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".

Fearing What You Don't Accept: An Autobiography

Today I'm going to write a little more about myself. I've had some experiences which have taught me that we fear that which we have not yet accepted. When I was 15, my sister moved out of the house, taking with her some part of myself, because after that, I wasn't the same. I didn't know who I was and I forgot many things. I became very insecure, I think I thought that if I wasn't good enough, I would also get thrown out of the house, and I was terrfied. I didn't know who to be. I don't know why, but my attempts at not acting like my sister failed, and I started to do the very things I was afraid of doing. I forgot how to wash my hands-how in the world does that happen?! To this day I am still afraid that it will happen again. I am not whole, I am still broken by these experiences. I went into tenth grade in high school and found myself more lost, because I would be afraid of doing whatever the teachers told us not to do, and because of that fear, I would lead myself right into doing what I wasn't supposed to. One thing that happened bothered me for years. I was in health class watching a video about homosexuals. They had said that people were able to tell if you were, and I became afraid that people would think I was, even though I wasn't, which of course had the effect of creating in myself the image that I was homosexual! Fear! Terror that someone would see right through me, see that I was starting to have feelings for women and not any for men. They would know, and I would be rejected. Being homosexual was considered wrong by me, so I was wrong. I was messed up. I was lost. I kept this as a deep dark secret until I finally started to accept who I really am, and that is not a homosexual. That was a mistaken identity. And the only way to see who I really was was to accept that it is okay to be homosexual. It's totally natural. There's nothing wrong with it at all. I accept the sexual feelings I have for women as well as the ones I have for men, now that I have accepted myself and others. I am free of that fear now. But, other fears came upon me, too, that I have yet to overcome because I have not accepted them. Because I have not accepted them as a part of me, I cannot even share them with you, for fear I will be rejected. See, I have difficulties with my sexual part of myself. I am frightened of her. She has feelings for many people that I don't think she should be feeling that way about. I reject her, so I cannot be free. So, I dealt with a lot of confusion on the matter of my sexuality. I remember watching a movie during that time when a woman was talking about being raped, and I was being aroused by that, and it was so shameful to me that I ran away to cry and pretended I was using the bathroom so they wouldn't know it had bothered me. I also had trouble writing papers because I didn't know my own ideas. I washed my hands methodically, making sure to wash every finger, and every spot. That period of my life is something so strange and frightening that I still fear it will happen again. I have thoughts that if I don't do something a certain way or at a certain time, someone will die, or something bad will happen. I can't seem to get past that completely, for I will indeed blame myself if something bad happens and I didn't do what I was supposed to do. This I assume is OCD. Since I have never been diagnosed, I can't be sure, but it seems to be the answer for what was, and is, affecting my life so negatively. I have come to dread anyone who says our thoughts become our reality, because my thoughts can be dangerous-at least that's what they tell me! What do they mean if I have a thought that my cat will die, then my cat will really die because I focused on that thought due to my fear? Eeeeeek!! That makes everything worse. I already have the problem where I think that if I think it will happen, it will. That's scary, because I have thoughts that my family and/or friends will die. How could my thoughts possibly be responsible for their deaths?! I have this prayer I say to make sure that doesn't happen. I wish I didn't have to be afraid. It may all stem from my sister leaving, I blamed myself for that. Something happened, something in me broke. I don't know how to fix it, but I have managed to work through some of the ill effects of that event. It is hard to release OCD-it swears it is too important! No, you can't do that! Someone will die! Someday I'll have to accept that death happens and it is certainly not my fault unless I take actions. Thoughts do not affect another person's reality, only my own. The only way someone could die by my thoughts is if their own thoughts also co-operated. I have many things to accept in this life. Acceptance brings peace and freedom.

Choosing a State of Mind

Lately I have been remembering that I choose my state of mind. I choose how I perceive things-within my ability to perceive otherwise. I was feeling angry at my brother for something, and I stopped for a moment and realized I didn't have to be angry. (Especially if I am going to follow what I believe in-which is that everything happens for a reason. :) ) It didn't really matter. I keep making things matter that aren't that serious. Of course, I know the reasons behind my mental exaggerations. They are more serious, but they really don't have anything to do with the situation at hand. I've found that my main fear is that I'll be a failure. I'm afraid to fail at life, so I don't try to live. I create relationships that are bound to fail, out of my need not to fail. I create fail/fail choices because I don't want to be responsible for anything, because I don't want to fail. I fail because I don't want to. I talked to God about this in my journal. He made it clear that the only way for me to escape my fail/fail options is to decide who I really want to be, and what I really want to do. If I want to do it, and I do it, I can't fail. It only becomes a fail when I'm not sure about my decisions. Here's what He said: "Decide who you want to be, really. Decide what you want to do, really. And once you have, don't let following your chosen path count as a failure. If you do it, you succeed, no matter what you fail to do. When you succeed at winning, you fail at losing! Just as you succeeded at saying no at the retreat, and failed at saying yes." Later She said: "Do not worry. You will not fail me. You cannot fail me." Oh, I needed to hear that so much! Thanks, God! :) God's love for us is higher than our deepest wishes of what love could be. We cannot fail God!

Suffering for Silence

I was ordered to speak

but remained silent

for fear of ridicule

for rebellion

But what use was it

to keep quiet

and destroy love?

To whom must I be

faithful?

Must I betray myself

to please him?

Or uphold my dignity?

This question burns me.

What choice do I have

when both paths

fail one of us?

Who's to suffer?

I took this question

to bed

and let my tears

wash me into myself

where I was no good

and death loomed

before me

my emotions tore at me

until in my pain

I smashed my head

into the bars

of my prison

until it split

and my blood

poured out into

my dreams

and drowned my purpose.

As I lay there

hopeless

I fell asleep

and when I awoke

it was no more.

Only a memory

of suffering

and a throbbing

in my head.

I want to be free.