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY, wrote: “It is true that some Christians live in the extreme of following their feelings…. It is more common, however, to encounter Christians who do not believe they have permission to admit their feelings or express them openly. This applies especially to such ‘difficult’ feelings as fear, sadness, shame, anger, hurt, and pain.”

Our Happy Little Critters Band (HLCB) frees us (normally) from any need to CONTROL. We assert that each and every one of us already, permanently, BELONGS—we are parts of the ONE ORGANISM (God). Since there is absolutely no chance of SEPARATION, we are free to embrace feelings and reveal them to others. Knowing that we are free makes us much more likely to allow others to be free—without the “VIOLENCE” of CONTROL.

Richard Rohr said: “In Greek mythology, [the Furies] were the deities of retribution and vengeance…. Though they were supposedly pursuing and punishing evildoers, their righteous need for vengeance brought about little lasting good, because they needed to punish evil too much and thus became evil themselves. Does this not sound like what practitioners of modern nonviolent theory tell us—VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE?”

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

09/08/2025

SIN – EVIL
[Visit the link at the end of this message to learn the "music."]

It doesn’t take an expert to realize that “language is a lousy way to communicate.” One wag said: "Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital—park on driveways and drive on parkways? Lift a thumb to thumb a lift? Why is it that when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible?"

But it’s not just English; all dialects are feeble. By necessity, verbal communication is always a bit obscure. "Literalists" foolishly think we can capture reality in words. But words’ meanings change constantly, while reality is what it is. “Gay” used to describe things that were happy and joyful—not anymore. Yet, because language is all we’ve got, we need to work harder at choosing the right words and understanding each other.

A word’s meaning can evolve from good to bad (e.g. “awful”) or from bad to good (e.g. “nice”). Also, a word may undergo “broadening” to include more things or “narrowing” to focus on a more precise meaning. In studying cultures, philosophies, religions and other sources, we find that the words “SIN” and “EVIL” have shaky definitions that are far too broad. It would be very helpful to narrow their meanings.

Our Happy Little Critters Band (HLCB) chooses the most helpful and precise words we can, which helps others to do their best in understand our meaning. One of our most satisfying efforts has been to narrow the definitions of the words “SIN” and “EVIL.”

The HLCB believes that everything, everywhere, forever and all at once is the ONE ORGANISM (God)—“In [God] we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). There is ONLY one supreme law: LOVE—the universal, absolute, overwhelming force of BELONGING. Its corollary is that “EVIL” is SEPARATION.

Although complete SEPARATION is impossible to achieve, EVIL is REAL in the same way as an artificial flower is REAL. Within the ONE ORGANISM, we creatures regularly engage in “fight or flight.” Thus, HLCB defines the word “EVIL” as hatred, rejection, isolation, war, abandonment, dehumanizing, demonizing, objectifying, disowning and any other activity intended to SEPARATE.

The Bible and Christian theology have always rejected DUALISM, the idea that an objective and natural evil is fighting against a good God. But most people still instinctively imagine God and Satan dukin’ it out. Our HLCB makes it possible to understand EVIL, without giving it an existential existence. EVIL/SEPARATION is REAL, but it is always an ARTIFICIAL falsehood arising from faulty judgments.

“SIN” is simply the belief in SEPARATION. Believing in SEPARATION is a NATURAL consequence of the traumatic experience of getting born—we call it “Original Sin,” and it is NOT our fault. But without mending that wound, we will continue to artificially create EVIL. The ONLY way to recovery is to consistently experience unconditional LOVE. The healing process is precisely the true meaning of the word “SALVATION.”

Our HLCB certainly believes that after our earthly lives, all human “persons” enjoy sharing the eternal God Life with the three divine “PERSONS.” But “SALVATION” applies to our mortal lives here, ON EARTH. HERE is where our BELONGING is threatened, and HERE is where our species can become a people who fearlessly enjoy sharing the INTIMACY of both pleasure and pain. Jesus called humanity’s SALVATION “THE KINGDOM.”

I, personally, think it will only take one more thousand years to conquer SIN and EVIL. In the meantime, when any of us show someone else that they BELONG, we also experience BELONGING—we’re both being SAVED.

© 2025 Rev. John Vogler [HappyLittleCrittersBand.com]

Happy Little Critters Band

10/28/2025

10/20/2025

10/14/2025

10/06/2025

09/29/2025

09/22/2025

09/15/2025

09/08/2025

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category