Finding my way in life

Whew, it has been a wild few months, I must admit. I got into a hugh depression. And sometimes I still fall back into it from time to time. I am now trying to really improve my life in meaningful ways. Its going slowly, but its like a snowball, its slowly picking up pace. I have been in contact with my new friend, Father Sean, who gave me some direction. I am trying to discern my vocation, which can be roughly translated to figuring out not just what i am to do in life, but the type of person I am going to be. It is not going to be easy, because it seems like I could be anything. I think of figuring out my vocation is a bit like a mystery. I follow leads, investigate and interogate witnesses. SOme areas do not turn up fruit. Others teach you a little more about yourself. One of the things I am looking into is writing. All of this has led me to find a vital clue; I need self disipline. Its a huge issue with me. I need to be able to set my own goals and follow through with them. I am slowly getting there. Am I getting there fast enough? Who knows. I do know that I am moving along the right path, the trail is hot and the clues are fresh. So whoever is listening, pray that I get some of that self-disipline. Lets talk about the new things I am trying. Like saying the rosary in my head; since I work at a fairly monotonous job right now, it is a good practice to get into, but for my scattered brain it is difficult. It requires I stay focused, and be constatly aware of my prayer; the most difficult part, I find, is being able to make the prayer 'real' instead of purely cerimonial. But trailing a close second and third are keeping track of my imaginary rosary beads and remembering the prayers. I am also reading the Gospel of John. I have read it before, but it can't hurt to read it again (there is a school of thought that says you cannot understand any book till you read it at least three times). For any other person, this is boring, and even silly. But to me its exciting. Its also going to be hard, especially when novemeber comes. I will be writing 1600 words a day, ontop of this and KoM. And reading. I have already been restricting my tv watching severely in the knowlege that I will not be able to watch more then an hour most nights. This is a rather self indulgent post, but occasionally I like to write about the context of my other posts, so people know where I am coming from. Well, whoever is listening, pray for me if you can.
Peace.

False Gods with Beards and Halos

The Path of Love is not easy. This path that christ has set down for us, the narrow path, can be difficult. It is easy to loose ones way. It is easy to get distract and lost. There are many temptations, many ways to loose our path. There are indeed, many false idols.

I can hear some groans. This is Old Testement talk, harsh talk. Tough. We do have idols, but there not the old ones made of bronze or wood. Most of the modern idols are abstract. We worship wealth (thats an ancient and sinister idol, more terrifying in some ways then any Lovecraftian old one). We Worship beauty. We Worship technology. We Worship our nation. Our celebraties. Our freedom. Our community. And sometimes, we worship at the throne of hatred, and beware, for that is the most dangerous throne to worship at. We may not always think that we are worshiping these things. But if we place these things above god and those we care about, then we have wandered off the path. If we say that wealth is more important then friendship, that celebraties are more important then family, that our nation is more important then god, if we take the God who is Love, and replace him with these things, we are falling of the path.

And sometimes, we do not realize we are worshiping false idols, because we give them a beard with a little halo and call them jesus. I tell you now, if you believe it is the commandment of god to Hate any one of his childern, no matter who they are, your God is not the same as mine. And if he tells you to harm your brother, then he is not my god. And if he tells you to use cruel and hurtful words against people, to deny them justice, to perpetuate violence against them, and to serve hatred in all its many forms, then I do not know your god, nor would I want to. And if you read the books given to man by god, and simply skip over the parts that tell us that God love's mankind, and that we are called to love God and his childern, then you might as well be reading the ramblings of madmen. Without the Loving God, Christianity is meaningless.

If I offend, I am sorry. I do not mean to say anything to harm you. But I see many Christians who have lost themselves on the wrong path. They have twisted the faith in the service of whatever petty desire they have; there is nothing petty about the faith laid before us. We are called to a life of Love, a hard life that will require sacrifice. You may become lost; you probably will loose your way. But worry not, for if you keep the love of God and Man in your heart, you will never be so far away from that path, that you cannot make your way back.

I will not lie to you; I am not the strongest person. I fail, I break, I fall. My biggest problem is that I do not believe in myself. Intellectually, I understand that I am a capable person, but emotionally, I am filled with doubts and insecurities. I know I shouldn't feel this way; all of the people I love have faith in me; God himself created me. I should be able to reconize something worth in my own design. But my heart betrays me.

Even now, I do not believe in these words that I am writing; I do not believe they are turly meaningful. That all of this is self-indulgent and selfish of me, to talk about my problems.

But that is part of the reason I must write. To expose myself, lay my thoughts bare, and find true worth in them. Because I was not created worthless; this is the truth. I was made with a good and meaningful design. I must accept and realize this. For if God himself believes in me, then how can I not believe in myself.

I still have a long ways to go. My journey is not complete, nor will it ever be till the day I die. But I must move on, learn to believe in myself. Anything less is sacreligion.

Family

Families are powerful. Don't ever believe otherwise. Our clans will influence us for the rest of our lives, for better, and for worse. Parents, you are the ones who first interact with your childern, you will be required to teach them how to act around others, give them beliefs (becareful, they do not nessecarily have to accept those beliefs), teach them about the world around them. Your clan will be the first church a child goes to, the first school they attend, the first governmental authority that they interact with. In the clan, people are taught how to live.
This power is great. It can be used to uplift a child, make them whole. They can draw stregth from their family and rely upon them. From their family they will have learnt right from wrong, how to be polite, and all those important things that allow us to live in society. The guidance of the family will guide them throughout their life.
And this power can be abused. Abuse of the authority given to relatives is often some of the most distrubing and upsetting sins that mankind can commit. Without even touching the child, parents and relatives can make a young persons life a living hell. The childern of these dark clans shall be in the unfortunate position of having to rise above the ways set before them by their family. But still, their family effects them, even if they turn to good, they shall carry those scars.
Luckily, most of us will never see such abuse; unfortunately, most of us will not see such perfection in our familys. Because they are human, parents will make mistakes. Even Mary and Joseph made mistakes along the way.
Remember that at the heart of every family, must be love. No clan can survive for long without it. At the heart of the great divine family, in which we are all a part of, is God's great love for all humanity. He is calling us to follow a path of love into his great arms. He wishes for us to love one another. So remember, those who are starting new families; give all the love you can to your family and tell them to pass it on to everyone they meet. And though it may be hard, continue to love your families, despite everything that has passed; I cannot say that this love will heal all wounds in every family, but it can heal the wounds within yourself.

Keep care my readers, and watch over your families.

Faith

Some Stories for you.

Three blind men all are trying to descern the nature of an elephant. One graps the trunks and believes it to be a snake. One graps a leg and believes it to be a tree. And another graps the ear, and believes it to be a fan.

Another story.

A group of men spend their life in a cave, watching shadow puppets on the wall. For these men, the shadow puppets are all that exist. One man escapes and returns to tell the others of the real world. But the men are unconvinced, and will not go with the man into the real world.

And another.

A philosopher is held captive by an evil demon. This demon creates a sophesticated illusion, controlling everything the philosopher sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. The philosopher is unable to tell this illusion from reality.

To any body who has studied philosophy, these are familar stories. Why did I tell you them? Our senses are not absolute. They are imperfect. Things we see are distorted. Things we hear are unclear. Things we taste are tainted. And our mind takes what little information we have, and translates it into colour, sound and taste. How can we be certain that what one person sees and hears is completely different from what another person sees or hears? How can we be sure that what we call reality is real at all? Could we be trapped by an evil demon, or within a computer, or could we be computer programs, sophesticated, designed to immitate life.

We are not certain about reality at all; not in the manner our society would like. Our society demands sure things. It demands dependable knowlegde. But for better or worse, we have very little to be certain about.

So we make assumptions. I am not ashamed of us for this, and neither should you. These basic assumptions are based on our guts, what we believe deep down. From these assumptions, we can build paradigms, and make decisions on what is the nature of reality, leading to science, religion, and philosophy, and all other studies and ideologies that speak of the very nature of existance.

These assumptions, in the end, cannot be backed up by rational thinking. Even science has assumptions at its very base, the assumption of a essentially rational and clockwork universe that is predictable enough to be studied (which is why the human sciences bear very little resemblence to the rest of the scientific community; humans are unpredictable). Belief with our reason. Faith, I say.

Faith, for me, is very much about what you believe in, and what you put your trust in. Its the foundation of what we call knowlegde. But I do not mean to say it only deals with worldviews; just as a person can have Faith in science, so too he can have Faith in a friend. This person believes this friend will help them out; in effect, its a kind of knowlegde. If you are astute, you will see very clearly, that there is a flaw in my thinking; I am combining faith(belief) with faith(trust). But I do not believe it is a real flaw. Trust and belief are two sides of the same coin; you must have trust in something to believe in it.

But often we are disapointed in those things we have faith in; science, family, religion, friends, humanity, nations, all seem the fall short.

You know what should come next, but I am going to try and surprise you.

Sometimes, we are even disapointed in God. Maybe we shouldn't feel this way (I would say that God's wisdom is much greater then we know), but often we do. I know I have sometimes felt this way, God forgive. But God loves us, more then we can know, and he has a plan; hang on, dear readers, it may not seem this way right now, but he will lead us to the green pasture, and everything that happens to us will be turned to good.

Does this mean that we stop having faith in other things? No! Faith in God does not preclude faith in other things. We do not cease to become scientists just because we become followers of the path of love. No! If anything, we become better scientists. And we become better friends. Better Patriots. Better brothers and sisters. Better humans. Heck, we can even become better communists and capitalists. Why? Because the central core of the message that God has given mankind is Love. And now, we bring this one supreme message to all of our faith-relationships. Faith without love is dangerous to say the least; Just as hope without love is futile. Men with Faith, but no Love, these are empty men. Even Christians, if they have no Love, are useless; oh you Christians, believe those words, for they come straight from our book. Tempered by Love, we can use our believes to bring joy to the world.

I felt pretty good about this post. I know its a bit more prickily then my other posts, it requires a few more jumps (of Faith), but I felt good about it. Thank you, and keep me in your prayers.