http:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/articles.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How much time do you spend in your head? Almost all of the time, I imagine. Most of us identify with our minds and thoughts. Why shouldn’t we? Our minds are running constantly, unaided, like our beating hearts. Our minds are active even when we sleep and create the symbols of our dreams. Our minds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Hhvw-2H","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/creating-space-for-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":0},"title":"Creating Space for God","date":"September 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"What does it mean to have a relationship with God? How do we relate to someone who we can't see, hear, or touch? How can God be more real to us? An Inward Experience Sometimes, we experience God in a dramatic, physical way, but God is most often experienced inwardly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Making God Real"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":336,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/the-silent-tomb-an-easter-reflection-on-the-coronavirus\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":1},"title":"The Silent Tomb: An Easter reflection on the coronavirus","date":"April 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I had wondered about the significance of the coronavirus peak happening around Easter. What came to mind was Christ\u2019s tomb. A tomb is dark and silent and empty, except for the dead. With social distancing measures in place, we\u2019ve been forced into solitude. We\u2019ve been stripped of our outer lives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christ"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":345,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/where-god-dwells\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":2},"title":"Where God Dwells","date":"November 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Where does God dwell? The scriptures teach us that God dwells in heaven, his holy habitation (Deuteronomy 26:15), but aren\u2019t we also taught that God is everywhere? Being in a place isn\u2019t the same as abiding there. God may be everywhere, but he doesn\u2019t abide everywhere. Abide means to remain,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christ"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":286,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/the-purpose-of-pain\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":3},"title":"The Purpose of Pain","date":"October 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve noticed a growing trend in our society marked by an aversion to pain. I suspect this trend is due to the easy availability of drugs that mask pain. It seems as if pain is another malady to be conquered by science, along with cancer and heart disease. But pain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/the-joy-of-impermanence\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":4},"title":"The Joy of Impermanence","date":"May 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, I attended a play at the local Junior College. The play had a lot of set changes. One of the sets was a tall, red cabin with a high porch and steps. The lights went out and the stagehands rolled the cabin off the stage to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":302,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/the-simplicity-of-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":167,"position":5},"title":"The Simplicity of Death","date":"August 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"To understand death, we can observe nature as in the lifespan of insects or the hierarchy of the food chain. Death is an integral part of the cycle of life. Death is necessary, inevitable, and unavoidable. I doubt that insects or animals contemplate their mortality as humans do. Yet, what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}