Sitting in a coffee bar, frustrated out of my mind. I had no idea I would spend so much time on the dang computer, and wish I had spent the money on a nice laptop. This one was a gift from my brother in law, and we don’t have wireless. We just got told that we could get a wifi card for it, but then I would be frustrated by how slow the computer is. This tool has a been an incredible gift as a word processor, but that is all.
Now that I am not spending my mental energies on trying to figure out this team, I have so much stuff to think about. So much stuff, so many ideas, to PROCESS. I guess I could start putting some pictures on my blog, maybe increase the readers? I figure with the amount of people reading this, I don’t need to attract many more people to offend. I guess I also feel that I have heard I have a gift for writing from enough people that it would be wasting my talents if I don’t develop this tool. I tend to believe this is more of a way to relieve pressure from my brain. Just thought of one of our foster children who had a shunt in his head. This was to relieve the pressure from the fluid that built up in his skull. I think these blogs are some type of a shunt. Sorry for draining cerebrospinal fluid into this keyboard.
Delusions. I wrote a few blogs on that topic. Tried to drive the word into the ground. To totally destroy the word. I quoted an author that I disagree with, an author who is working out his own delusions (Anthony Storr, “Feet of Clay”). I also have not read that book, just used the quotation from Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven”. I probably used the term incorrectly as much as I possibly could. So what did I actually mean by it all? Good question, I am not sure I even know.
Some of what I was talking about was the delusion of what we are trying to believe. The delusion of how we see ourselves. From this, my faith is not crumbling. I believe more than ever that the bible is true. I, however, am struggling with the delusion of how I see myself. If I honestly said how I see myself, you would probably laugh and wish that my delusion of self would crumble.
Ok, next thought. Sometimes, I realize, these fingers are not swinging a sharp sword skillfully. (probably the best alliteration ever, I got skillz.) Most of the time I feel like the fool with the thornbush in his hand. Working out a job that needs a scalpel, and all I have is a club. Smashing stuff. I love to smash. I was a defensive tackle in college, and am still a bull in a china shop. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, all force, no finesse. And what a beating I take sometimes. Its like reading a trap too late. Snot bubbles. Feeling free, and then realizing I stepped right into the blocking scheme, and I don’t even have time to drop a level before it is lights out for me. But, then, got to get up, because this is not soccer, a thousand moms are not in the stands feeling sorry for me. This is football, get up and get ready to fight again. That is how I view life in general, I guess.
About delusions. My take on Storr, was he was saying all religion is delusional. I tend to agree with him. We all have a delusion we are living, how our beliefs are supposed to look. How we view ourselves in relation to the God we believe in, no matter what our beliefs. Who we are in our God’s eyes. The image we worship, I believe, is often delusional, because, I believe, the image we worship is who we want to be (God remade in our image, who created whom?). For those who believe in Jesus, I believe we spend a lot of time at the altar of the christian we could be. The person we are trying to attain. We spend a lot of time at the altar with people who have similar views to ours, and we agree, and we think we are correct. Even if this brings death to many. (How was that for mixing the tree of life and the tree of knowledge?). So I believe that I, and many christians, are living a delusion on our own. (I am discounting God’s faithfulness and mercy/grace here).
Something that I have been thinking about is the situational thing. We can’t all be right. Can conflicting ideas both be correct? Does the one who argues best have a handle on truth? The loudest voice is correct? (tree of life, not the tree of knowledge….I am straining here, and don’t have this yet.) It is preposterous to me that we can all be correct with conflicting ideas. God, the afterlife, the spiritual world, I just can’t believe this is some type of democracy. Is truth majority rules? The truth is not self fulfilling prophecy. We don’t make our afterlife, I guess. It is what it is, in the words of the great philosopher Bill Belichick (head coach of the New England Patriots…did someone say dynasty?).
I believe that ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH, and that ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS JESUS. I believe Jesus is the only way, truth, and life. This is not truth because I believe it. I believe Jesus is the absolute truth because Jesus is the absolute truth. I believe I believe this because it is true. This is not true simply because I believe it. We can not wish absolute truth into being. For example, I believe I will never die. How is that? If I believe I will never die, does this make it true? Hmmm….what if Jesus comes back first?
So, just for fun, what if we are all wrong. What if God is some evil deity and actually gave conflicting revelations to different people hoping all religions would war and annihilate each other? Why not? God just enjoys seeing us struggle, because he has some frustrations in his relationship with his mom? Or some weird infinite father wound? If we are living a delusion, why not have fun with it?
In these blogs, I am not sure what my main agenda is. I just hope by openly struggling with it all, it brings freedom to someone who is feeling ashamed because of their own struggles. If I have 100 people read this, and 99 are angry at me, I hope that the one person who this helps becomes a world changer. That would make it icing on the cake, because most of the time, these blogs are just an end in themselves.
