Introspection

Problem:
I don't care. I never have. There's not enough worth caring about.
I've always wondered why and never found a sufficient answer.
I've always felt alone and left out, looking for something and not even knowing what I'm looking for.

The problem gets worse:
I found it.
Then I lost it.
And there's nothing worth returning to.
I thought I'd learn, that I could carry it with me, but it fades.

What to do:
I feel a need to talk to someone, then I could dump my troubles on them.
I don't wanna talk to anyone, cause when I try I feel better for a while; I go on but don't have any answers, it's only temporary.
I consider things that don't last to have little in the way of value.

I have no answers. Life seems futile. I can't escape.

And then there's God:
I know He exists and I know I'm a Christian, I quit questioning that a long time ago (thank goodness, I don't need that worry on top of everything else).
Sure, God wants to have a relationship and gave us His Word, the Bible.
Honestly, though, words only go so far.
I don't get it all, and it's the meaning not the words that I need.
Then there's the Word who became flesh.
death, forgiveness, grace, mercy, sin, healing... Love
It's all about love, isn't it?
It's not about Justice or Truth or Good, although those are attributes of God.
It's about us and God, "it's not religion, it's a relationship" (words again, so many words, but what to they mean?).

Love:
What is love? Love comes from two beings who KNOW EACH OTHER.
It should be mutual.
It involves trust and weakness and openess and honesty.
True love is powerful.
Love comes from God, for God is love. Thus the Trinity of the Godhead, to show love (God doesn't need us in order to love).
It's personal. You cannot know someone who doesn't share themself.
Well, God can, but still it's so much better to share willingly.

God is all in all:
Shouldn't I be able to, as a Christian, find everything I need in God?
But he's got no physical body here and now.
The Bible on its own isn't good enough for me.
Thus the Holy Spirit.
Alright, I suppose it's because of the Spirit that I don't question God's existence or His presence and that His Word means anything to me.
But I don't understand God, I don't think I know Him very well.

How to get to know somebody:
Spend time with them.
Talk to them about things that mean something.
But most of all, for me- touch.
For me to let someone touch me is the ultimate expression of trust, even a hug or a pat on the back from someone I don't know well or don't trust is an intrusion, and depending on my state of mind, it may even be a violation.
There comes a point when words cannot be enough.
I guess sometimes I have felt the Spirit's version of touch, and it is comforting in its own way, but still...

The nature of people:
The image of God (but only a reflection).
Body and spirit, both integral parts.
Created to love and be loved, to worship God.

God's interest in mankind:
Love, as stated above.
Worship and praise- this is not egotistical. God is worthy of praise, for He is the source of everything of value, the originator of everything that is good. And worship- consider a musician, a very skilled one. Musicians like to perform for others, to share the beauty and the joy and the music, for the music is good. For God, there is nothing outside of Himself that would be worth sharing with us, for He is the ultimate of everything, thus He desires to share Himself with us, and thus bring us joy.

Why so many people have a problem understanding God:
He is infinite and personal.
To consider a personal God, we think of other human beings, who are fallible.
An infinite God becomes an impersonal force.
Goodness and Justice and suchlike are often considered things that God must follow, but then they would be above God. On the contrary, these are attributes of God that have their value only because of God.
Then is all of existence arbitrary, determinted only by the will of a single being called God who answers to nothing higher than Himself?
Almost, but God is not arbitrary. He is self-consistent. That doens't make God any less good, for God is the measure of what is good.
Giving personality to these attributes is not randomness!
God's personality is infinite, His other attributes are infinite, and they are all one for God is one. One consistent whole, and yet triune, the origin of unity and diversity. There can be no conflict within God, for He is whole.
God wants us to be like Him because God is good and holy and everything else that is desirable. God's desire is for us to be the best that we can, and the best of everything is God.
God's personality is not like ours. He is not biased nor fickle nor arbitrary. He never momentarily forgets something and He is never selfish in His desires. His personality does not limit His actions, as our personalites cause each of us to make different choices. No, it gives Him the capacity to care and to love and feel and to understand us. He has more of a personality, more of what it is that makes us human, for what makes us human is a shadow of what God is.
God is the source of everything.

Pain and suffering and evil:
So God made evil? No.
That is a misunderstanding of the nature of evil.
The existence of evil on those terms is false, a dualistic concept.
I would almost even say that evil doesn't exist, or more accuratly that it's not self existent.
That doesn't mean that evil and pain aren't real.
Pain is a result of evil.
Evil is the misuse or twisting of anything good. It is the opposite of good, but has no definition of its own other than that. Evil is evil because it is not good.
Since God is the definition of good, evil is defined as that which is not of God. And since God is the author of existence, evil cannot exist as its own thing.
Love is a choice. I don't believe that anyone can fall in love against their will; they may not realize making the choice and they may not be totaly in agreement with themself, but love is always a choice. I know it sounds like I'm just repeating stuff I've heard here, but it really does make sense. I'm not talking about infatuation or shallow relationships, but true love. Love is such a corrupted word. The deepest sort of friendships and relationships are only possible when both sides choose to care for each other, otherwise they don't really care, they just go through the motions. I don't know how I could go about explaining it, just think about it for a while if you don't agree with me.
Choice is an attribute of the will, of the soul/spirit part of our nature, the part of us that is a reflection of the nature of God, the part of us that is capable of love. Freedom is also of value.
Without choice there can be no love. Since God wants us to choose Him, there must also be the possibility of not choosing Him. When Jesus said, "He who loves me keeps my commandments," He was saying that God is one, that to love God is to choose Him. God's personality and love is inseperable from His truth and justice, thus those who choose God choose love and the law. Obedience is a necessity because of the unity of God. Thus those who do not love God are those who do not keep His commandments, and any action that is not in line with God's commandments is sin and sin is evil.
Because of Adam and Eve's sin, every human being is born into sin. It will be a part of our nature until we die, although the presence of the Holy Spirit can help us to fight it effectivly. We can't on our own because we are born dead, spiritualy. That means we are separated from God. There is no neutral ground; the default is sin and separation from God, which is evil. Thus all people are evil. To not choose is to choose evil. However, since we're dead in our sins we are incapable of choosing God/living up to His standards. That's why He came and died for us, because there's no way for us to choose Him unless He chooses us first. The result of sin is death because God is the author of life. Thus "without the shedding of blood there can be no remmision of sins". Sacrafices are substitutionary death. The sacrafices in the Old Testament were instated to demonstrate this, just as the law was given to show the presence of sin in the world. But none of it was good enough, that's why Jesus had to die. Our whole existence has very little to do with us, except that it's all about us in the sense that God decided to love us and love is such that the relationship is all about the other person, so it's about us only because God loves us. But hey, that's fine with me. I like being loved.

And yet, I'm still confused, but there is a combination of things I've heard and things that I've figured out myself and things I'm still trying to make sense of, but there's my thought processes.

Had a disturbing time last night, realized a few things. I know myself too well sometime for my own happiness/security whatever. I realized I feel obligated to do what is right, but if I'm completely honest I hate everything good, even God. Know why I believe in predestination? Cause I know that I don't want God. I know I shouldn't feel that way, I know I'm supposed to love God and all that, but no matter what I do I can't make myself feel any differently. That's why salvation is all of God's doing. I know what I should do but I don't want to do it. All I want is my own selfish desires fulfilled. The only thing that's ever made me want to do something for any reason other than selfisness is love. When I love someone, all I can think of is what I can do for them. I think that's a lot of what "If you love me you will keep my commandments" is about. But I can't even force myself to love God. I've tried. But when I ask for help, He does give it. I found myself last night nearly screaming (quietly, in my thoughts) that I hate God and if He wants me, I can't do what He demands so He'd better do something. The funny thing about that is that God has said that the faith we have comes from Him, that every good things comes from Him. I realized I was right, I'm never gonna be able to make myself good. Luckily, I don't have to. God loves me anyway and He does change people. My problem is just that it's not instantaneous. I can't wait until I die, cause in heaven we will be completely changed, forever, never having to fight for what we know we should do, never again....no, I've never really thought of heaven as playing harps or fluffy clouds or any of that nonsense. Heaven is to be finaly at peace, to be with the Source of love, of power, of holiness, the infinite Creator. Never again to have to fight for anything, never to be in need, never to be in pain. Life is short, thank goodness. Just sometimes it seems so long. (hey, I'm not that old yet! why am I so tired of life?)

The Nature of Things

This is what I had before I wrote all the mess above here, but it's so unballanced, and needs extensive editing, so although it shows something about me, there's a lot missing. But you can see a few of my ideas on some things.

This is where I attempt to expain my views on reality, philososphy, and religion. This is only a rough summary. If you would like to discuss anything stated here, you can contact me at lothlorien@angelfire.com or on aim under the name darkCHAOSfire.

Order and Existence

The world makes some kind of sense, or has some sort of order. There may be some crazy stuff, but we can communicate, there is continuity, there are rules. Without this, all would be chaos. I would say that if the universe were totaly chaotic it would not exist, for there could nothing to say it exists because all would be non-sequitor and meaningless. Existence springs from order. However, I'm not saying it's all going to make sense. Were humanity to have eternity to study nature, we would never completely understand. More on this later when I start musing about quantum mechanics (which I undoubtedly will).

Then there's the question of what exists, since I stated that some order is obvious, and obviously implies existence. The easiest answer for me to give is that I know I exist. As fun as it is to try and disprove your own existience, I'm not going to get into that now. What am I? That question is much harder, and will be addressed more fully in the next section. Mattter exists. I have a body, made of matter, that interacts with matter. I have a mind that deals with ideas. I have a soul. I do believe that the nature of mankind (to be refered to as man from here on, no I don't think it's in any way sexist, and I am female, and it's shorter to type than anything else) indicates the existence of a spiritual realm, for nothing else can explain the complexities of morality and thought and our search and desire for meaning.

The Super-material Existence of Man

I'm not going to say supernatural because I do believe it's natural to man, and all things are connected so that it not completely disconnected from the material world, and I'm not being too clear here, but anyway... humans are made up of more than flesh and blood. In comparing man to the animals, I do not deny the intelligence of many types of creatures. They even communicate, some use tools. But none to the extent of man. And they don't form societies to the same complexity as man. But there's more to it than being a higher animal. We are capable of introspection, of curiosity, of creativity, of love. Man desires something more, always striving for something just out of our grasp.

note to self: trying to write something serious about this after reading the Adequacy site is stupid.

Yes, I do realize that I'm suddenly jumping ahead... this is still under construction, as you can doubtlessly tell.

Lobotomy

"Oh, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than to have a frontal lobotomy." I believe the value of human life. Not just bodily life, I mean life in its fullness; personality and soul and freedom and love. People are something amazing and I don't think we should be messing with it, cause we'll just mess it up. My view of a human being is heirarchical: first the soul, then the mind/emotions, then the body. About the exact nature of the soul, or if I should be saying spirit, soul, and body, I'm not exactly sure, not knowing the exact definitions of spirit and soul. I tend to use them interchanably. What I am refering to is the non-materialistic aspect of a person, the part that can truly know God, the source of all our longings and desires for meaning and purpose; the part of us that knows we are something more than the sum of our physical parts. It is more powerful than we realize sometimes. In that scheme somewhere fits the will; sometimes I think the will belongs more to the soul than to the mind-- the mind and emotions make us aware of all the possibilites, the way our bodily senses tell us of the world around us, our minds and emotions tell us of ideas and higher level responses, and somewhat about other people. But it is the will that makes choices. I think we have the capacity to choose much beyond what we use; we often allow ourselves to become victims of our circumstances when in truth we have the power to affect them. One result of this concept is my view on drugs. I don't see anything wrong with taking something for a phsical problem; your body is physical, the medicine is physical, so it makes sense. But I have a real problem with mind-altering chemicals. This includes the use of illegal drugs (especialy since they're illegal; there's plenty of things that I think would be fun and harmless but can't do since it's illegal, and the law is the law even if you don't like it. If it comes to the point of making a stand, at least choose something more meaningful to stand for, please? It is also possible to voice your opinion against a law without disobeying the law). Another thing that realy bothers me is the extensive use of drugs like ritalin to treat psycological problems, especialy in little kids. Oh yes, we're having trouble dealing with this kid, let's him so drugged up that he'll not be able to cause us any more problems! I do realize that sometimes there may be a legitimate chemical imbalance or something, but I still think that maybe it shouldn't be treated that way. People have a great capacity for self control if they are only taught to exercise it. I don't mean that they should get yelled at just because it's harder for them; I mean that they should be given the oportunity to at least try! And when they mess up, they should be comforted and encouraged to try again. I know that's hard. It's always easier to place the weight of your problems on someone or something out of your control. But what kind of life is that? I value my freedom and my individuality. Have some respect for others. Love does not dehumanize. True love will be able to share some of the burden and give comfort and hope, but will not try to do everything for them. It's the same arguement with free will and God. No, God does not immediatly fix everything. Yes, we're going to fail. No, God is not cruely setting us up for failure! Next time you see a little kid trying to learn to walk fall down, why don't you go yell at his parents for not protecting him? And the next time they encourage him to try to walk, why don't tell them they're just setting him up to fail? Can't you see that allowing someone to try is often to see them fail? Does that mean we should quit trying anything at all? To respect a person is sometimes to allow them the possibility of failure. I'm not sure of the exact details, but don't banks prefer to give business loans to someone who's already had a failure? Because we learn from our mistakes. Often times it takes many failures to do something right. There's nothing wrong is falling, it's just how you deal with it. Take the responsibility and examine everything inside yourself that made you fail, and all the circumstances, and LEARN. Then the next time, apply what you've learned. And each time you'll know more, and one time you won't fail. Of couse it'll get frustrating. That's where hope comes in. That's also where the love of those who care for you becomes very important.