Everyone is looking for answers. We all go to extraordinary lengths to puzzle and figure out questions that frustrate and confound us. Even the most laidback individual suffers from uncertainty. How we cope with uncertainty is different for everyone. No one has the same exact "opiate," to borrow a phrase from a friend.
For me, I have constantly had to struggle with uncertainty. I am a control freak. There is no question of that. I want to know anything and everything about as much as I can. Knowledge is power and, even more, it is solace. A trusty shield from the dangers and pain inflicted upon the naive and unaware. It's no wonder I shy away from childishness; is there a figure more valued for naivete?
This struggle has encompassed different aspects of my life. Personal and social. Spiritual. The latter is the one weighing on my mind right now. I had an interesting conversation with a girl on Facebook the other night. She asked me about my beliefs. I told her that I believed in God but also in keeping an open-mind, for nothing is absolutely certain in this life. She responded by questioning whether I was okay with being uncertain about what would happen to me when I die.
An interesting and disturbing question. One I try not to think about. I believe in God, in a heaven and a hell. I believe in the dynamic nature of God, his perfection and his might. His love. From there, confusion sets in. How can it not, though, with all the different denominations warring for supremacy in the name of the Lord? Each one believing that their faith is the true and right faith...
It's no wonder I'm wary of churches and organized religion. I call myself a Christian because I have no specific Protestant faith nor any desire to claim one. God is wonderful. Church...can go either way. It depends on who you go to church with. So terrible, yet so true. The good news is that God doesn't care if you go to church, only if you believe in him. There are further requirements, of course, but that's the most fundamental one.
I have and will always believe that faith is a relationship between an individual and God. No one can dictate what you're supposed to say to or do with God but you, for your beliefs are your own and will only form when you are willing to accept them. Also, while I cherish the overall messages in the Bible, I don't believe in it word for word. People wrote it. And people are imperfect and easily swayed towards sin. Does that mean I don't ever think that I'm wrong or that I'm sinning by not believing everything the Bible says? No. Truthfully, there's a part of me that's terrified for my soul and wants to stop rationalizing and just start believing.
But faith isn't easy. Especially not for me. I've always had God in my life, even before I really knew who he was and what I thought about him. Despite that, life has made me suspicious and proud. Releasing control is my biggest issue. The idea terrifies me...to lay down all my worries and just expect him to take care of them? A leap of faith. Necessary yet so hard.
There has been progress, though, and that comforts me. I can't bring myself to believe that the God I love and cherish, the one who loves all his children for who they are, is just a figment of my earth-loving imagination. That goes against my very core...the soul-deep contentment I feel at times when the sun is shining just right or when I'm choking down tears during a moment of revelation, where everthing that I've been blessed with in life is made visible.
God is love. That I believe with all my heart. And I feel that if I just live according to the principle of love, and not hate, that all will work itself out. The rest will come with time and prayer.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Facing Reality
We all reach points in life, where we are forced to confront and accept certain realities. We must realize that some things we can change, others will always be untouchable. We learn that black and white is just an expression and not really what life is like...except when it is. Except when what you receive in life and how easy others make it for you depends on the color of your skin. Or where you live or how you dress, how much money you have, or what your sexual orientation is.
Am I really writing this? Yes. And it makes me want to throw something, to cry, to laugh, to just lay down and never get back up, to scream at the top of my lungs until someone hears me and LOOKS. Because how many people really look these days? Beyond the next bargain buy, or latest bit of TV gossip, or whatever is going on in their own narrowly-focused lives? Living has made us blind, if you can even call it living.
I was at a wedding a few days ago and the whole time, I was distracted thinking about how young the couple was, why they thought they had to rush into marriage, how much of their reasonings were based on actual opinion and how much on what they had been socialized into thinking. Even more than that, I thought about my sister. About whether she was thinking about herself and her girlfriend, whether what we were looking at could ever be something that happened in her future, between her and the woman she loved. And it hurt, that it was something to be thought of idealistically and not realistically.
I want to hold her to me, to wrap my arms around her and never let go. I want to be the shield that takes any blows the world has to offer. And I want to be the sword. But both are impossible. Because I love her, I have to let her live, have to let her shield and defend herself all by herself. And that makes me want to kick the world's ass. Again...impossible. What is possible is her becoming stronger and me learning how to let go...eventually. And believe it or not, I still believe that it is possible for the world to mellow and become more loving. Because that is what I pray for, what I wish for with all my heart, for my sister, myself, and everyone in this world that needs acceptance.
Am I really writing this? Yes. And it makes me want to throw something, to cry, to laugh, to just lay down and never get back up, to scream at the top of my lungs until someone hears me and LOOKS. Because how many people really look these days? Beyond the next bargain buy, or latest bit of TV gossip, or whatever is going on in their own narrowly-focused lives? Living has made us blind, if you can even call it living.
I was at a wedding a few days ago and the whole time, I was distracted thinking about how young the couple was, why they thought they had to rush into marriage, how much of their reasonings were based on actual opinion and how much on what they had been socialized into thinking. Even more than that, I thought about my sister. About whether she was thinking about herself and her girlfriend, whether what we were looking at could ever be something that happened in her future, between her and the woman she loved. And it hurt, that it was something to be thought of idealistically and not realistically.
I want to hold her to me, to wrap my arms around her and never let go. I want to be the shield that takes any blows the world has to offer. And I want to be the sword. But both are impossible. Because I love her, I have to let her live, have to let her shield and defend herself all by herself. And that makes me want to kick the world's ass. Again...impossible. What is possible is her becoming stronger and me learning how to let go...eventually. And believe it or not, I still believe that it is possible for the world to mellow and become more loving. Because that is what I pray for, what I wish for with all my heart, for my sister, myself, and everyone in this world that needs acceptance.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Reconciliation
My skin scares me sometimes. I try not to stare at it too long, for when I do, I fall prey to the terror that arises when I imagine the vast web of bone and tissue that lies so closely beneath. What a complex machine we humans are. I am both fascinated and repelled. Moments like these make me question the wiseness of my choosing an objective field like psychology. It too both fascinates and repels me. I am drawn to the information and knowledge it offers me about myself and others, yet also disheartened to think that people can be categorized and analyzed to the point that life is no longer a mystery.
I am the type of person who believes in following rules and directions, in sticking closer to what is tried and true than to what is unknown. I would never be called rebellious or innovative. I am responsibile and reliable. As I believe I should be. But what of the rest? What of the child within me who I have tried so hard to keep silent? It is her voice that I hear when control and responsibility cease being enough. When I cease being enough. She is the voice of temptation and yearning, the part of me that stares at the moon and has to believe that there is something more to life than everyday motions and plain reality.
In the Bible, we are told to be like children, for children are innocent. That is a notion that has always struck a chord within me. I want to be a child, yet I have become who I am today by stifling childish urges and feelings. I am not stupid enough to claim I never act like one. But I can say truthfully that I never endeavor to be one. Even as a child, I was more interested in the adults, in studying them and gaining their attention. I wanted to have their confidence and was fascinated by their language, the way they spoke so simply and straightforwardly. Still, the more I grow, the more weary I become. Will I ever reach the level of confidence and assurance that I want for myself? And if I do, will it lay to rest all these longings and questions? I fear the answer is no.
All the more frustrating is the fact that I am to blame. Children are to be cherished for more than their innocence. For while that is an admirable trait and one worth emulating, it is their ability to live that we must envy. For children, there is no past or future. There is only the present. They don't have to grasp life by the reigns because they were born in possession of them. It is maturity and reality that wrestle life away from us, because we come to believe that being an adults means working to obtain something we don't have. The problem: no one ever tells us what it is. The reason: we already had it. But the world doesn't want us to know that, for if we all stopped trying to be something and/or someone else and started trying just as desperately to be ourselves, there would be an economic meltdown and rich people would cease to be rich. That people could think for themselves, act for themselves...the horror!
Yet even as I rail against this faulty socialization process, I am unable to rid myself of the comforting weight of the world, the one I donned so eagerly in order to dull the pain I now associate with childhood. And I realize that I am setting myself up for a worse fall; the realization that the world is even more cruel and capable of inflicting pain at a level unknown to children. The reason I could never be present was because I always felt the past nipping at my heels. The future and contemplation of it offered the illusion of distance and thus safety. How wrong I was and am.
"With one hand the past pulls us forward, with the other it holds it back" And I find that my desperate grasp on the future is based on the fact that I am only holding on one-handed. My other hand clings tightly, stubbornly, just as desperately, to the past.
I am the type of person who believes in following rules and directions, in sticking closer to what is tried and true than to what is unknown. I would never be called rebellious or innovative. I am responsibile and reliable. As I believe I should be. But what of the rest? What of the child within me who I have tried so hard to keep silent? It is her voice that I hear when control and responsibility cease being enough. When I cease being enough. She is the voice of temptation and yearning, the part of me that stares at the moon and has to believe that there is something more to life than everyday motions and plain reality.
In the Bible, we are told to be like children, for children are innocent. That is a notion that has always struck a chord within me. I want to be a child, yet I have become who I am today by stifling childish urges and feelings. I am not stupid enough to claim I never act like one. But I can say truthfully that I never endeavor to be one. Even as a child, I was more interested in the adults, in studying them and gaining their attention. I wanted to have their confidence and was fascinated by their language, the way they spoke so simply and straightforwardly. Still, the more I grow, the more weary I become. Will I ever reach the level of confidence and assurance that I want for myself? And if I do, will it lay to rest all these longings and questions? I fear the answer is no.
All the more frustrating is the fact that I am to blame. Children are to be cherished for more than their innocence. For while that is an admirable trait and one worth emulating, it is their ability to live that we must envy. For children, there is no past or future. There is only the present. They don't have to grasp life by the reigns because they were born in possession of them. It is maturity and reality that wrestle life away from us, because we come to believe that being an adults means working to obtain something we don't have. The problem: no one ever tells us what it is. The reason: we already had it. But the world doesn't want us to know that, for if we all stopped trying to be something and/or someone else and started trying just as desperately to be ourselves, there would be an economic meltdown and rich people would cease to be rich. That people could think for themselves, act for themselves...the horror!
Yet even as I rail against this faulty socialization process, I am unable to rid myself of the comforting weight of the world, the one I donned so eagerly in order to dull the pain I now associate with childhood. And I realize that I am setting myself up for a worse fall; the realization that the world is even more cruel and capable of inflicting pain at a level unknown to children. The reason I could never be present was because I always felt the past nipping at my heels. The future and contemplation of it offered the illusion of distance and thus safety. How wrong I was and am.
"With one hand the past pulls us forward, with the other it holds it back" And I find that my desperate grasp on the future is based on the fact that I am only holding on one-handed. My other hand clings tightly, stubbornly, just as desperately, to the past.
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