Just Soul Food Ii: The Cycle of Love in the Spirit Chrst's Cross: Its Just Meat, Sweet Potatoes Collard Greens & Corn Bread

By Ron Carter

Just Soul Food II is the second book in the Just Soul Food Bible Study series. It's designed to present a collective perspective, laying out plainly on a plate of soul food the concepts, elements and cyclical pattern of love. The Collard Greens were developed as a means to simply illustrate, both graphically and literally, the deeper understanding of God's love that Christ fulfilled and delivered to mankind through his lifetime and cycles on earth recorded in the New Testament.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257368730

Ron Carter

Ron Carter is Co-Superintendent of Sunday School along with his wife, Mary at First Free Will Baptist Church in the Richmond, Virginia area. He is also chairman of the Board of Trustees for the church. Ron accepted this role after being convinced this was God’s will for him. One of his responsibilities is leading in an opening assembly each week which includes a devotion. Those devotions are what Reflections is all about. During his adult life, Ron has served as deacon at two former churches. In addition, he served on the administrative board for a Christian School, K-12, in one of them. He has served on and chaired other committees as well. Ron has had the honor and privilege, has experienced the responsibility of preparing and delivering messages for worship services on several occasions. This has given him great appreciation and respect for those who responded to God’s call to make this their life’s work. Ron grew up in rural, central Virginia, the only child at home during most of his childhood and youth. It was during a Summer revival at Salem Christian Church in Louisa County that he responded to the Holy Spirit and asked Jesus into his heart and life. About two weeks later, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Ron was the youngest of three generations in his family to be baptized in the South Anna River near his home. Ron is now retired, having sold an HVAC business he founded nearly forty years ago. He and his wife, Mary, also retired, love their church family, church activities and serving God in whatever ways they can. They love to travel and have met people from many parts of the country, many with whom they maintain contact and consider extended family. Some of Ron’s photography is an integral part of Reflections. Ron and Mary have five children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. They make their home in Glen Allen, Virginia.

Book preview

Just Soul Food Ii: The Cycle of Love in the Spirit Chrst's Cross: Its Just Meat, Sweet Potatoes Collard Greens & Corn Bread

JUST SOUL FOOD II: The Cycle of Love in The Spirit Christ’s Cross: It’s Just Meat, Sweet Potatoes, Collard Greens & Corn Bread

The Greens Cycle

Written By,

Ron Carter

Copyright Page

ISBN: 978-1-4116-6546-0

eISBN: 978-1-257-36873-0

Copyright © 2006 Just Soul Food-All Rights Reserved

Revision: Updated Dec 2009

Revision: Updated July 2011

Revision: Updated Aug 2012

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All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.  In a few cases the author has paraphrased words/numbers of the text for increased readability replacing love for charity, s for eth, you for ye, etc.  These changes are not part of the original Bible version.  The book includes both biblical quotes and paraphrased references.  Statements concerning better health are the author’s researched opinion.  The information may be used to enhance the reader’s diet and overall health, but should not replace licensed medical care. Pictures and images are original or listed in the public domain.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family, specifically my parents Paul and Bettye Carter and other immediate family members for their love and support over the years.  We are all connected in this world.  With constructive words and hands of encouragement we help each other navigate through the river of life.

Menu Items

These books were written to be consumed in the proper, numerical sequence.  However, since that may not always be the case, we include the menu items and their applications.

The meat in our cyclical diagram represents God, Christ or Love, in one form or another, and/or Heaven.  Meat is food, the solid food of love, both physical and spiritual.  And it is the point of conception.  It represents love because before you first came into the world and arrived on the planet as a physical being, you were conceived in love having come spiritually from God.  However, or with whomever it took place, your conception and later arrival on the planet after being carried for nine months by a loving, consenting mother clearly indicates an act of love.  Meat is the top of the food chain because it is the accumulation of all the other elements in the cycle.  It is the highest form of food.  Meat represents love, the foundation of life.  It is composed of amino acids, the basic building blocks for protein needed for all animal life.  Most importantly, it is made available to our plate only by the sacrifice of life and blood.  Blood was shed and life taken that another life may continue.  Meat represents the strongest structure of all the cyclical elements.  All of these factors indicate why the meat represent the food of love and is at the top of our cyclical diagram.

The Sweet potatoes are a root crop.  The sweet potatoes represent the root, point of darkness, man, the earth or seed in soil.  Sweet potatoes represent these items because they are rooted and grown in darkness away from direct sunlight.  Man himself was formed out of the dust of the earth and upon death he returns back to it.  Potatoes themselves come in several different types all stemming from the root of Adam.  And as they mature when watered, they begin to bud and sprout green plant life.  We also call this the point of initialization, because this is the point at which the concept is initialized and brought to us on the earth.  It is the point at which the seed is placed into the soil and takes up roots.  Any element of love that is conceptualized in the spiritual world by God, or the physical world by parents, will be initialized in you in some form.  This form can be made known to you as a thought, dream, vision, word, act or deed.  The act of being born on the planet is an act of initialization and each time we awaken is a re-initialization.  All of these factors indicate why the sweet potatoes represent man or the earth.

The greens represent water and green plant life.  This is the point of receiving, acceptance, nurturing and transformation.  The greens address the heart of the cycle, perform a large variety of functions and make up the second largest, independent cycle of the larger Just Soul Food cyclical diagram.  Greens are the most basic life form and the most prevalent life form on the planet.  In the waters, the greens are represented in large and microscopic plant life such as phytoplankton, which grow abundantly in oceans around the world and are the foundation of the marine food chain.  On the land, the greens can be represented in many green plants and tree foliage with access to sunlight and water.  They all contain the pigment chlorophyll, which gives them their greenish color.  The greens that humans consume come through the marine food chain or are eaten directly in such foods as spinach and collard greens.  Greens can be bitter, but provide a very beneficial function to the body.  Greens provide valuable nutrients, are alkaline and balance acidity in digestion. 

Most importantly, both ocean and land based greens contain chlorophyll.  Green plants use chlorophyll for photosynthesis.  Greens, through the process of photosynthesis, transform light from the sun and water into green plant food, carbohydrates, the essential product.  And they also transform carbon dioxide into life, giving oxygen as a byproduct.  This process is critical to maintaining life, as we know it on our planet.  Greens are that point where we receive through the heart and into our being.  This represents the point where we water that which has been placed into the soil.  Water activates, converts and transforms whatever is in the soil.  Here we receive and transform into a real life-altering entity that which we take into our heart.  All of these factors indicate why the greens represent water, receiving, acceptance, nurturing and transformation.

The bread represents the end product or result.  Depending upon the application, it may represent different types of things, leavened or unleavened bread (representing our Savior – Jesus Christ).  It is the point of light & manifestation, that point at which it is revealed to us.  It is that point at which we recognize the result, or end product from the entity that was received in the greens.  The corn bread is the true treasure of the Just Soul Food diagram (as any true soul food lover can attest).  It is a highly desired and rewarding element on the platter.  All these factors indicate why the bread represents the end product or result.  Cyclically they lay out as:

Meat – Point of Conception

Root – Point of Darkness, Initialization

Greens – Point of Water, Receptivity,

Acceptance, Nurture &

Transformation (Heart)

Bread – Point of Light, Bread,

Manifestation

He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness -Job 26:10 ESV        

Introduction

Just Soul Food II – Greens is the second book in the Just Soul Food Bible Study Series.  These books should be consumed in numerical order.  They were written to help calm the struggle of finding and understanding love, by presenting a collective perspective on the concepts, elements and cyclical pattern of love, displayed on the plate set before us.  This cyclical pattern of love, when fully digested, will lead us to resolution of fears, a better understanding of the intersection of all our worlds and a more peaceful life.  It was developed as a means to simply illustrate, both graphically and literally, how to unify our concept of God and love found in the written word and in the world; to help calm the inner struggles of the heart and mind and find love, peace and acceptance within ourselves and others. 

In the original book we addressed primarily three essential elements.  The first element established the introduction of God’s cycle of love that is represented in the circle of soul food menu items.  The second one being the realization that God is the meat, i.e., the point of conception for all love-based transitions we go through in life and demonstrating how we can emphatically state and know that God is Love.  Thirdly, establishing that the means whereby this transition is directed to take place on the earth and in us, has been appointed to his Son Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  And how understanding the wholeness of this Just Soul Food (JSF) cycle, found in the word and the world, can provide a means to relieve the stress of daily life and bring love and wholeness within our own Being Cycle. 

With that in mind, we are now going to move onward into a deeper level of understanding that the Son delivered to mankind through his life, time and cycles on the earth in the New Testament.  As we address this deeper level within the framework of the JSF cycle, it is important to remember the fundamental focus point.  What we are really learning about is love, Godly or agape love, and some of the many cyclical manifestations of this all-encompassing entity that guides, directs, mediates, interprets and influences all things.  And more specifically, how Christ, through the Holy Spirit, demonstrated to us that his love is the essence of God’s agape love.

In our natural, human way of thinking, we really know very little about God’s agape love.  Therefore, as we begin to come into the awareness of this type of love, there is a natural resistance, trepidation or fear toward where it may take us, as it is essentially an unknown entity.  Man innately has a fear of the unknown.  But God’s love should not exist as an unknown, for it has always existed.  It is simply an unknown within us until we begin to initialize and accept it within our spirit.  God’s love has many manifestations already present in our lives which are displayed outwardly in many forms, some recognizable and some not so recognizable.  We want to be able to recognize, feel and know God’s love for us within our core Being Cycle and to see the benefits it brings to our lives.

We all have established within us a basis or an image of love with which we came into the world.  That image of love is taken to a deeper, fulfilling level through receiving the love of Christ.  What we are now going to address is how Christ showed us that fulfillment of God’s love through the Holy Spirit; how he demonstrated through his actions, words and parables that the true meaning of love is giving, forgiving and living in the completeness operating within this JSF cycle, the cycle of God’s love.  How through the Holy Spirit, he has made available for man that deep, forgiving and fulfilling love that is now transforming man into spirit-filled beings created to return that love to God.  And how all this was/is being done through the heart, that God established at the beginning,  As we get deeper into this cycle, we will also get a glimpse into understanding why there is