Today's MOZEN: So Simple

F LoBuono

Every religion or organized spiritual pursuit has its rituals, rights, dogma, and cannon. However, since I was raised as a Roman Catholic and received plenty of indoctrination into its teachings (I attended the Madonna Parochial School in Fort Lee, NJ for 9 years - K thru 8th grade), I would like to write this post from that perspective.

Of course, as part of our overall education there was a goodly amount of religious instruction with an emphasis on the Bible, particularly the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament. When I was young, I was intensely involved in the study of the words of the Christ and how they were interpreted in the Bible. My curiosity has not waned but my understanding certainly has evolved. This has led me to do some research to support my new perceptions.

Let me break down my new found insight this way.

The Bible is massive. According to the website wordcounter.net, it contains 783,137 words in total (King James version) and typically around 1,200 pages, with the New Testament containing 260 chapters divided into 7,959 verses and about 184,600 words. For relevance, the great American novel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, a ponderous read, is 358 pages and 94,500 words.

Think about that. No wonder it takes a lifetime to read the whole thing, much less understand it!

So, let me makes this as simple as possible.

You can take all of that blather, dogma, ritual, pomp and circumstance, and break it down to this: live a righteous life. Give more than you receive. Choose compassion over anger. Love yourself and your neighbor even more. Be kind and thoughtful. Seek resolution rather than revenge. Speak truth to power. Protect the innocent. Eschew greed and sloth. Do not judge those whom may be different. Accept fate.

One paragraph, about 45 words.

That's All you need. Well, at least it's all that I need. I have too much life to live than to spend it on a laborious and often contradictory tome. Simple principals, in the end, will take us much further. Yes, it IS that uncomplicated. All you need do is believe.