My Logical God

By Ronald Roell

What would your life be like if you suddenly realized God needed nothing from you, wanted nothing, demanded nothing, judged nothing, and condemned nothing about you ... and never did? What if you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted to do and be whomever you wanted to be and to be loved and embraced because of it instead of in spite of it? What if you never had to feel guilty, alone, or unloved again? If you could learn to communicate with God instead of praying at God, be encouraged to get off of your knees, raise your chin, and love the face in the mirror, would you? Now is your chance. It’s all in here. Not just the how’s but the whys. If God is perfect this has to be the truth and it is all presented in a non-dictatorial fashion through perspectives formed from a lifetime full of real life challenges. This is new, different, and is not your traditional God. You will never look at God, or life, the same way again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald Roell
• Release date: Nov 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311573261

Ronald Roell

Ronald Roell has spent a lifetime as an artist of one medium or another. Deeply introspective, as most artists seem to be, Ron was led down a path of spiritual awakening once he realized what religions are teaching is literally impossible to be true. His quest and conclusions are shared in his most recent release, My Logical God.

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My Logical God

Copyright 2014 Ronald Roell

Published by Ronald Roell

Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting and honoring the creative process.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Defining God

2. A Perfect God

3. Perceptions

4. Fear

5. Prayer

6. A Conversation with Jesus

7. The Bible

8. Love and Relationships

9. Parenting

10. Reincarnation

11. The Universe

12. The Creator

13. Conclusion

About the Author

Connect with Me

Acknowledgements

This book would not be a reality without the acceptance, guidance, love, and support from the woman who somehow had a way past every barrier I had built around my heart. She is my muse. She helped me understand what I now share and the importance of doing so.

My children contentedly did without so much of what they were used to as I pursued this decade’s long journey of self-awareness. I cannot thank them enough. I would not be the man I am proud to be without what they taught me. Being their father is the greatest privilege of this lifetime. If I accomplish nothing more of significance than being involved in their contributions to this world it is still an experience beyond anything I would have imagined for myself.

Thank you to my grandfather who has been my spirit guide for the past fifteen years or so. He has instilled wisdom and understanding through dreams and communications that have proven invaluable to what is shared on these following pages.

I need to thank this friend in my head, this little voice I had always defined as God. It is this friend that shared what is written here. I know it came through me and I wrote it down but, in all honesty, when I re-read much of what is written here I am just as amazed as I think you will be.

Finally, I need to thank you. Thank you for investing in you and questioning what you have been taught.

Introduction

The prospect of writing a book had never so much as crossed my mind through the first forty years of my life. As a matter of fact, I had actually read very few books over my entire lifetime other than the mandatory ones in school. I went to one year of college and that was enough for me. I was always drawn to the trades. I loved working with my hands. I loved the dirt, the sweat, the kick-ass toughness it took to work dawn to dusk, and the rock-hard, V-shaped body it provided me. I was proud. I learned the trades, all of them. I started a small remodeling company, taught myself a computer design program, and eked out a living for my young family and myself. I constantly challenged myself to find interesting clients and challenging remodeling jobs, and I rose to the occasion. I won national awards and had projects featured in national magazines. I was professionally driven and passionate about the remodeling business. I was good at it. Twenty-five years of sixty-hour weeks takes its toll on both the body and the mind though. My motivation waned and I questioned my entire position in life.

My wife and I were just cohabitating, it seemed. We never learned how to communicate with each other, so trying to talk about something I didn’t understand proved futile. Our fifteen-year marriage ended in divorce. Interestingly enough, I burned out professionally at the same time. I think my personal identity was so interwoven with my professional identity that when my personal identity collapsed, it caused everything to implode. People were shocked, except those who knew us from a distance. Things are much more apparent when you’re watching from a distance. It provides a big picture perspective. My parents were some of those on the inside and they were surprised. I had only shared the good stuff with them. I hadn’t truly communicated with them either. There seemed to be a common theme developing: the importance of communication.

During and after the divorce, I relied heavily on my parents’ involvement in my children’s lives. Finally, the fear, turmoil, and heartache we were all feeling subsided. A new rhythm to life began.

Elders have this awesome way of slowing life down so you can actually breathe, and my children were fortunate to be able to breathe deeply every day, until the day that stole our breath away. My mom was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer and had months to live. Seven weeks later, she was gone. While mom was sick, I asked her if I could write a poem to read for her at her funeral. When I was young, I wrote a lot of poetry but hadn’t written any for twenty years. When I asked her if she would mind if I did that for her she said, I am so glad. I hoped someone would, but I didn’t know who to ask. You’ll be perfect for it. Thank you. So I did and read it from the podium of a Catholic alter to a standing ovation during her funeral mass.

My entire life was driven by passion but now, I had no passion for my career and my passion for life in general was in a great state of flux. I wasn’t suicidal, just totally spent. I was in a completely foreign place and time. I never knew myself to be scared of anything and now I was scared of everything. I never knew myself to be tired and now I was so exhausted I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I always felt I knew the answers, yet I no longer knew the questions never-mind the answers.

Strangely enough, during this entire journey, I never felt alone. By that time in my life, I had been exposed to the concepts of spirit guides, reincarnation, higher selves, God, Jesus, and guardian angels. I don’t know which one of them was with me, but something was.

My lack of professional passion didn’t bode well for my income status, but my spiritual beliefs became my new focus. I’m a firm believer that our soul is the most important aspect of who we are, yet we typically invest the least amount of time and effort into nurturing it. So, I began to nurture mine. But first, I had to determine what my spiritual beliefs actually were. I’m not talking about what I proclaimed to believe. I mean, what I actually believed. The only way to do that was for me to question everything—every last thing. So that’s what I started to do.

A short time after my mom died, I experimented with writing poetry again. The poem I wrote for Mom opened that channel within me. It was during the writing of a poem called You’re Welcome Daddy, which I’ll share later, that I was inspired to write this book. When I received that initial inspiration, ten years ago, I made a commitment to honor that inspiration. I have tried several times to write this over the years, but they were half-hearted attempts at fulfilling that early commitment.

For quite a while, I had convinced myself this book was for my children and anyone else who was drawn to it, but honestly, it was for me. There’s something about saying something out loud that changes a thought into reality. There’s also something about putting a series of thoughts into text that suddenly transforms a convoluted theory into a logical progression. That’s what this book is about for me—making sure what I believe makes sense to me. I want to leave something behind in order for my children to truly know me—the inner me that I have only shared with them in bits and pieces. The only way that can happen is if I learn who I am and what I believe.

I grew up Catholic and I remember a particular sermon in which Father Mike said, We are a soul with a body, not a body with a soul. That changed the way I viewed myself and still do to this day. The body dies while the soul lives on. The body is simply a vehicle with which to experience this universe.

If I’m going to proclaim something as real, like a soul, at the very least I need for my proclamation to be interwoven with reality. I don’t need to be able to prove something is real or actual in order to choose to believe in it, but I should never be able to disprove it. If I continue to believe in something that can be proven to be inaccurate or false, I’m choosing to live a lie.

It’s my opinion, and chosen belief, that a soul exists within each of us. It just makes sense to me that there’s a greater purpose to each of us than just the events of this lifetime. My biggest problem is that so much of what I have been taught revolving around the concept of the soul can easily be refuted by logic and science. And if I’m going to bet my soul on something, I’m going to make darn sure it makes sense to me. The only way I know how to do that is to question everything. Unless I question something, I can’t understand it. If I don’t understand it, I can’t believe it. If I simply accept what someone else tells me is true as being true, it’s not my truth. It’s just me proclaiming their truth as mine. What if they were wrong?

I believe if God is real, God will make sense. A god of this universe will compliment other components of this universe like math, science, theory, and logic.

The Bible is a series of writings attempting to explain God’s relationship to man. This book explains one man’s relationship to God. This is my personal bible. This is … My Logical God.

1. Defining God

My oldest daughter bought me a beautiful, clear, acrylic angel with fiber optic wings that changed colors as they moved back and forth. I placed my angel on top of a tall piece of furniture in my bedroom so her wings almost touched the ceiling. It was as if my angel watched me as I lay there on my bed with tears running down my cheeks. I stared at the hypnotic rhythm of those angel wings and told God, I surrender. I’m turning it all over to you because, obviously, I have no idea what I’m doing. I always thought I knew what I wanted, but this isn’t what I wanted at all. I always thought I was in control, but my life is totally out of control. I have no idea what’s in my best interest, but you do. I have no idea who is my best partner, but you do. I have no passion for my profession anymore and no idea what I should do for work anymore, but you do. I have no idea how to move through any part of my life. I’m out of ideas and I’m just so tired. I’m turning it all over to you. I’m allowing myself to be guided from here on out.

Everything was gone. Everything I had worked for my whole life was gone. I had just finished telling my son, at 45 years old, I was worth less than I was at the age of 15. It was strange, because even though I was worth less, I didn’t feel worthless.

I felt broken. Not broken as in cracked in half but broken as in being tamed. I didn’t have any fight left in me. In hindsight, I think that was the point. The motivation to achieve everything I had achieved was to prove to everybody else how good I was or that I was better than them somehow. My life had been ego driven and I didn’t realize it.

I cried like a baby for a while. I finally stopped and just lay there. There’s a strange peace in surrender.

I needed to change the direction of my life and life-changing events are meant to do exactly that—to change the direction of our lives. I sat up and wrote a prayer:

Dear God,

Please allow me the ability to love me,

to honor me,

and to know me.

Please allow me the courage

to follow my intuition

and to be true to me.

Please allow me the wisdom

to move toward the sun

and not a shooting star.

Please allow me the compassion

to shine my heart light as a beacon

to illuminate the darkness of those in need.

Please guide me down the path of my soul’s preference

and supply me with the strength and determination

to jump the hurdles without diminish to my conviction.

As I sat on the edge of the bed, I reflected on my life. What jumped out at me wasn’t the awards I had won or the magazines I had been featured in. It wasn’t the stuff, and it wasn’t the things I had built. It was the unique spiritual events I had experienced. Apparently, the stuff I no longer had never really mattered that much to me anyway. What I still had was what I valued most all along. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the end of the old and the beginning of the new.

I don’t remember many specifics about my childhood, but I recall always feeling different. To this day, I have no idea why. By all account, I was like everybody else, but I never felt that way. When you feel different, all you really want is to be like everybody else. So that was what I became—like everybody else—and I built my life around the man who was like everybody else. I betrayed the real me for the sake of the man I wanted to be.

I believe that young boy always wanted to be the man I currently am, but I sure didn’t make it easy on him. That seven or eight-year-old boy lay on the narrow strip of carpet left after twin beds and a dresser filled the 12x12 bedroom I shared with my brother. I don’t remember why I was drawn to poetry, but I was as I lay there, stomach down, on my floor with pen in hand as I wrote:

Why live when there’s no one to live for

Why give when there’s no one to give to

Why love when there’s no one to love with

Why laugh when there’s no one to laugh at

Why try when there’s no goal to achieve

Why cry when the tears are for no one

Why walk when there’s no one to walk to

Why look when there’s no one to see

I laid my cheek on the carpet in a quiet surrender and closed my eyes. After a couple of minutes, a gentle voice emerged from the darkness of my mind and said,

"Live, to give life.

Give, for the sake of giving.

Try, to build confidence.

Cry, to express feeling.

Laugh, to bring happiness.

Love, simply because you are loved.

Walk, to deliver.

Look, to enjoy all that has been given.

I was surprised with the answers but not startled by the voice for some reason, as I ran to the living room to show my mom what I had just written. She was amazed and asked, "Did you just write this?"

Yeah, I guess you could say that. I wrote the questions and a little voice in my head answered them for me, I said. She gave me a hug and said she was proud of me. And that was that.

That was the first conscious memory I had of this friend with whom I share my mind and my life. If I try to define what it is, who it is, where it is or anything else about it, I would be making something up. I chose to interpret this voice as the voice of God. Whether it is or not, I don’t know, but what I know is that it’s forever patient, forever kind, forever caring, and forever considerate. It’s everything I would worship in a God and everything I would strive to be in a person.

Life was emotionally painful for me during my preteens. I once stood on the front right corner of our house next to the hose reel, my forehead against the warm brick, as the sound of kids playing baseball in the circle echoed between the houses. I thought, It would be a whole lot easier if I wasn’t even alive anymore. I wasn’t suicidal because I never thought about killing myself, I was hurting, and I don’t remember why.

My teen years became filled with something I loved—work. I worked for my uncle in his custom home building company. My twin cousins and I became inseparable. We worked eighty hours a week, came home long enough to take a shower, and went back out together again.

All of the friends with whom I spent any social time went to a local Catholic high school. If I wanted to go to the same school, I would have had to pay part of my tuition. Where I went to school wasn’t important enough to me to do that. Heck, if I was going to work hard, it would be so I could play hard and have nice things, not so I could sit in the same classroom as my friends. They were convinced they were getting a better education than I was, but I was no more stupid than the rest of them. I knew they were no more morally better off than I was, so I was satisfied going to our public high school for free. For the first time in my life, I felt I was one of the guys. I had friends and God was still a good friend. I could call on that little voice in my head whenever I wanted and it was always there unconditionally. Life was good.

Then, on one of those thirty-four-degree misty, rainy New Year evenings, a group of us headed to a local high-rise hotel. There was a party on the eighth floor, and I was at one on the third floor. Suddenly, there were screams. Kurt fell! Kurt fell off of the ledge!

I looked out the window. Kurt fell from the eighth floor and was lying on the second floor roof, one floor below me. All I remember next is letting go of the bottom of that rail as I dropped to the roof below. I couldn’t let him lay there by himself. I ran to his side and knelt next to him. I could hear the gurgle in his chest as he tried to breathe. I reached in his mouth to make sure he didn’t swallow his tongue while sirens drew closer. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t even have a jacket to put over him, and we both shivered in that winter mist.

I rode with someone to the hospital, but to this day, I have no idea