A Rummage Sale

Feeling strange right now... Hmm... I went to a rummage sale yesterday at which the books were free!! Woo! I didn't see much of interest, though. I found a book called "The Last Days of Socrates". It has been interesting so far. I also found a textbook called "a quest for the universe". Now, that's a cool book. It's filled with all kinds of interesting facts and also has study questions for recalling the information. I did fine at the multiple choice, but the questions where I have to think and write are giving me difficulty. My brain hasn't been worked like that in many years. :) I think it could use some exercise.

Depression and Books

I'm sorry I don't keep my blog updated. My thoughts are wandering around, there's nothing solid to write about. I spent a few days in another town recently. I discovered the truth that places hold negative energy again-the place I stayed at depleted my positive energy in a hurry! I haven't been very happy since then, either. Before I left, I wasn't depressed, which is unusual for me, but, I've returned to my usual mind-state. Woops. :) Oh, well. It's my life. I went to a couple of used book stores and a place which sells used books, I had a good time doing that. I bought 8 new books, which I have yet to finish. I did read a little book on Zen, which was good, though very small. I found another book on Zen Buddhism, but it is too centered in telling me about precepts and rules to follow...um, I'm not very good with that. For some reason, I always feel guilty for not being a better person. I don't like who I am, I guess. So, every time I read about bettering ourselves, I feel the same pain. Why am I not good enough just the way I am? Well, part of me thinks I am. Another parts wants to tear me to shreds and start over. I want to be a good person, you know, what everyone considers to be a good person, but this means I think I can fail to be a good person and that would make me a bad person. Ah, labels, judgments. Lovely things they are. One day, one day I hope to give them up. To better myself!! Ha, ha, ha! Evil grin. This world is soooo confusing. So many shoulds and shouldn'ts and what's right and wrong, and what's normal or abnormal... I'm kind of tired of the whole thing. Circles, circles, I go round, dizzy, dizzy, I fall down.

The Past Few Events

Whoops, I didn't manage to write in this last month. I went to a lecture on the 20th of October, and got to meet Marcus Borg in person! I enjoyed the lecture, but mostly the part where he talked about God being Isness. That is so close to talking about pantheism that I felt it stir my spirit. The rest of the lecture was interesting. He talked about biblical literalism and reading the bible historically and metaphorically. I certainly want to learn how to read the bible historically/metaphorically, because literalism is kind of sickening. Although I don't think it will help me like the bible again. I'm tired of Christian language these days. Even metaphorical. Marcus Borg also talked about being an intentional Christian or a conventional Christian. Intentional Christians are Christians because they have chosen to be, they go to church not because everyone else is going, but because that's where they want to be. Last but not least he talked about the last empire and how one day it would fall like all the others, and that Jesus was an anti-empirical. Greed is the root of all evil-empires are the epitome of greed.
I had an interesting thought about the serpent when Mr. Borg said that the Python in Revelation was the symbol for an empire, or Greed. I thought about the serpent in the garden of eden and wondered if that too was greed, and it seems to be just that-for it offered power to Eve, and created greed within her. So, it is not some devil or satan that tempts us, it is just a human desire-greed.

At the end of October I went to church for the first time in three months and I actually had a good time. I thought about what the pastor said in metaphorical terms instead of the way he really meant it, and it helped. That way I was able to just think on positive things and not so much on the negative.
Last Sunday I went to church again, which isn't what I would have wanted to do since it had only been a month since my last visit, but some men from Teen Challenge Vermont were there, and I have loved their stories every time I heard them. They talk about how God saved them from drugs and addictions. They are the only people I have met who I believe when they say "Jesus saved me". It doesn't make any sense when others say it who haven't been saved from anything. I didn't enjoy this group as much as the last two, but maybe it was destroyed by it being holy communion Sunday. Like I said to my friend "This is the first Holy Communion I'm not taking since February 4th." Holy communion in their manner just makes me nauseous. Eh. Besides that, the men didn't seem very happy, and I like to be inspired by saved men-saved men aren't so down, are they? They are free of their addictions! They have their families and friends back! That is something to be happy about, isn't it? Oh, well.

We Don't Deserve God's Love?!

I keep running into things that have my mind getting impassioned. I guess it's good for that to happen some, otherwise my mind doesn't have anything interesting to talk about. I don't want to overdo it, though. One of the most recent things I was reading about was how we don't deserve to be in God's presence, and we don't deserve God's love, and we don't deserve God's forgiveness... I feel angry at reading things like that. Those three sentences have no meaning-one can't deserve any of that-you can't deserve love or forgiveness or to be in someone's presence. Those things are not on a measuring stick, there are no love points to be earned. To say one doesn't deserve to be loved is a horrible negative statement which only purpose seems to be to tell people how worthless and insignificant they are. People are not worthless and insignificant! We all matter to God, we all have value to God. I think it is utterly defeating to tell a person "God loves you so much, even though you don't deserve it." What? What's the point in telling them God loves them when you just made them not worthy of love? There is going to be a big wound in people who believe such statements, for they really say "You are not lovable." Why isn't the statement "God loves you" no, "Even though..."? There should never, ever be any "buts" when it comes to love. "I love you, but" is not a love statement. Adding 'deserve' to a love statement contradicts the love statement. Who would tell their children "I love you even though you don't deserve it"? I don't think anyone but the most sick parents would say such a thing. I read in a short story that we do not deserve to be in God's presence. What a painful thing to say! They were comparing us to a dog who wandered into an orchestra-I bet that no one said or thought "That dog does not DESERVE to be here!" No, that would be stupid, and yet when it comes to us appearing in the orchestra of God, they have the gall to say "Even though we don't deserve to be there". Don't deserve? What does deserving have to do with anything?! Ugh!

The Encompassment of Biblical Interpretation

I've been really depressed lately. It feels as though my life is going nowhere. I've kind of run out of things to do in this small town I live in. I just started volunteering at the school again, but it's not the same as before, it doesn't feel like I actually did anything. I miss having a life. I'm really lonely. I found myself falling into a hole of pain when I was reading on a message board about the reason why hell has to exist and why justice must punish sin. That is so tiring. People who talk like that don't seem to know what justice or love is. I was trying to explain it to them-silly me- and I was getting more and more depressed as the conversation went on. It didn't help either that I was reading the Bible looking for the answers for them and I realised they were never going to see things the way I do, even with the Bible verses. Whatever one wants to believe, it's there in the Bible. You want to believe in hell-it's there. You want to believe that Christ saves everyone and that hell is a metaphor-it's there. You want to believe that God hates sin and sinners and will punish both-it's there. You want to believe that God uses sin for His glory and loves sinners wholeheartedly, it's there. You want to believe that justice punishes sinful people-it's there. You want to believe that justice heals the wounds of all, disciplines and corrects-it's there. You want to believe in evil spirits and a satan-it's there. You want to believe that satan and evil spirits don't exist but are symbols-it's there. You want to believe that women are to be in submission to men-it's there. You want to believe that men and women are equal in God's eyes-it's there.
I'm tired of it all. I want to give up on Christianity! I love Christ, but Christianity is destroying my spirit. I think from now on I'll just refer to myself as a pantheist. I don't need to keep the label of Christian. It just confuses people anyway. They think it means that I believe in hell and sin and evil and the Bible, when it means none of that. When I say I am a Christian, I mean I am a disciple of Christ. I am a follower of the Way. I talk to and have communion with the Person of Divine Love, Christ. I am not a believer in the religion of Christianity.

Loving What You Fear?

I've been neglecting my blog! Well, I don't have much to write about. I try not to upset myself by reading material I disagree with, but that also stops me from getting all passionate and having something to say. I don't know, is it better to avoid serious depression, or have something to write about? :) I think I know the answer.
Anyway, I have been reading A Course in Miracles, and it is quite hard to read. I don't even know why I am bothering to try. I don't really understand what it is saying. One interesting subject is fear. It says not to master fear, but to achieve mastery through love. Now, this made perfect sense to me when it came to being afraid of the dark. To release fear of darkness one must love the darkness, become friends with it. This works for me, because it is how I have been wroking through my present overwhelming fear of darkness I've had ever since my cat died. It's finally fading away through the power of love. However, this release fear through love thing doesn't make much sense to me when it comes to my fear of the house burning down. Uh, wouldn't it be very odd to love the house burning down? I don't think that is possible for me. Fire is beautiful, but being beautiful isn't enough for me to love it tearing through the house! There would be a lot more involved in overcoming this fear than just love. I'd have to let go of my attachments. Is that loving? To be non-attached? Perhaps it is...
Recently I had an experience which was kind of odd. I was looking at a picture of Leonidas (the character in the movie 300) and it spoke to me. Not in words, but through feeling. Seeing him scarred, muscled, screaming, it just spoke of power. Raw human strength. He stood up for what he believed in-even to his own death-that is love! I felt moved to tears. I wish I knew how to explain it better, but it left an impression on me. Even though it was a picture of a man going into battle, a man used to killing, it was somehow a beautiful picture. That doesn't seem like something I would see in such a picture, being as I am against war and violence. I thought the experience was intriguing.

Death and Questions

One of my family's cats passed away on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007.

His name was Big Boy, and he was loved by us. This death has had an impact on my faith in God. In some ways it feels stronger and in other ways weaker. I don't know whether to trust Him or not. If I am going to pray for healing and life and my cat just dies anyway, then I don't know what to think about God. I've decided that everything is predestined, because otherwise, nothing makes any sense. And maybe it doesn't make sense anyway, but at least this way, I can have faith in the unknown, because the unknown will be perfect accodring to God's plan. Even though at times God's plan looks painful and sometimes pretty stupid, we can't see into the beyond, we really don't know what's going on. Only God knows, and we know that God is Love, so His plan for us is only out of love and for our highest benefit. Sometimes I feel stuck between two worlds. I can see this grand plan of love, and other times, it is not a grand plan of love at all, but nothing is happening. I think I feel like the writer of Ecclesiastes: '"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."' In meaningless, nothingness, there is this quiet, this all-pervading silence, and I don't know how to live in silence. I like the noise of the universe. I feel the silence now, though. It's frightening because it's all consuming, and unknown. What is it? And how is it this silence can be what is, and yet there is all this noise? It is quite difficult to contemplate this paradox of the universe. I just stock it up to be one of those things that goes beyond my comprehension.
I wrote a poem about death:
Death, I want to be
your friend,
but you take away
the ones I love.
I know you mean me
no harm
but it hurts
anyway.
You tell me to let go
I don't know how
Your hand looks
rough and stiff
nothing I want to touch
but there you are
staring at me
Your essence is dark
and fear wells up
within me
how can I accept you?
You have erased
their pain
mine has been stirred.
Your hand did not hold
the spoon, did it?
No, it is my hand
stirring the suffering
because I beheld
you,
and I was afraid
am afraid
because you are so
sudden
so final
so shocking.
You are not
as I expected
you reached past
my walls
and sent shivers
through my heart.
You snatched
the last
of Pandora's
creatures,
Hope
what can I hope for now?
Death is the End
of all living things
and here
in the known world
the end
is not
a beginning.
There will be no more
of that which was lost
to you
Not in this life
nor in that form
Innocence was shattered
by your touch.
All I can do now
is stop trying
to hold on to
that which has
passed beyond
He will not return
as he was
he will be new
and I won't know
who he is.
The only way
to disperse despair
is to release
the fear of change
The caterpillar must die
to become
the butterfly
There is no sorrow
at that loss
for that loss
was gain.
Is all death
so beautiful?
You do not look so
from this perspective.
Let me stand
elsewhere
for a while
so I can see you
in your gown of glory
your hand of light
let me see,
that you are
just a night
full of stars
a mystery
full of love
let me see
you.
I am reminded
that when Arjuna
saw Krishna
in His fullness
he was overwhelmed
for the sight of
Krishna
was fearsome
Were you there
in that vision,
death?
Yes, for He says
"I am Death".