The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

Every single page is telling you to let go of Fear. Don’t fear letting go of fear.

If the Bible came with a Juke Box, it might just have THIS tune as the first record. Turn it up and Have No Fear:

My story of how I came to Faith is a great example of just how persistent and creative The Universe and God are when They are determined to find you.

My parents did not introduce us, at least in any positive manner, to the concept of faith or spirituality or religion to my brother Sean nor I when we were kids in our formative years.  Each of my parents had different experiences with different religions growing up; my mom with Catholicism in her Irish immigrant family in Boston, and my father, with some sort of Baptist upbringing from his mother, which apparently provided a great deal of lifelong torment for Him amongst lots of other choices he made.

Sidenote-I found out years after our Father chose to take his own life when I was 15 in 1984 that he had kept a Bible, his whole life, that he had gotten from his mother when he was younger.  I still find this really hard to believe and it further proves that I didn’t know a whole lot about my Dad as a man while he was alive. 

I had the very surreal experience of being introduced to faith through Reggae music when I was 18 and 19 prior to moving to California to pursue my college degree.

It was 1987 and 88 and I was asked to host a reggae night at the local college bar, which was one of my gigs to save money and make the move west.

I didn’t realize the lyrics in traditional reggae were the equivalent of gospel music lyrics, simply with the different style of Caribbean backbeat and instrumentation.

The words and message got to me, and I dropped down on my knees in my little room and said my first prayer with the music of Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear, providing the inspiration for me.

As I met some Rastafarians practicing the faith in California, they explain to me some of the themes and messages and why they’re so important to us today here in our modern life.

Specifically, I remember an old man talking to me about a song by the Twinkle Brothers called “Never Get Burned”.  He was explaining to me that the metaphor of Daniel in the Lions Den is an apt metaphor for the challenges that we face today in remaining vigilant in our spirituality and how we treat other people here on earth.

The Old Grey Rasta Man kept coming back to the importance of having no fear in order to maintain a clear connection to hear the voice of God in our prayers and meditation so that we can act under those clear instructions and not be distracted as we live here “in the Lion’s Den”

Fear is the death below to all big dreams and it is also the energy that interrupts and severs the connection to our higher self, and fear is ONLY an ingredient in our consciousness as a protective measure to prevent us from premature death or from making poor decisions that could harm our self or others.