. . . and just like that . . .

It's amazing how something as simple as a couple of songs, with intention, can change everything. Just hit by this tonight (crept into my thoughts and immediately changed my attitude upon hearing it):

"God is bigger than the air I breathe,
This world we'll leave,
And God will save the day,
And all will say,
'My Glorious'

The world's shakin' with the love of God,
Great and Glorious, let the church bells ring.
And all You ever do is change the old for new.
People, we believe that

God is bigger than the air I breathe,
This world we'll leave,
And God will save the day,
And all will say,
'My Glorious, My Glorious'"

Maybe it's also partly because I just read a book that kind of looks at the transience of life and the sort of stream of time that connects us all, but shoot. My life will end one day, and God will still be bigger. He has bigger things, huge things that I can't imagine that he deals with. My life will be short and transient, so how much less important are these "light and momentary troubles"? (Brit punctuation.) That's not to say that God doesn't care, but these "downs" are temporary and are not the end of the world, mine or anyone else's. I might as well make my attitude a good one to make my blink of an eye a good one.

Also had a thought tonight: I'm so blessed to have a place to live, a job, food, and a car in this economy. There are people who can't afford to pay their rent at all, let alone on time. I'm not starving, and I don't haven't been left destitute by any illness or natural/manmade disaster, either. I didn't even have hail damage! And another thought — it's really unfair to punish the new one for the old one. Cryptic enough? Haha probably easy to figure out. Goodnight. :)

"It's pressed between pages that you'll read if you're so inclined . . . "

Television numbs us from the reality around us. Or maybe, it not only numbs us from what is, but creates some dramatic what is not that fools us into thinking it might be or become our own reality. I doubt that made any sense.

I've taken time off from watching TV over the last week.

My evenings aren't spent wondering what will happen on next week's episode, whether I've caught or missed the last episode right now.

I'm starting to miss the anesthetic.

My hope was that I would be able to sustain myself and deepen my relationships with other people. Except that, after work, I have no people. I have no money for even the most basic of groceries and household needs, let alone trying to do something for others. All I have is time . . . but what if no one wants or needs that?

I haven't had quality time with anyone since last Tuesday night's hockey game. The feeling I have from being around people at work goes away after an hour or two. Then I realize that I have hours to stretch on and on by myself, like a big factory with its cold, automated, unchangeable schedule. I keep reminding myself that I'll be home again this weekend, but even that will only last me a few days.

I was not created to be this solitary.

I'm becoming more comfortable around myself; it's not that. It's just that, when I'm alone all the time, my life, my thoughts, my everything revolves around me. It's so self-centered. I need to be able to serve. I need to be able to love on others. I need mission (which I am probably using out of context).

Other than studying, I have no higher purpose other than to keep on existing and to "better myself." It's difficult to do that for me, though, and not for someone else or some other reason than just because all the time.

I have no one to walk beside me in real life, in real time, in person. My family has been great, a little concerned for me, lately, but great. I just need proximity. I need conversation. I need a common purpose or a common affection. I feel like I'm in a vague and hazy "solitary confinement" every night now.

My head keeps drifting back to, "Watch some Army wives. Watch some Bones. Watch some [fill in the blank]. It will occupy you and help kill time." But that's nowhere near what I was created for, and it's not worthwhile. People are reaching the end of their lives, and all I'm doing is plotting how to make mine go by faster, more meaninglessly?

My heart keps returning to, "If only you had someone to share your life with, you wouldn't be so lonely." But I can't shovel a heavy mire of loneliness onto one person. That's not right, not healthy, and never successful. (I've noticed myself doing this in the past relationships and almost-relationships I've had, so I know that for certain.) Instead of waiting, praying, and hoping to be lifted out of the miry pits by the one who can support my weight, I'm trying to scrape the crusty layer of "mire" off the top of me and dig my way out, lifting myself out by burying someone else in all that muck.

Smothering only leads to loneliness, anyway. I don't know if I could trust myself not to place heavier expectations on a friendship right now than would be healthy any more than I could depend on myself to avoid the same in any sort of romantic relationship. I need more than relationships, or they would fill that void. I think it comes back to mission. I need to be able to spread myself out, because all of my energies and attentions can be a bit — well, much. I need people. I need different ways to love people. I need to fulfill my purpose in multiple, possibly unrelated ways. I need a little water to my raspberry lemonade, because without it, I will just be too sour for anything or anyone.

And all the while, these easy fixes and numbing agents vie for my thoughts and my focus. Thank God only one is even an option now, or I'd be twice as likely to do something stupid.

"Does He ever get the girl?"

Random memory . . .

I was looking through a friend's photography portfolio on facebook and saw a 4-H sign in the background of one of her pictures. And before I could stop myself, this little mantra popped into my head from back in the ol' days:

"I pledge my head to clearer thinking,
My heart to greater loyalty,
My hands to larger service,
And my health to better living
For my club, my community, my country, and my world."

Now if only there was the smell of sawdust, manure, and wet steers . . .

Qu'est-ce que c'est ?

http://ancientwayinapost-modernworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-my-faith-story.html

Thanks, Josh. Just the fact that you read and cared enough to respond means a lot.

For me, it's been a conglomeration of things. I have met with so many people questioning things and so many propundants of ideas that I don't see in the Bible (or that seem so contradictory to what seems "right"). There have been so many inconsistencies in what I've read and what I've seen and heard. I have read conservative views of passages in the Bible that, if the Bible is to be read literally, would be right! (Example: women in the church passage.)

On the other hand, the church constantly preaches eternal salvation, while Hebrews 6:4-6 states, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” Hebrews 10:26 also states, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." I believe that much of sin is intentional, because we know, for example, that we shouldn't be gossipping, but do it anyway. Lying is intentional. Lots of things are intentional. So, if it can't be forgiven, and that sin stands in the way of God and me, what's the point in trying to get back to God with an unremovable roadblock between us?

In the past couple years, I confessed some pretty big stuff (hoping for accountability and a "public" confession) to a few people who had three responses: a) a sort of uncomfortable "I don't want to hear this" and a change of subject, followed by a total avoidance of that conversation from then on; b) "I'm glad you can tell me this," followed by no accountability; and c) "That's fine; I've done worse" or "I'm have no right to judge," followed by actual encouragement to continue down the road I've tried to get away from. What I've discovered is that the people who are the least judgmental are often also the least able to help. The most likely to help, however, can't get over their sanctimony to even be approachable or helpful.

I've also been exposed to the whole "Creation vs. Evolution" debate (does it really matter how God did it? sheesh), the issue of the Trinity (an idea molded by man based on interpretations of the Bible, but not shared by all and described as heresy and idolatry by the Jews), the whole faith/works dynamic (Eph. 2:8, the sheep and the goats, James 2:20), etc. For example, if I get married, I have to submit to my husband's will, even when I believe he is wrong, because I have no say? And he doesn't have to submit because he is the man/husband and doesn't have a chromosome in common with a dead woman who gave a piece of forbidden fruit to a dead man? And I know that this has been the traditional (now the most conservative) reading of this text for 2,000 years! I believe that this is unjust, and if this conservative view is not truth, then how do I know the Trinity is? So those guys we trust to have been inspired by the text were actually wrong (or at least misguided) on one part but right on all the other parts? Then why should we trust that they were divinely inspired? When Paul gives his opinions on marriage, we just trust that his opinions were right, because, hey, he was Paul, right? He himself says that he's only going on opinion there, though. Sex outside of marriage — a cultural or philosophical thing? It's not specifically in the Bible. Closest I can get is, "Daughters of Zion, I charge you by the gazelles and the does of the field, do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." (Don't get me wrong, here, I would advocate against premarital sex and messing around for a whole slew of other reasons anyway.)

I have more questions than answers, and all I can get when I try to find answers is opinions. But truth, aletheia, is much higher than a yahoo forum or ask.com entry. I can't settle for opinions. Who knows.

Once Upon a Time?

It feels like my faith has become a thing of the past. I've spent so much time working on other things, dealing with things on my own, asking questions and getting no answers that I don't really feel connected anymore, even when I'm really trying to reconnect. I feel like I've been "reconstructed," not by professors, not surrounded by other people asking the same questions and searching for the same answers, but by situations and things I've been exposed to, witnessed, heard. I don't know if it's not too late to be reconstructed. My friends anymore are mostly "non-practicers" and atheists or those who seem really into nonconformity for difference's sake. I guess I fall into that "different is good" category a bit, too. I would just like to find truth, but the truth is, that I've made such a muddle out of my life and my faith that I've practically gone back to stale, lifeless, spiritual infancy. I've made those bad choices, all along knowing they were the wrong ones. I've confessed to ears that turned away and eyes that refused to look at me, lips that either went silent or changed the subject. I don't have any of the answers anymore, at least not in community. And I'm not a firm believer in the "individualistic" faith surviving. Without community, we die. I'm dyin' here.

Just holdin' on and hoping that I can get my spiritual cup refilled, even though the cup's a bit tarnished now. I've tried and given up or lost focus or turned around so many times that I don't even trust myself anymore to commit to recommitting.

A Hard Rain's A-Been Fallin' Long Enough

. . . I think I'm done. Let's call this what it is. It's nothing.