Intensity

The last few posts have been whiny. It happens. This blog is about my raw reactions to life, so sometimes it gets that way. But I crossed a watershed. Suddenly, I didn't feel that way. I'll probably go there again sometime. But hopefully for not long. Life is not about finding some static place. It oscillates around a central tendency.

I realized that in my low time and doubts that I had forgotten something I once believed. Funny how that happens. God is the God of reason and science and ecology and medicine as well as faith, mystery, etc. These things are not foreign to him, but part of him and from him. I can accept these things and accept him. I know that sounds silly if you aren't in my head, but I don't want to spend too much time on it.

I also remembered that intensity must come out. Not everyone can handle the soft, safe, easy world we create. Some of us need conflict, physical pain, a quest, a cause. We need intensity. I am the poster child for "not everyone", so I feel confident in this. Some of us don't need more hugs, we need an occasional fist. We don't need to sit and be calm, we need to get up and make an impact.

I know this doesn't make sense to everyone, but if you find yourself falling into blahs of gray mindset. Go challenge yourself. You'll be surprised at what you can do. And you'll be surprised at how little it takes to change your mindset. But there needs to be a couple of elements: real danger, and realistic expectations. Without the real danger, the trial is not real. It is hollow. Another Disney version of life. You need to have the very real possibility to get bloody...and that may mean literally. I'm not saying be reckless. But it won't work if you play it too safe. Secondly, you need real expectations because this is not a video game or a movie. You won't be able to take that wall down, or lift that car, or hit that target, or climb that thing, or land that jump, or run that far in one or 10 or 100 attempts maybe. This does not mean you failed. Push yourself to your limit, and then push a little more. And then look at what you've done.

For me the best part is that the world quiets down in these settings. There is only the need of the moment. All else become distant. And the real world comes out. Here's a story. Every week I tear myself to shreds in the woods. It's Parkour training, Tarzan style. Natural movements, climbing, running, jumping, stripped as bare as I can make it. I go get lost in the woods and run until I can barely run anymore. I have no comparison except myself. I know what I did before and what I do now. Slowly I am getting faster, more confident in my steps, more stamina. And then this week after getting much more lost than I intended and running for far longer than usual to get back out, I was almost done with my legs seizing and my back tensing and my feet feeling heavier and heavier. Then I saw a deer on the trail running away from me. I heard in the back of my head a voice say, "chase it!" So I pulled my strength together and ran hard and quiet (which is hard when you're tired). The voice said, "run like your ancestors did!" and I ran fast. Then I saw where the deer had darted into cover and there was no more sound. I knew it was there watching me somewhere. I looked and looked, stifling my breath. Then I saw it looking back at me, not 20 yards off. We stared for a moment and it realized I was not going to kill it. Then it turned and bounded off. I had run down a deer! A real deer! Just like my ancestors and yours have all done. If I had needed food, I would have had it at that point with a quick prayer and arrow. In that moment, I had connected with primal human existence. The kind of existence where God walks beside us and there is only what is. I felt powerful.

So if you know someone who needs this, help them get out. They may not need coddling. Maybe they need regular doses of what is real and primal. Come with me if you want. Learn what you really are. Not this soft lump of mediocre flesh, but the hardened beast that walks upright with sharp mind and sharp eyes, fierce and wise and just. If you feel this pull, it's your birthright. Claim it.

Lonely

Here I am again, pouring out thoughts to no one because there is no one else to listen. I'm so tired of this. If I've got no voice to say what is important to me, then what is my use? What am I accomplishing?

I set up an event today which I had hopes for. No one showed but my own parents. That's ok really. I didn't expect much from it and these kind of things are slow to start. but what does get to me is that only two other people committed to show, and neither did. One didn't because he got the date wrong and called me yesterday asking where I was. The other, I have no idea about. He just didn't show. There could be a good reason, who knows.

Again, I'm not upset about that really. It just compounds the loneliness I've been feeling. Then my son starts his usual dramatics about school. I try to work him through it and come to realize he really is playing it up more than there is real. I sometimes wonder if he's not playing me entirely. He knows I am sympathetic to that kind of thing because I suffer from it myself. I'm sure there's something really there on some level, but I can't get at it. I am shut out even as I try desperately to connect.

Then my wife wants to watch sports on TV. I hate televised sports, especially the big ones. I tell her I don't want to watch that right before bed and she says she never gets to watch it because of me. So I leave the room to let her watch. Then she comes to tell me she is going to bed. Great. Even she doesn't seem to see the loneliness I feel. I tried to tell her. I really did. Explicitly, I said, "when do I get to talk with you? You wanted to watch sports and now not even 30 minutes later, you're going to bed. Where's my time?" I'm sure I've missed something somewhere in here, but I can't freakin' be perfect. I'm getting tired of trying to fill all the gaps. Someone else step up for a while.

Jumble

Today I am confused...what else is new. Yesterday I was in more pain than I have been in a long time. It was the culmination of two full weeks of pain. Then it broke. It also happened to break around the same time I am told by someone that they will pray for me.

One side says I should not be surprised. Prayer works and I have seen it happen this way before. God tells us to take sick to the elders and let them pray over them and they'll be healed. He tells us to pray for each other. But why didn't my own prayers work? Maybe to teach me this trust. Maybe because I need to learn that I can't do it on my own. Maybe because God isn't selfish and therefore his power doesn't work in selfish ways. In other words, maybe it only works when we pray for others. This is even consistent with my experience in spiritualism. The things of God always come selfless. If anything has a hint of personal gain or offers it, flee!

But then the doubting side that has risen up a lot these past two weeks wonders if it isn't all a coincidence. Couldn't I have latered another variable which explains the change? Certainly, I could name a few that I altered last night. Not the least of which was the very act of revealing the problem to its full extent and accepting (i.e. giving in to) it. Couldn't this all be part of the little understood and seemingly miraculous nature of the body to heal itself? The connection between mind and body and spirit?

Compound this with doubts about the rules of the game. If the latter explanation is true, then couldn't my entire faith be the same? Couldn't it just be a culturally derived version of the universal truth that so many talk about? Sure I can argue all of those ideas. I know the points and counter-points, but what is true? Why would God be so secretive about things? If he loves us and is so specific as to hold to one true way, then how come he isn't more explicit about what that way is?

Are the apologetic arguments that I know so well the actual answers? In the end it's all a matter of acceptance. There is nothing as conclusive as gravity about it. It convinces some but not others and vice versa.

Have we just misunderstood? Is the Bible even trustworthy? sure it has a consistent message, but it's a consistent message that was compiled 400 years after the most recent events took place. It's plausible that those people could have been constructing a story. Maybe they even really believed it. Maybe they were truly filled with the Holy Spirit and God directed it to be compiled. The point is I cannot conclusively say!

So go back to my own conversion experience. "I don't know about all these questions but this I know: I was blind and now I see." right? Couldn't that even have been colored by my upbringing so that I projected it into that imagery? I know some who would say so.

Am I abandoning my faith? No. Jesus' name is carved in my arm, literally. I am bound to him for good or ill. Like Paul said, are we not to pitied above all if our faith is misplaced? I could probably have an easier life, maybe even a healthier life if I let go of these things. But I want what is real, not what is easy. I have taken the red pill. I might not always like or understand the real world, but it's better than the matrix. Plus, I still remember the depths from which I came. There was no meaning, no goodness. When I rejected it before, my world became unhinged and to say it plainly, I was a depressed, suicidal, nihilist who didn't care for anyone or anything, least of all myself.

I come from a long line of self-killers. Most of us do it slowly through bad habits and lack of self-care. We were made for something else. This world is not our home. If there is nothing more, then the peace of oblivion is perfect rest. If there is a God waiting, then I am ready to meet him. If there is another world of spirit, I'm up for the adventure. If I get reborn, then I sure hope I'm moving into something better because if not I'll be short-timing it out of that life too.

And yet, for the talk, I still find a bit of self-preservation and caution when my mind gets out of the way. I didn't jump to that limb of the tree like I at first wanted to. I fear the pain leading to death. Perhaps that's it, not fear of death but fear of pain...fear of incapacitation. Fear of losing the ability to make choices for myself.

I can feel the light growing from behind deep inside me. I hope the answers are not far off. God, convince me again of you, even though I don't deserve it.

Pain

Pain changes things. It strips away fluff and pretense. It allows us to show our quality. I have been in pain for nearly two weeks. It ebbs and surges, but does not go away. Nothing I can do works to remove it or even dull it.

Some people become placid in pain. Others stronger. I only crumble. I get short-tempered and angry. I lose control quickly. I fall prey to the demons that lurk in my shadows. I doubt everything. I give up. I want to die. I scare myself.

I don't understand the purpose. I do see how pain can have one, but I don't see any purpose now. I just hurt...physically hurt.

Extrication

I know that I have everything I need. I know this on the level that all my physical needs are met. I know this on the level that I have all the weapons I need to survive. But lately, I haven't felt it.

I've been extremely stressed and angry. My fuse is getting short and tending toward violence. These are not good patterns. Lately, I've even noticed that I'm warm all the time...hot really. My wife even feels cold sometimes when i am uncomfortably warm. I think something is about to happen. I feel it getting close. To throw back to my Twilight metaphor...which as I've said before is a very insightful book series, even if packaged in a tweeny fad fantasy...I feel like Jacob about to become a wolf. I really find that character appealing, even down to the dog aspect...everyone knows I often refer to myself as a sheepdog.

From another perspective, I have too much fire in my belly. I'm not built for a tame life. Something will have to give. I haven't hit my stride yet. I have not made the change. But I have never done well caged. I am no house pet. And what are our homes and jobs and suburban lifestyle but padded cages? We are locked in debt and consumerism and civic duty and propaganda images of the ideal life which keeps us safely oiled parts of the machine of society. This works for some people and I am learning to accept that diversity even though I do not in the least understand it.

I have recently also been searching for my way out. Not a temporary escape, like Japan, though that too was immensely good for me, but a real permanent restructuring around who I am. Who I was made to be. But the old questions still come up. How do my diverse interests and skills tie together? What is that place that I was cut for? I have yet to find it.

But I do feel like I am getting closer to understanding it. I know that it must be a permanent change. I know that it will involve a freedom from the strictures of the "American Dream". I know that it will be free from the strictures of the American church culture. I know that it will not be for profit, and likely not "economically sound". And very lately...today in fact, as I was pleading with God, as I have been for several days now, to give me something, I discovered the core of my existence. I know it because it fits everything I've ever known about myself. It's not even the first time I've had it revealed to me. But this time it is clearer and slightly more defined, like a glimpse through the mist that is slowly blowing by. It's hard to articulate just yet because, like I said, I don't fully know how it will manifest. But I know that I was built to be a voice and protector of the lost of the lost. The marginalized. Those most of us sweep under the rug. The ones who scare the Sunday Christians to death. It's the type of people illustrated in Dominic Balli's video for Warrior and in Mat Kearney's song Down. The most vulnerable and beaten and lost. I want to put my hand between the cutter's blade and arm. Hold the hair of the bulimic. Wherever the deepest hurts are that can't be expressed, that is where I want to be. I want to be the Catcher in the Rye. I want to set up shop at the Gates of Dis. But as you can see, this could manifest in so many ways!

I am becoming prepared for this. I am hardening in body and mind. I am stripping away what is false. I will become what I am made to be and it will be soon. This fire will burst forth like a holy dragon. And this current attack will not stop me. It was a good try, but I know now that I have all the weapons I need and I'm learning how to call them up and wield them.

This has to be because otherwise a long life is pure torture. I can't live in sight of these needs and unable to help. I can't settle back and enjoy the cage. I am John the Baptist, David on the run, Joshua the warrior. Like all the seers before me, i am unable to do anything else. My life is forfeit to God. I will get out. Mark the words.

Similarity and Diversity

I am an ecologist by training. I think in systems and relations, and observe to understand. It's an observational science more than experimental. One thing I know is that the world is wondrously complex. There are innumerable interactions in every place we look. Everything is interrelated in a very real physical sense. We can't even explain or understand the greater portion of them. We don't even know what we don't know, but we are constantly learning how processes we thought we understood are not nearly as simple and are sometimes not even valid systems because of it.

At the same time, there are things that always seem to happen the same way. Patterns that repeat. Order in the chaos. Biological structure is similar on large scales. All vertebrates are built very nearly the same. Our organs function very similarly. Plant structure. Biogeochemical processes. And some things are just plain unified. All life on the planet is built of carbon. The major driving energy source is the sun. No vertebrate has more than 4 limbs. The patterns are even more evident on the microscale.

So these two guiding principles rule our world: There is wondrous diversity and complexity within the self-repeating patterns and unifying factors. The diversity is repeated on all levels, as is the sameness.

I realized recently how this applies to Christianity. Even in the Bible itself, we see great diversity among the writers. Even the writers of the New Testament alone. Each Gospel has it's own flavor, it's own focus. It's more than reinterpretations of the same events to different audiences, though this partly explains it. There are real personal differences in what is important to each author. What stood out to them that Jesus did and said is unique. But they all point to certain things in unison.

The other writers also present varying aspects of the faith. John is all about the divinity and the deeper aspects. Luke describes facts in rigid context and detail. Paul sets out grace and rules for living as Christians. Peter charges hard on foundations of the faith. James focuses on the works of the faith. There is so much diversity in their views that it should be no wonder there is so much diversity of denominations today.

But at the same time, one message is imprinted all the way through. The message of Jesus as savior of humanity. And this salvation by grace through faith. To get the fullest expression of the unified message see the creeds. That is what they were for...to distill the rich fertile wealth of the writings of the faith into a few clear and simple sentences.

But within that framework, there is so much room for diversity, for interpretation, for style. It is like ecology. Both of which bear marks of the common origin of both. No one part contains what the whole is. Yet every part is unique and distinct. Just as God himself is one whole in distinct parts. It's amazing how true this holds. Every avenue I explore yields the same principles.

This is the beauty of God's things. The metaphors don't collapse. The symbolics are repeated in fractal patterns over and over and over as you go up or down or sideways through the system.

How sad that we don't recognize this in our own interactions. You can't improve on it.