Do you think that I am silent, or that I speak only briefly on special occasions to selected individuals? What do you observe in your communications with other people? If you inquire of someone, even a stranger, and give them your full attention, how often are you met with silence? It is so rare as to be considered a social blunder, and even if they don’t know what you want they will speak. Am I not even more willing to communicate with you? You refer to me as the living word.

I taught you to love your enemies, to go the extra mile, to turn the other cheek. Do you put these concepts into practice? Do they seem strange and extreme in the real world? Do they appear to have no relationship to your reality; being abstract spiritual ideas of no practical benefit? There are good reasons to avoid making enemies, to not escalate offenses. Life circumstances change and you don’t know when you will need to ask a favor from someone you did not previously consider being a friend. This will be easier if you have resisted the temptation to tell them off.

Do you follow the first commandment? Are you thinking that you shall have no other gods before me? But the very first commandment was that you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Did you notice that there was no commandment against eating from the tree of life? Yet when the man and woman ate from the wrong tree, it was necessary that they be denied access to the tree of life. Do you realize that this same choice is being offered to you? Do you want to live in relationship with me or do you want to figure it out on your own?

Do you live in a consumer culture? This is prevalent in the world and becoming more so. If you are immersed in this value system there is a temptation to treat everything as a commodity. This is a consequence of materialism. Do you treat your spirituality as a commodity? Is it something to acquire and possess like everything else? If you find this idea disturbing you should examine yourself, because it takes intentional effort to go against the current of your culture. You are bought with a price. So you do not own your spirituality, it owns you.