Who Are The Ones That Love Us?

It becomes increasingly difficult to not think in spiritual terms when working with the homeless.
More and more ministers come to work with these people. They say things to me like “You are walking in the way of Jesus.”
That’s embarrassing. But coming from them I know it’s a great compliment.
I’ve also been asked why I’m not a Christian.
It is very difficult for me to explain my spiritual beliefs.
I asked that one minister who accused me of not being a Christian, “How do you know I’m not?”
While it might have sounded combative, it was a sincere question. I wondered if there was something glaringly obvious, like a neon sign over my head blinking “NOT A CHRISTIAN!”
I guess it comes down to not caring about my own salvation. This isn’t about me. I don’t need to declare some words to the world that makes me one faith or another.
If I end up displeasing God because I didn’t swear loyalty to Him, that’s the way it should be. What happens to me simply is not of a concern.
I don’t care if one story is true in the Bible and another story in the Koran is false. That’s just noise to me.
But let me take a step back. Like way back.
I always had a strong desire to prove myself. From a very young age. In the late ’70s they didn’t diagnose kids with learning disabilities. You were either smart or stupid.
I fell into the stupid category. I couldn’t read until about 4th grade.
Except I knew full well that wasn’t true. I knew who I was and what I was capable of.
So I spent most of my life proving myself to the world.
Acclaimed cellist, good college student, nationally recognized digital marketer, successful in family, successful in business.
But what I found was that accomplishments all had a hollowness to them.
One time my accountant asked me if I ever thought I’d make $250,000 a year as I had that year. I told him I didn’t. And I didn’t really care. That number changed nothing. I didn’t want a bigger house, a newer car. I just didn’t care.
That struck me as an important milestone in my life.
No matter how big that number got, it wouldn’t excite me. Maybe it excites other people. But it just didn’t change much for me.
That was a depressing moment. What was I doing this all for?
And then the great recession happened and we lost almost all of our momentum as a company.
What I learned at that point was that money didn’t make me happy but it sure as hell could make me sad.
It was at that point that I grew to resent and hate money. It controlled me and gave me very little in return.
And then I realized I had been doing all of these things for some external validation. And no one cared. And if they did, I didn’t care that they did care.
This was the moment I began serious contemplation.
What am I doing here? What is the point?
I checked all the boxes I was supposed to check and nothing changed.
Contemplation and action go hand in hand. Or at least they should.
You come up with an idea and you try out the idea.
The first thing I did was run for Mayor of Akron.
That changed everything for me. The vast majority of people that talked to me were the homeless. Most people that should care about who their next mayor is going to be were too busy to think about it. Most would just ignore me or scowl at me as I asked them for signatures to get on the ballot.
This opened a major door for me. The homeless.
They weren’t at all what I thought.
They weren’t stupid or lazy or wasted or dangerous. They were just poor and living on the streets.
I just started listening to what the world was telling me. “Go here.” “Do this.”
What I didn’t know at the time, but I certainly know now is that I had just started working on my spirit. I spent the first 45 years working on my mind and body. And for the first time I started paying attention to my spirit.
I’m fascinated by the universe. By dark energy and dark matter. I love watching scientists who believe something is out there because of math and then they prove it with experiments.
Do you know that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, the most complex experimental facility ever built, and the largest single machine in the world. And it’s purpose is to document the smallest things known to man.
These scientists are trying to understand God. I want to understand God.
Scientists are using math. I’m using my spirit.
They want to know who God is. I want to know what God wants.
And I finally feel like I’m on the path. While I’m still very much in the learning phase of all this, I strongly believe God is telling us something about the poor and the weak and the prisoners.
Why?
Why would these people unlock the riddle to understanding what God wants? Is it just supposed to make us feel good? Is it a test? Are we supposed to learn something?
What if this is preparation for something bigger? What if God is teaching us to help the poor so that one day we’ll be ready for what He really wants us to do.
Do you know that there is a mystery force in the universe that scientists can’t see, yet they know it’s there. And we are hurdling toward it. It’s called The Great Attractor
Astronomers have theorized for years that something unknown appears to be pulling our Milky Way and tens of thousands of other galaxies toward itself at a breakneck 22 million kilometers (14 million miles) per hour. But they couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, or where it is.
What if we are getting ready for something big!
I’m at a point now where I believe in a great cause. A great destiny.
I also believe we are coming to a place where capitalism is failing us. Government is failing us. I feel like we very well might see a resurgence in spirituality as a way to understand our purpose. Because let’s face it, no one has been spending a lot of time on their purpose for the last 100 years. We’ve been told by government and business that our purpose is to buy more stuff.
Last week I spoke to a woman who was new to our village. She had been there a couple days. I just got to meet her.
She said, “Oh! You’re Sage.” She gave me a hug.
She told me that for the last couple days she had been asking around, “Who are the ones that love us?”
“Who would put all of this together for us?”
She said that never once in her life had she been loved. No one had ever loved her.
And now, strangers she hadn’t even met loved her.
That’s it!
That the point. Love and hate are the great forces of the universe. We will either transcend or we will crumble.
Nothing feels more right than loving someone that you don’t know. It changes everything.
Loving for nothing in return. That’s the secret to the universe.
That’s why I don’t care if I’m “saved” or not. I want nothing in return.
And in fact, I expect dark forces to continue to come. I am planning on more difficulty and pain.
I need no gratitude for doing this. The work is so right. The work is the gratitude.