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.
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.
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