Just who is Jesus, the one referred to, by some, as, "Christ and savior of the world?" My whole 40 years of life, I have heard different variations of the stories used to describe the man known as Jesus Christ. From being referred to as the Son of God, to an important prophet, to God himself, the references to who Jesus was/is have always grabbed my attention. Upon wanting to build a closer relationship with my heavenly Father, Jehovah (God), I decided to study closer to ensure I better understood Jesus, his life, and his purpose.

With Halloween around the corner, I have noticed in this past year, a large fluctuation in the amount of attention being brought to all forms of the occult and witchcraft. Articles and profiles revolving around media influencers, empaths, gurus, sensitives, and sage burners... Every Becky and Tom who has an instagram account can now hold the title of "WITCH" or "BRUJA/BRUJO" proudly under their signature. It is a self raised flag of their own volition and reward without any prior study.

Geneticists studying the DNA of today’s world population have discovered that Homo sapiens went nearly extinct sometime between 123,000 and 195,000 years in the past. Since today’s humans show a very low genetic diversity it is most likely that every human alive today can be traced back to the same small group of survivors of that period. According to the research by Curtis W. Marean, a professor of archaeology at the Arizona State University and the associate director of the institute of Human Origins, this small group of survivors, perhaps as small as a few hundred individuals, lived along the south coast of Africa, rich in shellfish and edible vegetation. This group of our human ancestors showed remarkable abilities. They recognized that they could change raw material by heating and could execute a long chain of processes to make the tools they needed. These processes were passed on to the next generations. In a 2010 article in Scientific American, Marean explained how anatomically modern humans survived the MIS 6 glacial stage 123 to 195 thousand years ago, a period during which the human population was limited to only a few hundreds breeding individuals. During this period, sea levels dropped more than a hundred meters and the sloping South African Agulhas Bank was transformed into a plain, on which humans could survive on shellfish and wash-ups from the sea.

I have always considered myself a spiritual person, never religious though. To me, the words religious and religion sound more descriptive of rituals and traditions; which the Holy Bible speaks against. Being a believer in Jehovah as the true God and Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah, the Holy Bible is the religious book I choose to live my life by. Where the concept of God intrigues me, the story of Jesus (his life, his purpose, his divinity, and his relationship with God) fills me with fascination.

Greece. Rome. Egypt. What's something these places all have in common?

I like to joke and say that I first decided that I wanted to become Jewish after watching an episode of Sex and the City. You know, the one where Charlotte becomes Jewish so that she can marry Harry. So pretty much all of Season Six.

I grew up attending a small Baptist church that was the center of the African American community. The focus was on pleasing Jesus and having a personal relationship with Him. I cannot recall anything bad about my young experience but when I got older, things changed. I attended several churches where the focus was on making the pastor happy and obtaining a certain lifestyle. In these churches, people were often told they needed to smile, dress better, hold their heads up and improve their countenance. Instead of spiritual growth, it became about how much money you could give, where you lived and the vehicle you drove.

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus uses the maxim "know thyself" in his play Prometheus Bound. In this play, Prometheus first rails at the Olympian gods, and against what he believes to be the injustice of his having been bound to a cliffside by Zeus. Oceanus comes to Prometheus to reason with him, and cautions him that he should "know thyself." In this context, Oceanus is telling Prometheus that he should know better than to speak ill of the one who decides his fate and accordingly, perhaps he should better know his place in the "great order of things. In other words "Know Thy Place."

Are our prayers heard and answered? Decide for yourself.

I walk the beauty way, hey hey, the beauty way,hey hey, the beauty way,Sacred Dawn comes and sings to me, hey hey, the beauty way, hey hey, the beauty way, Sings me songs that set me free, hey hey, the beauty way, hey hey, the beauty way.

I’ve spent the last few days soaking up all the spiritual goodness for which Ubud is known. Particularly with Eat Pray Love, or even the Kardashians, a quest to go find yourself seems incomplete without a few yoga sessions and traditional healing ceremonies in Ubud. And having spent over five months in Bali now, and almost none of that time in Ubud, I thought it was time to truly lean into it all.

Faith has been at the forefront of most of my relationships, though it never seemed to be a deal-breaker. I’ve become romantically entangled (dating or not) with individuals across the spectrum: Catholic, Evangelical, Secular Jew, Conservative Jew, Sunni Muslim, Agnostic—you name it.