Realities of economics: my life

I realized just now that I never talk about the economics of being me, or why economics in America do not work for me.

A little background: I went to private schools growing up. Every teacher I had until high school was convinced I would be a doctor or a lawyer. My family went on vacations across the country on a yearly basis for the first 18 years of my life. I have never gone hungry in my life. I have never been homeless (and will never be, my family always offers their roof).

Now, to understand that to begin with I had a four year degree paid for all I had to do was take it when I was 18, and I did not. I could have had a two year degree paid for, if I had graduated via the normal path. I did not. I am currently a few hours from an associates and over 18k in debt.

My credit is trashed. There are repairs in my house that it is going to take a major miracle to make happen. My truck dropped it's drive shaft on the road, I have no way to afford to fix it. Realistically, I can't afford a damn thing. By all rights I should have lost this house months ago.

It isn't for lack of trying. I have tried to push it through school, there are multiple problems. One is medical, because of my age (over 25) I have to purchase health insurance. Realistically, never going to happen. My parents helped me with that. I would have nothing if it wasn't for my parents repeatedly saving my ass. I rely on a few simple yet expensive medications to make it day to day. They help me get them. They'll probably help one way or another get the truck fixed, at least fixed enough for me to get through a few more months.

This has been my adult life. I don't see a way I can ever be independent, not living in this house. Certainly not making what I make. Which is funny, given my base salary is more than I have ever made. I have a company car, and yes, it is fantastic to know I will always get to work. I don't pay for gas.

My only choice is retirement. Homesteading is the only way out of poverty for my family. I refuse to raise my kids in a house that the bank likes to raise the payments on, on a whim. I will not live wondering how I will weather the next crisis, yet knowing I will on very limited resources, because I always do.

This world, at least in this part of the country, is controlled by a few vested interests. Interestingly, at least three of them have no competition at all. It is an autocratic tyranny. Do you want heat? You have one choice. Do you want power? One choice. Internet? A few choices. Internet fast enough for two laptops and streaming on TV? One choice. Do you want your government to help you? Well, that depends, if you are rich then it's "Building the economy", everyone else is "mooching". And the elections are fixed away from things improving on this end. There is some very old money in this area.

So that's my reality. I'm not poor, I don't identify as poor. However poverty attacks me, over and over again. I try to survive, I've gotten pretty good at it. However I'm not rich, I'm not even secure. I rely entirely on the universe to provide. I have yet to find the end of it doing that.

That might be why I'm so spiritual, and so philosophical. There is something out there putting ground under my feet every time I'm about to fall too far. What I really want is for a slope up. What I really want is to get ahead a crisis or two.

It came to me today that there is no place more under spiritual assault than when multiple limited and mortal things claim Godhood. They are not however in any way holy. They are sad and limited. Compared to what is out there, and it is out there, they are nothing. Really, they don't even measure up. Because they don't have souls. No matter how many people think money is speech, money doesn't exist. Neither do corporations. We all just pretend they do. One day they won't be so solid. Then those with souls will have the last laugh, because we keep existing whether you believe in us or not.

that which eliminates productive movement

I thought to myself "I feel philosophical, that usually means writing". Yet for the life of me I have a gut feeling that thinking about... the nature of spirituality, or any of my standard stomping ground would just remind me I'm in a little pain about the whole thing.
It's not a big pain, it doesn't nag every minute of my day. In fact if I don't think about it then I don't really feel it. However, the path to wisdom I am reasonably sure does not lie in not thinking. As tempting as it is, I would cease to be who I am if I avoided depth of thought.

It reminds me of a story: One day some teenagers decided to create their own newspaper about what was going on in their local town. They decided to research what sort of news stories would please their public the most. Upon watching the local and national news they came to realize that most of the news was distressing. Finally they decided to print their first paper with the headline "No News is Good News". As one might expect they did not print a second paper as they had covered the only topic they felt worthy. More sobering they sold not even one paper and ended up using them to start fires and line rabbit cages.

Which illustrates the point that if you don't take the harder steps then where will the interest come?

I suppose what is bothering me right now is the lack of interesting or challenging path in my life. Which isn't to say work isn't challenging in it's way, but I can win that game. In fact I can win that game almost every day. My worst day last week I was only 5% of acceptable. Which didn't really matter as I had exceeded their needs every other day.

I miss the challenge of living human minds. I miss winning against things that fought back, you know? There isn't much ego in doing upkeep on tools, walking and performing a simple task. I mean I can keep at it as long as need be. I have interesting stuff to work on in my head. What concerns me is the greater path I am on. Where am I going? I don't know. There was a time I thought that anything was possible, even overwhelming success.

Now I'm starting to be troubled by educational and economic boundaries. I don't know how someone on my level takes those on. Further, I don't want to spend my life being concerned about problems that will not play at all into my personal future. Well, they would play in that these relatively trivial tasks would allow me to gather the resources I need to work on interesting problems.

Coming at things another way, where is the Lord in this whole scheme? I'm fairly clear on his level of concern with my fate. Therefor perhaps he has a plan. Which is.... disheartening given the place my current labors place me. Yet Joseph spent his time in prison, David spent his time on the run living in caves, and even Christ spent some early years on the run in Egypt. Biblically we are led to believe that current circumstances don't reflect the future. I'm not certain how that will play out in regular life.

proof

I have absolute proof:
That Hitler was in fact a herring in disguise
That Mr T’s real name was Mr F
That human ears serve a real function of helping the leprechauns find their pot roast
That behind every good man, is a sturdy pair of underpants
That everyone does not in fact want a slinky

What proof do I have?
Toenails. Just think about it, you’ll see. YOU’LL ALL SEE!!

coming to terms

I don't know what it was about today... maybe waking up late and not watching my sweet comforting show in the morning. maybe it was eating later than usual. Likely not having my pills contributed. Even more likely the fact that it fucking flooded and they sent me out to dig holes anyway. Most likely that I had to see my old church, and the place I met Lindsay..... God, 9 years ago. It seems like it should stop hurting. It isn't like one of those things would be enough, but combined it adds up to the realization that life has not gone to plan.

So here I am admitting: I have some doubts in regards to what God will actually do. My soul, smug bastard, does not. However my body, my emotions and my brain have serious fucking arguments on the issue.

Biggest looming is if he is so good, if he has such a great fucking plan for my life then why am I in this pit? If he loves me why are my emotional and developmental needs so far from his provision? Why does he promise things that actually actively remind me of how little he DOES. Because it doesn't matter if you say you have a giant laser capable of taking down rhinos, if all you ever do is talk about it then it doesn't fucking matter if it can destroy a fucking planet, it's just a stupid flashing light that doesn't fucking DO anything.

Love is a verb, as well as a tangible noun. When you say you love someone it is a pledge that you intend to do your best for them. You are saying that so long as that love is in your heart you will do what you can to care for those you love. Which is why I have so much fucking doubt. I don't feel loved. I see signs about how God is so "great". You know what? Show me this supposed greatness. I'm well aware that I have been placed into various emotional and spiritual states where I have experienced some glory, guess what: Sex and drugs are equally "great". Yet I am morally beholden not to devote myself to obtaining maximums of drugs and sex. I'm told it would kill me.

Incidentally, drugs cannot love. Not even weed which starts as a live plant does what it does out of love. It's an accident of natural selection enhanced through artificial selection. So states of emotional bliss do not consist of greatness. A being is judged by what they do. Unless of course they are my enemies, those who actively plotted my destruction and yet got ALL they wanted. Yes, I am bitter about that. I could handle it if I had done well by my measure, no matter how well they did I could say that beneficial things had occured and their status wouldn't matter. Yet when I observe their success it enhances the feeling that God chose THEIR side. That he actually approves of my destruction.

This is further served by his lack of answer, his lack of either a better way or the way I suggest. He asked me "what do you want?" Initially I said "I don't know". But I do, because I've told him MANY times. Yet in his wisdom he chooses to withhold my hopes from me. He chooses to crush me, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. IS IT FUCKING FUNNY?! IS MY BRAIN YOUR PERSONAL FUCKING PUNCHING BAG? DOES YOUR LOVE CONSIST OF TORTURE?! THE SPANISH INQUISITION MAKES ALL KINDS OF SENSE IF THAT IS THE CASE! HECK, I BET YOU REALLY LOVE THE WAR ON TERROR, PEOPLE GETTING HURT, NO ONE FUCKING HELPING ANYONE, MUST BE FUCKING PARADISE.

See because the issue is the more I pray, the more I seek consolation the more futile it seems. I am well aware that his timing is his own, but... I don't know.

Whether we live or die, our lives belong to him. So why worry? Our lives are not our own. We are as abused garden equipment to him.

At this point I went out looking for answers, again I am disappointed. There appear to be two camps. In one camp are the committed atheists who believe God has cheated them. Which is useless to me. Then there are the true believers who persist on his faithfulness. Again, useless. I am aware of the CLAIMS of his faithfulness. I am aware of the CLAIMS of his falsehood. The faithful back their claims with scripture, the faithless with anger and poor reason. Neither provides evidence. Neither backs with testimony, proof, or anything compelling. I WANT to be compelled, one way or another. If trust in him is a metaphysical illness, then in 2000 years an effective cure would have been found. If distrust in him is wrong, then surely someone has walked the path I walk. I am not the only man to have way more hope and belief in God then I see manifest.

Well.... I don't know the nut bar quotient of this source, but source and evidence it is:
http://www.helpforgodshurtingpeople.com/his-promises-are-always-ful.html

Ephesians 2:8-9New International Version (NIV)

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

http://www.riverhillsonline.org/resources/documents/sermons/exodus5_1-23.htm

I don't know what to say. The wind is just out of my sails at this point... I'm so tired. Not just in the way of the body, my heart is tired. I long to be cleansed of my stress, pain, concern. To let it all wash away and believe God will provide. Some part of me is aware he will provide, what though? Who knows?! It would be nice if it was something truly good. Better still if it was what I need: peace, freedom, and time.

a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day

This is my new matra, as I am trying to understand the mysteries of the almighty. You know how sometimes he gives you an answer without context, yeah, this was one of mine:
2 Peter 3:8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
It's so plain, but it has such interesting insight. I think the natural attraction is because Peter is talking about God's attitude towards his promises.

For many years I read it from one angle, in that the Lord is patient. The Lord can wait 1000 years and it's not a big deal for him. Which is of course true. The mystery is that it doesn't just say that. It says a day is like a thousand years.

One thought I have been playing with is that in regards to what he can accomplish, he can do more than it seems like there is time for. Or looking at it another way he can bring about things that would take US a very long time.

Reading on it some people read it to say time is immaterial to God. I don't see how that would be. For everything there is a time and a season. The more accurate portrayal is that in most ways God is immaterial to time. He is unchanging, never aging, ever patient. We aren't even sure how he perceives time, and this is the only clue I've got.

Yet he is connected with us. In fact he lives in us (holy spirit). Therefor he is aware of the temporal nature of the human experience. So though I agree that he is not effected by time in a metaphysical sense, in a practical sense he does have to work with it.

One of my repeated prayers is actually an old Beatles tune:
If you want it, here it is. Come and get it, but you better hurry cause it's going fast.
If you want it, anytime, I can give it, but you better hurry cause it may not last.

Which is to express that I would like God to put me to use while I still am young and have my health. I'm taking better care of myself, so I'm uncertain as to my durability vis-a-vis longevity.

More evidence of God's nature to give good gifts and provide is in Matthew 7. It frustrates me because I've been avoiding quoting this passage, it and I have an unfortunate history. I'm uncertain where the flaw is, I've read whole books on the subject yet no solution has arrived. Anyway Matthew 7:7-12

 7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

9“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

I'm going to try not to get into the implicit promise there, because.... I'm waiting.
But to the point of his relationship to us, argh, it's not possible to discuss this and not discuss prayer and promise.

A short history and disclaimer: I thought I had been promised something at one point in my faith walk. Life has proceeded to kick me in the face. Which isn't to say God isn't faithful. It's to say he has his own timing. Even though that sounds like I totally get the theological concept and I have agreed to abide by his will it still breaks my heart. I have come to a point at which I do not know what he is planning for my next moments. I do not know how I will cope with it, or if I will. I'm not even certain I believe in a future. I believe in God, and if he sees fit to allow a meaningful future then I submit. I belong to him, because if I belonged to me I would be dead.

Anyway, so the point I was trying to make is that though he can accomplish things in any time he wants, he does it well. More to the point he "gives good gifts".

The passage implies that as a father provides for his family as best as he can, so God will provide for his people the best he can. How glorious such provision must be. Because there isn't a father on this planet that wouldn't give up everything to take care of those he loves. Key word is father there, there are plenty of sperm donors who don't measure up.

So we have two concepts: God's relationship with time, and God's relationship with those who bring their needs to him.
They can't be separate, because those he cares for need things within a certain time. At which point I have circled back to where I started. 

Spiritual confusion

I haven't thought much about spirituality recently, mostly due to the prevailing feeling that my possession of a soul had little to do with what has been happening to me. I'm not saying I'm entirely abandoning the notion, but it struck me today that often when it seems like nothing is going on... that's not the reality.

I'll start simple and try and draw conclusions upwards towards the spiritual high level I hope to understand. I trust and love God. Of course it is not a particularly passionate love.... I don't feel particularly passionate about anything spiritual right now. I trust that when God requires my passion I will have it. Yet getting worked up and going on an emotional roller coaster over waiting on so called "promises" has been very destructive to my personal credibility and to our relationship. I've learned not to really expect anything at all. Put a pin here, I want to go back to a basic idea.
--
It occurred to me today the lack of the sacred in the modern realities of Christian life. Granted there are many attempts by the clergy to preserve the sense of the sacred, but a life following God doesn't really have a need to fit to that framework.
I don't need a big sanctuary to be aware of God's power, or to see others react to him to feel close to him or even to the spiritual family of God. I take in his glory with each morning, I partake in the fellowship of many as I share my kindness and love with others regardless of how I hurt. That is my offering.
I bring to him my pain, my frustration, my seeming lack of future. Such is the offering I have... I don't know that it fits into the traditional sense of offering..... for one financially I don't have even enough to pay bills.... so until I return to some normality I feel no compulsion to tithe financially.

Yet I bring and cast on him all my cares, far more than 10% that is "required". My life.... belongs to him. I don't know how true that is. If I am to be honest it is hard to see how it belongs to him. True enough that had he a call, had he an order I could understand, I would follow it. That's an old agreement of ours. Yet if a house is left to seed, if the owner leaves one day and the only tenants of a property are the squirrels and spiders, and such is the way for many years.... do we still believe the owner holds the property?

I know what his response would be, and that is that even the aimless life I lead is within his will and therefor worthy. I won't even deny that there is some satisfaction and peace in my life now that I lacked earlier. But the primary reason comes back to the above point.

To continue, the so called promises are potentially subjective. They may very well be for that people, that time, and that situation. If that is so they are not to demonstrate the dogmatic desires of God, but the nature of his behavior in the past. That's an entirely different thing and requires a different spiritual response.

I am at the point I am unsure of that which God has promised, which promises are for me and which are for me to learn more about him.

I'm past emotion about this, because to me there is little emotion left to feel. Originally I felt abandoned, unwanted, even cheated. Upon further reflection I realize such feelings reflect an expectation on my part that God would behave as I... desire... him to. Which of course he doesn't. That isn't to say my desires don't figure into his plan. It is however to say that I don't drive him. I cannot compel him to do what he says. There is no authority to which he reports, he says what he does and does them within his own province.
Therefor there is no need of truth in advertising to use a modern term. I will use a biblical example to illustrate.

At the time of Christ they were in fact expecting a messiah. I lack evidence but it seems to me that every time things got particularly miserable after the prophesy of the coming messiah the Jews said something to the effect of "wouldn't this be a good time for the coming of the Messiah?".

But their expectations didn't line up with the nature of the promise. They had read the prophesy and predicted a conquering hero figure. Which historically they had every right to expect. Throughout their history whenever things got particularly bad God lifted up a hero. Some of the heroes were judges, others priests, and eventually even kings. So they looked at the track record and said to themselves, "we trust God to act the way we think he will, the way he has before."

Then God didn't do that. He certainly did bring a bold and radical Messiah. I would even say that there is some of the hero in the story of Christ. He exhibited bravery, valor, and was a revolutionary figure.

To be frank, he didn't ride a white horse. He wasn't a strong warrior(physically speaking). He didn't come from noble stock (though he was of the house of David). His birth set the stage so clearly. As Christians love to obsess over to the point of fetish he was born in a stable. Further flying in the face of expectation was the palm Sunday incident. He rode through town on a donkey. Donkeys were beasts of burden, no warrior worth his salt would take one as a steed.

I think that may have been the point he became too revolutionary for most of the Jews. No one was able to deny his teaching. They knew he had performed miracles. They also knew he was the type to question the status quo. I think they would have forgiven him his obstinate nature and high spiritual standards. Yet what could they not forgive? That he made a clear statement: "I am not a man of war."

I think modern Christianity misses the mark about what it felt like to be a Jew at the time. They were second class citizens, they had been conquered and humiliated. Further they knew dogmatically that it was due to their own failing. I think that at this point they sought to rise above. They, remember, were God's chosen people. It is such a great paradox to suffer to be God's chosen and be enslaved. To be the beloved of a God who makes his business of releasing the downtrodden, and being under the foot of the Roman Empire.

Such it is with God. He promises much, even if we discount the specific promises. Yet his delivery isn't as we would have it. He promises to provide. He does not however promise security (not in the new law.... let's not talk old law). He promises to love us, but he doesn't promise to relieve all our pains.

Which is all high and good, his ways are by his nature good and beyond question. Yet his behavior is either... enigmatic or frustrating. More to the point there are certain visions which I had a number of years ago. I have no clue as to the nature of how or what will indeed happen. At this point it is a matter of some debate if the visions were of a true spiritual nature or of a more mundane wish fulfillment variety.

I am compelled again to repeat: I do not doubt God. I do not doubt his love for me, or even purpose in my tiny life.

I do however doubt me. I am a staggeringly self serving sort of man. I am predisposed to get what I want, and I get what I want often whether outside forces are involved or not. This having much to do with knowing my own will fairly well.

It strikes me as remarkably plausible that one way or another I promised myself such greatness, such glory. When I had the vision it clicked with a deep inner longing of which I had struggled to direct. I do occasionally have spiritual insight and visions, so it was my bent to go towards believing these visions from God.

Yet now we are many years on. I have learned of my flaws, that I may very well ask too much out of life. I am not to presuppose what really happened in the mad world that was my mind back in 2010. I picked up smoking for pity sake, I started taking large doses of drugs. Many strange and unsteady things happened. It was the nature of that season.

Here is the rub: every once and awhile God will say something in my ear to the effect that he is preparing to execute great change in a way only he can. There is sometimes even a direction as though the vision I had was the direction in which he wanted to move.

Even now, detached and analytic I am not without feelings on the matter. A part of me wants to believe he is going to do certain things. Yet the larger part of me is aware of how having such feelings has played out in the past. I have hurt for this dream, more than ever I have from any one failure. At this point I don't want to feel, not until things change and I have compass as to direction to feel towards.

I don't know whether to draw close to him or to remain as I am, pleasantly ambivalent. As I have been on my saga I have noticed that ambivalence produces far better results than planning, scheming or attacking. It is a state of "oh, yes I agree that would be nice, yet if it is not so life continues. Life isn't such a bad thing, we've survived worse than today, let us enjoy what we have."

I don't know how to describe my current state, for I am more ambivalent than I thought I was capable of. Yet a small part of my heart aches to hope for it.  It is from such hope I am in exile. Here however is a lesson I learned from the Dali Lama: though we may be in exile, that doesn't mean there isn't peace here. Even though people hurt us, life tosses us to and fro, and my greatest plans come to ruin. Yet so long as I live there is some good I might do, someone I may yet make smile, and some portion of good I might bring to the world.

Until eternity comes to an end and the waiting is replaced with something far different, far more than I could have imagined. For his plans are far greater than anything I could come up with. Even if I don't see it, such is faith that I understand it is still so. For everything there is a time, and I hope beyond hope that a time of ending of chaos, a time of good to supplant the evil, and a time for this humble servant to find a worthy task.