This Last Year

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. " - Martin Luther King

I have had a bad year. I'm much more depressed, 40 pounds heavier, and more confused about the future. Things have been hard this year.

But on the positive side, things haven't been all bad. I've found a good Church, I'm becoming Catholic which makes me happy, I've learned more history, and I've had a good reunion with my friends. I've read lots of good philosophy and theology, and I can quote bible verses like there's no tomorrow. And I had 2 good girlfriends for a while (Though Sarah and I broke up I think in January) and Hannah dumped me after less than 48 hours heh. That sucked. alot. But anyway.

I need to remember the first quote of Dr. King though this coming year. On the way home I was thinking of all my faillures and the sad night I had of which the high was two pity kisses on the cheek from drunken girls and which the low was having a girl tell me my personality was so bad I had to have been drunk. But I can't just focus on the negative, I have to push on. So this past year has been, with good times and bad, love, and depression, and then more depression....and then a bit more. But as the Japanese say: "Fall seven times, stand up eight".

Hide-Out

This is a picture I just found again that Dan drew for me of my secret Hideout, it is a castle, surrounded by coniferous trees and it has a secret tunnel through a waterfall from which I navigate gondollas with bards playing me music and I have a cape, and of course bears with kalishnikovs.. those are essential to keep the paparazzi and UN away. yep. that's the dream... I can already hear the Weezer track to go with it - as my life's soundtrack is Weezer - the song is Holiday.

Day Off

So today was my one day off work this week, tomorrow it's back to the acid mines / Deli for me. Today was an ok day. I listened to Ravi Zacharias this morning which was inspiring as usual and reminded me of the fact that I believe in an Augustinian view of Original Sin. Then I got lost in the snow of downtown St. Catharines trying to find parking at my Church. After getting lost for 30 minutes I finally found my old parking spot. It was really different because we had the Bishop presiding over mass, and he had a really funny hat and shepherd's crook, or a 'crossier' as the French/Catholics call it. I thought God was probably laughing at his outfit which was just a copying of the Pontifex Maximus and the ancient Roman Pagan Priests. Anyway, it was a good service and it made me feel guilty which means that I'm becoming a true Catholic. I know I'm really becoming Catholic because I prayed all week for God's help and didn't get it really and then I went to mass and it still made me feel like the bad one. Which of course I am as all humans are...blah blah Augustinian worm theology orthodoxy. Anyway.

After that I had a good afternoon of watching the X-Men movies which are always entertaining, and drinking 2 litres of ginger ale. Which was probably way more Ginger Ale than I should have drunken, but you know it's almost Christmas so what the heck. I had a mediocre dinner and then watched more X-men and then Michael called and we talked about theology, church, philosophy, liturgy, and my unattractiveness compared to his smoothness with women for about 2 hours. I love that guy, it was great to talk with someone again about those things. Anyway, all in all it was a pretty good day off, most of all, because I DIDN"T HAVE TO WORK!!!@!@!@)* yay ...but tomorrow I have to. oh well. Then I sent a girl a message on facebook. I thought about her for like an hour today. I really miss her. hmm. such is life. Au Revoir to the no people who read this.

this is a strange x-men pic I found online

I have to say this might be narcissistic but if you are a person who has read this far could you please leave a comment so that I'll know that anyone is actually reading this blog. It will work out in your favor because you'll notice today's blog was especially bad. Like I didn't even put any thought into it, it was straight journaling. BUT if people are actually reading this I'll put more of my philosophizing into it. So if you read all this and you don't know what to type for a comment just put 'avocado' in the comment space.

Shalom.

Depression and The Last Samurai

Last night was the worst night I've ever had at work. I'm so tempted to make this post just a list of hyperbole's about how terrible it was, but I'll just leave it at: worst. Then I got home and told my parents about the night and they promptly left the room. Today my mom told me in more or less words that she doesn't like me. heh that makes two of us. But I'm angry all the time. And I've never been an angry person. ever. But I've gotten so angry recently, i'm like harry potter in book 5. I always hated how Harry got angry all the time in it, and I never understood it, but looking in the mirror I totally get it now. So I've decided to spend the next 2 hours and 5 minutes before a nightmarish affair at work again tonight, locked in my room wallowing in my own despair. (by this point in the post you're probably wondering why you even bother to read this. I think my blog is used by pharmaceutical companies testing anti-depresants. If the patient is still smiling by the end, then the medecine works).

On my way to my bed I picked up a book to read that I should probably have thrown out last year after Phil 1P90, "The Anti-Christ" by Friedrich Nietzsche. I had already read some Spinoza this morning -which wasn't helping my Deistic slant- and Nietzsche's biting, but partially accurate, and always entertaining attack on my religion certainly didn't help.

I'm trying to think about whether I should go through my list of the usual complaints about my life followed by intense self-loathing, or if I should write more about a movie I watched this morning. ...i'll do both, but I'll just list the first part really quick. obese, hopeless, friendless, repressed, degenerate, and lonely => it's all my fault I know, I'm Total Depraved. There. Part 1 done.

So I was watching the rest of the Last Samurai this morning and it was awesome. I think that was the best part of my day. And God do I feel like Tom Cruise/Nathan Algren in that movie. He starts off as an alcoholic haunted by the nightmare of killing innocent indians. Then there's a scene where he is standing in the middle of a battle he shouldn't even be fighting and there are warriors all around him and he's spinning frantically and trying to fend them off with a pointed flag/spear thing. And in the end he gets stabbed a bit and kills people, but his life is spared. He ends up being taken captive by the Samurai and he's beaten and bloodied with nothing at all left to live for, and one of my favourite scenes is when he is knocked down in the Samurai village and one of them pulls out his katana (sword). The guy swings his sword right at Algren/Tom Cruise and Algren just looks him in the eye as the guy stops his sword JUST short of his neck and actually cuts his neck a bit so it's bleeding. But he just is looking up at the guy with no fear of death at all, almost wanting it.

Algren has a kind of change of heart and finds peace in the village and restores his honor and becomes a Samurai kind of - he's like as much of a Samurai as Goyim could become Jews. Like I could be a Proselyte and go to Synagogue but I wouldn't "really" be a Jew. Anyway, aside from Jews not letting me in - back to the movie.



So Algren starts off this really angry guy suffering from Alcohol withdrawl and screaming all night from nightmares, and has no will to live, and everyone in the village hates him and wants to kill him. Anyway, I just feel like I could relate. Though I wish I was in Japan. Lucky Algren.



There are some things Nathan Algren yells as well that I thought were shared sentiments. At one point he screams at Lord Katsumoto (head Samurai dude) "What do you want from me!" to be answered "What do you want for yourself". As well he shouts "What the Hell am I doing here!" and Katsumoto responds by telling him that it is impossible to leave during the winter but "Until that time, you are here". Rather than thinking about why he's there he is to realize he is there and just live through it. (ok you just had to be there to get it)

I'd really like to find some peace and figure out how to become a disciplined and honorable person like the character of Algren becomes. I like one conversation that happens and Algren's insight.

"Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed"

By the end of the movie Algren has come to gain a sort of family with the Samurai and returns to the village to his woman and child (that are the wife and son of a dude he killed). I love the last lines of the movie, and I hope someday I will be able to relate to them:

"And so the days of the Samurai had ended. Nations, like men, it is sometimes said, have their own destiny. As for the American Captain, no one knows what became of him. Some say that he died of his wounds. Others, that he returned to his own country. But I like to think he may have at last found some small measure of peace, that we all seek, and few of us ever find."

The Fall and Decline of Andrew's Christmas by Edward Gibbon

The other day I was complaining about how bad Christmas was last year because I was in the States and I only got 1 terrible present that my brother bought for himself. It appears my ingratitude has tipped my karmic imbalance toward samsara even further and the gods seek vengence on me. I'm working every day now till Christmas (minus sunday) and all day on Christmas Eve. ... I was so enraged. Last night at work I also had a terrible set of jobs to do that sucked so much a fellow worker looked at me and said 'man you got screwed over more than anyone'.

I'm so angry with work, I think my Ukrainian and Manchester genes and lineage must be riddled with people as abject, lazy, depraved, and self-centred as I am because I hate work in any form.

Today I threw on one of my all time favourite movies "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise, and of course since it is one of my favourite movies, that means that everyone in the world universally recognizes it as one of the worst movies ever.

Everytime I watch the movie I feel so inspired, like my life has this intrinsic value and that I could be everything I always dream of. That I could be some kind of Tom Cruise look-alike who can beat up people and master Buddhist concentration and control myself so greatly that they would write "Discipline" on my tombstone. But then I realize I'm just an obese Canadian reprobate who has to go to his degrading minimum wage job in less than a half an hour.

But I love the movie because it has so much in it about how life should be structured and deals with the fact that man has had such different pursuits all around the world but the central tenants of life are the same. Virtue, honor, reason, and decapitation. These are the ways humanity has excelled.

As I awoke this morning I looked at the clock and wondered what I should do with my fleeting hours of Freedom. I felt like reading, but I was tired of theology and I was feeling deistic as God had blighted me with all this work, so I picked up "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon a fellow convert to the Church of Rome (for a while at least) and cynical deist enlightenment historian. I read these words with which he described Rome as it began to decline:

"The minds of the Romans were ... Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption"

I underlined the quote in pencil. Gibbon is trying to describe how the Romans fall behind in their virtue they desperately try to preserve their cherished ideals of justice, wisdom, temperance, and fortitude. But eventually they can't keep going, and it becomes painfully obvious that unlike the idyllic Roman Republic this Empire built for the liberty and justice of the world was actually now based on slave labour and oppression. Rome tried to work for good intention but ended up distracted and became exactly that which they sought to destroy.

No modern/post-modern/current historian would describe the Fall of Rome in Gibbon's terminology. His theory was the immorality led to it's destruction. Modern academics don't agree about immorality and if it even exists. That's why I like Gibbon, he just tells it in this beautiful way. I haven't read enough about Rome to know if it's true, but I know that most of the hardship in my life has come from my own immorality. God is just as the phrase goes, and he punishes me most justly of all. Now I'm off to work. Hoping to live to complain another day.

Relaxation

I've been waiting a long time for a break. I kept 'dreaming' about the day I'd be able to just relax, I've had two days and they've been medicinal. Seriously it feels like I've had an injection of goodness or something. It only seems to work in contradiction to lots of work/school though, it is definately having diminishing returns each extra day of loafing around. Though I have to say I wish I could keep a Sabbath and just have a day to rest once a week. I think we all just need alot more relaxation time. I love just sitting in peace and breathing deeply and listening to a great song like John Mayer's No Such Thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya93JWrdxFc

It's been a good Christmas gift to just relax, I think as Aristotle would say a part of the Essence of man involves rest. I mean God even rested on the 7th day (what specific part of the 14.5 billion years that was I don't know). But I was reading my Catechism yesterday and it said something nice:

"2171 God entrusted the sabbath to Israel to keep as a sign of the
irrevocable covenant. The sabbath is for the Lord, holy and set apart for the
praise of God, his work of creation, and his saving actions on behalf of Israel.

2172 God's action is the model for human action. If God "rested and was refreshed" on the seventh day, man too ought to "rest" and should let others, especially the poor, "be refreshed." The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money."

Sunrise

I decided to put up a sunrise for the photo on this blog because right now I'm just enjoying the dawning of a new day. The semester is over, I've worked as hard as I could, and I am once again strongly feeling Catholic and orthodox. I feel like I'm ready again to be happy for a while and am enjoying the little bit of time I have between today and my tuesday exam, and then after that winter break.

I think I would've made a good pagan because I LOVE astronomy and planets and stars and the sun. Stars are my favourite. But I think the Sun helps me to survive. (aside from the whole heat keeping the temperature right etc) But every morning there's a new sunrise and it makes me realize that - as the phrase goes - today is the first day of the rest of your life (unless it's the day you die - as American Beauty pointed out). There is something refreshing about nature and for me something comforting about the fact that we are a speck in the universe and that the cosmos will continue even if I ended up dropping out of school or dying or anything, life will go on. That comforts me, and to quote Will Ferrell as Harry Carey - I guess I'm just a worrier. ...that's why my friends call me whiskers ... (watch the SNL clip and you'll get it).

Have a good day, may the Sol Invictus (the Unconquerable Sun - who's festival is on Dec 25) shine on you - in a purely metaphorical and unpagan way. Or just to use the phrase of the Ancients and World of Warcraft - May the Eternal Sun Shine on You.

Only In Dreams

I woke up this morning and was so angry, I had been having the best dream of my life and I thought it had come true. 2 guys who had been my best friends but are now far away had somehow ended up at my university and we all had classes together and some girl was randomly being nice to me in the hall outside history class and asked me out (that should've given it away as a dream). And the four of us (2 friends, me and mystery girl -who's name I couldn't remember) all decided to go somewhere fun and then the dream ended. It's always so pathetic to explain dreams, sometimes my friends will tell me a story from their dreams and I will just get really confused and bored out of my mind. I think dreams must be like some kind of mythological thing that only the person they are revealed to will understand them. Once God actually spoke to me through a dream, that was cool. Wow... I miss those days. Anyway, this probably sounds like nonsense, but then I began thinking about all of this and figured I should re-read the lyrics to "Only in dreams" because Weezer is apparently the soundtrack of my life.

You can't resist her.
She's in your bones.
She is your marrow
And your ride home.

You can't avoid her.
She's in the air... in the air
In between molecules of
Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide.

Only in dreams
We see what it means.
Reach out our hands.
Hold onto hers.
But when we wake
It's all been erased.
And so it seems
Only in dreams.

You walk up to her.
Ask her to dance.
She says, "Hey, baby, I just might take the chance."
You say, "It's a good thing
That you float in the air... in the air.
That way there's no way I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces."

Only in dreams
We see what it means.
Reach out our hands.
Hold onto hers.
But when we wake
It's all been erased.
And so it seems
Only in dreams.

Ya it's a good song, I don't get the whole crushing toenails thing...Rivers is pretty screwed up, marrying Chinese women and locking himself in closets...it's not normal. (I say as I recall locking myself in a closet this week in order to finish Aristotle).

But the Bass riff for the song is cool. I'm going to go play it now on the Bass I stole from Dan's brother/the one Dan lent me.

No exams till Tuesday, Life is GOOD!!!!!

Good Times this Week

Three really good things that happened this week.

1. Breakfast with Dad: Tuesday morning I got up at 6:30 so I could practice for my driving test and I was by Dad's shop so I stopped by and he took me out to Timmies for breakfast.. It was nice.

2. Tuesday Evening-Wednesday : I passed my driver's test and went to go see James Bond: Quantum of Solace with Andrea and got to sleep a bunch and had fun watching L4yer Cake and Lord of War.

3. Family Guy clip - Stewie: "I'll be almost as cool as the cheeto guy" *Chester Cheeto Cat guy listening to 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush and cutting up cheetos with a razor blade and then does a line of it. Then he screams 'there is no better drummer than Neil Peart!!!' and smashes his hand on a glass.

VICTORY!!!!

I passed my G test -just barely - and now I don't have to take a drivers test for another 60 years.

In celebration I have posted this kick ass video which was the coolest song of 1980 ...if the category was songs in 1980 filmed in a bank...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJYHD3gjXo

I was right, bad things do give meaning to my life, I'm very happy right now. There will be the impending crash, but right now I'm good.

Ocarinas, Lullabies, and Nirvana

I'm pretty nervous about my G test but in 11 hours it will be over. Something that has helped me relax though is investigating about Ocarinas - which are like little flutes. Zelda got me thinkin' about them. I found an Ocarinist on YouTube who is pretty amazing -He's a Christian too, you can tell from his shirts and what he says about the hymns he plays. Anyway this song brings me alot of peace, I've always loved lullabies. It's Zelda's Lullaby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyPlQJQvUC4&feature=related

When I listen to him play the songs it just makes me feel so comfortable like I'm at complete peace. I feel like Nirvana-the eternal destination (or rather lack of destination) - not the band. I was reading about Nirvana the other day which is technically not so much a place as a ceasing of everything and a peace. I was thinking about how I love sleeping and how amazing it would be to just be that peaceful all the time. When I think of Nirvana I think of floating down a river listening to a lullaby on an Ocarina. If the Buddhists and/or Atheists (they're like Buddhist universalists, in that they think everything stops at death - so everyone 'goes to' Nirvana) are right then I guess it wouldn't be so bad.

Smile at the oncoming storm

I've been off school for 3 days now. All my time by myself I have wasted, I haven't even done the stuff I planned on doing. I don't really know what to do. I've spent my pre-exam vacation up now. I guess I'll study. Well I've described my life in horrifying terms before. Most of it is spent anticipating dread or sitting alone waiting for some new dread to anticipate. When I think about how much time I am afraid (I use fear in an equivocal way, sometimes just meaning stress or worry or anxiety or frustration) I realize that my life will never be empty. I was thinking of going over the last things I was afraid of and got through. Hmm. Dentist, Essays, Work (I become very devout on the car-ride to work, for some reason it always makes me afraid).

Tomorrow I have to take my G drivers test. Driving tests for me always go terrific - by terrific I mean they induce alot of terror into my life. They are up there with Dentist and Driving somewhere far away, and airport customs in my list of fears. So I have brewed over all that could go wrong tomorrow, and all the worst things that could happen. Even tonight, I'm just hanging out with an old friend and I'm afraid because I won't know what to say or do.

But if there's anything that I've learned in all of this, it's that actually suffering and fear gives my life meaning. Perpetual loneliness does seem to happen to me, but when I'm doing things I'm afraid of there are ups and downs, unexpected good things happen as well. In short, my life has meaning in those times.

So I look at the oncoming storm of stress - (within 24 hours I'll have failed my drivers test and be worrying for the next one and then worrying about exams.) I just need to look at the storm and smile. Eventually all of this will be washed away by the peace of the grave and I can imagine long slow humming of a familiar song that will sooth me throughout eternity.

Bittersweet Symphony

So tonight my friends and I went to see the Rick Mercer Report taped and it was really hillarious. We had alot of fun and we went out to the Old Spaghetti Factory and rode the go train. It was a nice break after writing 57 pages of essays this semester. We basically just made gay jokes, talked about women, and ate. It was fun. It was much needed.

I was making small talk with the CBC elevator girl (who I thought was attractive and probably my age) but I remember looking around Toronto and thinking there are a ton of people here...If I spent my whole life just trying to get to know each person I would fail at it. That actually gave me some hope in that I realize that there are lots of people in the world and that I will find new friends.

I realized how depressing this blog was and figured I needed to write about something happy. For me though life is an overwhelmingly long and sad process and happiness is those beautiful moments in between when everything seems ok. I was driving home listening to "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve and that was really good, I had my hand out of my window and just felt the night air and heard "It's a bittersweet symphony that's life". Very true.

Lost Friend

I've had to say goodbye to Old Friends alot. England was terrible for that, constantly saying goodbye to people I loved immensely. I don't miss that part at all (plus I still kind of live it). ....this is going to sound so gay.... oh well, maybe it will garner some attention then....Today I went through my facebook friends and I found a guy I'd been friends with in Grade School. We had a ton of fun. He was one of those people that you just really want to be around and try really hard to impress or just hang out with as much as possible. We went to different high schools though so we never saw each other much after that. And in all honesty if I was as big a dick back then as I am now I can see why most people would happily say goodbye to me.

But man I missed him today. Like if I could do anything tonight it would be just to go to his place and have coffee and talk about life. I really want to catch up and try to restore things. I know it's idiotic as I haven't known the guy for about 6 years. But today I was basking in the infinite sadness of losing a friend. I'll probably never get to know him again, I know tragic things have happened in his life that I wasn't there for. I didn't help him through any of it. I mean I wasn't really obligated as I hadn't seen him in years, but I wish I could have, I should have done something.

I sent him a facebook message today, I've tried it before and he never responded. It figures really. Happens alot to me. If I got a creepily personal message from someone at 4am that I hadn't seen in months or years, I'd be scared too. Actually let me correct that - a normal person would be scared. I would almost cry with joy that someone was thinking of me at 4am.

I have barely enough faith for myself right now but I'm going to pray for him, and maybe in some infinitely small way I could help him. Man if God were really my dad I would just ask him if he could arrange something between us (now I'm really starting to sound Gay).

God I miss that guy, and the worst part is that it seems like nothing could ever fix things. It's not like anything terrible transpired it was just time and distance, but I'm starting to see that a broken friendship is a terrible thing. It's so bad that it almost makes it not worth having friends.

Albert Schweitzer once said "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory". In some ways I think he is right in that happiness is fleeting and most of life sucks but we just have to move on. Maybe I should just take his advice, I meant he won the Nobel Peace prize....but he was also a Lutheran... damn I wish I was a Lutheran...

3am Movie

I awoke at 3am thinking initially it was much later. My body was awake and I had a terrible taste in my mouth. So I threw on pajamas and walked downstairs to get a glass of orange juice. I felt a little better. I was bored so I poured myself a bowl of cherios and went into the loft. I watched a scene of the movie Falling Down with Michael Douglas. It is a funny / good movie, but I really wasn't in the mood. There's alot of porn on at 3am even on normal channels but it didn't seem right to watch, as in a few hours I'd be standing at the front of a Church ready to be 'accepted' (whatever that means)..

So I turned on the movie American Beauty as it was still near the beginning. I'd never seen it before, I just knew that I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid because it had nakedness - the most shameful and affronting thing to God known to humankind. But I knew it'd be edited for Tv, so it'd be a good choice.

I figured I'd drift off to sleep as I watched it because it was 3am after all and Kevin Spacey is the most boring guy in the world. But as it turned out I became enthralled with it, and I really started to get into the story. It won oscars for a reason apparently, and really showed a funny glimpse of American life. I feel most like the dad in that movie, I don't know why really, but I think it is his brutal honesty and the fact that he never hurts anyone and is generally a weak character.

I was even shocked by the ending and the whole theme of latent homosexuality in homophobics, and about the fact that life should never be normal. There was a repeated line in the movie, 'the worst thing in the world is to be ordinary'. hmm. I'm not sure I've had enough time to reflect on the philosophy of that statement, so I won't make a judgment call yet.

There was a scene where this loser guy goes to the girl's (who is supposed to be loser-ish but I thought she was really quite attractive) house and says 'if I told you I had to leave tonight would you come with me' and it was amazing how a person's heart stirs at that sort of thing. There is something so absolutely alluring about just running away from all of our problems and going somewhere on a whim. It resonates with the soul.

In any case, I'm still sitting hare at 6:35 in the loft thinking about the movie which was really well done, and thinking about what my life should be like. In world religions we heard a quote from a Rabbi named Josiah who said "When I die, God will not say to me, "Why weren't you Moses?". He will say to me, "Why weren't you, Josiah?"'.

.... (these dot dot dots are here to imply time for reflection)

I thought it was a very poignant lesson which tied in with the movie. It's one of those times that you know is significant even if you can't exactly say why or how.

Lothlorien

I've been reading Lord of the Rings again and I just came to this passage I love:

Merry: "if I had known what the world outside was like, I don't think I should have had the heart to leave it.

Haldir: Not even to see fair Lothlorien? The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. Some there are among us who sing that the Shadow will draw back, and peace shall come again. Yet I do not believe that the world about us will ever again be as it was of old, or the light of the Sun as it was aforetime. For the Elves, I fear, it will prove at best a truce, in which they may pass to the Sea unhindered and leave the Middle-earth for ever. Alas for Lothlorien that I love! It would be a poor life in a land where no mallorn grew. But if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea, none have reported it."

Peace/Pax/Shalom

Pax Tecum were the words heard and spoke by Catholic Christians throughout the middle ages and all the way until Vatican II in the 60's. Peace be with you. Jews say Shalom, and Muslims say Salaam Allah - the peace of God.

It is an ancient greeting in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For the Jews it was tied to Shalom, the concept or blessing to have peace in every area of your life. Peace in your relationships with people, peace with God, and peace with the Earth. Today I felt a few moments of great peace. Life has been very stressful and very up and down. (Just look at the previous post written just over 12 hours ago). I found this video on youtube that makes me feel peaceful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP6CGbeX14A - it's a guy playing on bass immaculately, one of my favourite pieces of music (yes it's from Zelda) here's the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xCp6ngH_mQ

After a stressful day I like to listen to these songs or classical pieces and close my eyes and just forget everything and be lost in the music. I think that's what I understand Nirvana to be in Buddhism and Moksha in Hinduism. It's just peaceful. I'm glad Jesus said "My peace I give you". Because I need peace and a sense of shalom and pax in my life. I have to work soon, but I'm just taking a little while to relax and have peace.

Pax Tecum Mii Amicum - Peace be with you my friends.

Terrible

It seems like no power in earth or heaven can fix what is broken inside of me. I don't really understand it anymore. I am so incredibly alone. By the way, if you're alone don't listen to "How To Save A Life" by the Fray...it doesn't help.

I have this deep feeling that life will continue to only find meaning in small struggles and that arbitrarily progressing and writing papers and stressing about driving tests and dentists is the only thing that gives me a purpose at all. I've prayed so much, I prayed most of my shift at work tonight. I feel like someone has died, I feel like my life is a funeral procession. I looked at houses in the newspaper tonight on break at work and realized that I will never own a house, I will never be married, or have children (unless I get really sad and lonely and adopt a kid and ruin his or her life as well).

I have a few options I was thinking over as I've talked to all my Christian friends who seem to be doing ok (by the way in a twist of fate after enduring all of the hatred and deciding to convert, it seems God won't grant me the joy of religion either, I find myself HATING Catholicism.). And all my friends are much more pure than I am, they can read the bible and live it. I can only listen to it and either not enjoy it, live it, or believe it. Damn liberal theologians like Marcus Borg for trying to destroy my faith which was all I had left.

Anyway, once again I find myself sitting in the east wing of Cottrill manor in my bed waiting to fall asleep. As Hamlet once said (quoting from memory) "to die, to sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub, for in that sleep, what dreams may come?"

There is so much wrong with me I have no idea what to do... a friend called me and told me about all of his accomplishments which were encouraging and done in a good spirit, but in the end I just realized that I am not like him. I am reprobate, unregenerate, alone. My greatest wish is to some day sit reading this with my life in order shocked and horrified that I'd ever write such a thing and make it public no less. But it doesn't matter, no one reads it anyway, and even if they do, what do you say to the person who's memorized the answers they've given him for years?

Prayer

I should be writing on my theology blog if it's about God or Religion, but I post on here because I know nobody reads it and I can get out my really personal thoughts.



2 days ago a friend asked me to pray for her on the phone. I don't remember how to pray to God the right way anymore. I don't even know if I believe in prayer. I have all the arguments and logically I can accept it, it's just personally I don't know if I think God even likes me, I've abused our friendship too much. (Now's where protestants will attack me) But I've been praying to the saints alot recently. I mean I believe they're going to him anyway, but it just seems easier to talk to a dead person than a deity. So I've been praying to Our Lady in latin, I feel like a medieval peasant so it just seemed right.



Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, Dominus Tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. Sancte Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro nobis pecatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis, nostrae.



I'm terrified about so much in life right now, I have so many essays - I don't know how I'm going to get through it. I gave up World of Warcraft. I have a drivers test that i'm scared about too. I'm so angry at life in general, I hate it, I hate me. I feel so incredibly weak and scared about everything.



I was listening to the radio yesterday night and heard the story of Abraham and Jehovah Jireh - the Lord will provide. I just hope he provides me with some help or angels or something and with a hope and reason for living (and again if someone does read this, you probably know that i'm too cowardly to commit suicide, I'd just never do that). But I would like my life to mean more than struggling to survive, please those around me, be thin, and get a piece of paper (history degree).

Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges is smart, he has alot of good points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdl_xNMTYvs

Self-Loathing

Obese comes from the Mid-17th century Latin obesus , past participle of assumed obedere "eat until overweight" according to my dictionary.

I am one of the random Canadian statistics of Obese people who are apparently making up a huge portion of the population (though I don't really see them anywhere). I was thinking about this -as always- today at Brock. No one likes fat people. It's just a general premise in the world. Sure Kevin James or Chris Farley maybe not, but the vast majority of them, people hate. I don't particularly like seeing them either, even though I'm one of them.

It reminded me of a text we were reading in history class by Thomas Jefferson - slaveowner, racist extraordinaire, and co-founder of the United States. He writes: The negroes wish they were white as it is universally known that we are superior, even as the orangutang would prefer to be a negro. - and other things like that. It's interesting that many times people would really hate themselves today and all through history.

St. Paul says according to old Wycliffe's reckoning that "no man hated ever his own flesh, but nourisheth and fostereth it, as [and] Christ doeth the church." (Eph 5.29). But I got news for you St. Paul, I hated mine own flesh.

Then I realized, even God hates fat people, according to old Ezekiel 34:16 "I will destroy the fat...I will feed them with judgement" (he uses such great puns when he plans on destroying someone, it's like Bond one-liners)

So basically it's actually a virtue for me to hate myself. I can't believe how utterly detestable to every principle established by human or divine law. I was trying to think of things religions have in common today in lecture and I thought, all of them together could point to me and say 'this man has wasted his life - don't be like him'. That would certainly be an interesting proposal.

I genuinely drag everyone down, I am the dead weight of society. The other night I watched "the beach" with Leonardo Dicaprio or however you spell his name. Anyway, there's a scene where a guy gets bit by a shark and he keeps getting more sick and is coughing all night etc, and so the people just drag him out into the middle of the woods and leave him for dead. Then they all go back to their commune and play beach volleyball and have a fun day. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I am that shark attacked guy.

It's no one's fault but my own after all. I mean I started out in this life and made bad choices, and then God saved me at Capernwray from alot more and by the end I was on my way back to health and wealth, but then I screwed it all up by my own choices. So here I am today at 1:43 PM on November the third. I'm laying in bed, barely fitting into my clothing. I finished an essay last week (twice - had to rewrite it) and now I have 4 more due that I haven't started.

What's the point in trying to go on. I can already predict the future. I will struggle through a stress filled month, live in more sin, eat more doritos, play more world of warcraft, and then find myself in another state of severe depression 20 pounds heavier and even more hopeless than before. Life will continue to spiral downwards until I actually do have a heart attack or something and finally die, and if I'm lucky that will be it, and I'll have peace and quiet and rest from my own iniquity.

It would take a miracle on the scale of the Resurrection of Christ for life to turn out in my favour.

World of Warcraft

Lately I've been playing WoW again. There are infinitely better things to do with my time, like exercise or ministry or schoolwork. But I just got to the point where I could no longer find happiness in life, I could find joy in Christianity, but not a fun kind of happiness. So I started once more. I've played probably like 5 characters so far, I can never pick just one. I'm tempted on many days to just pick one and delete the rest, even though i've literally spend weeks ingame on some of them. I think my 61 Priest has like 16 days of playtime. I'm now restarting with a blood-elf hunter.

But why would I play Wow? what makes it different. Here are some answers, not all of them are good or healthy, but they're just thoughts.

Escapism - I'm so tired of life and the stresses that I've lived with for so long, that at times I just need to escape. This is the reason many people drink or use drugs, and in many ways those are more socially acceptable, but Mennonite and Baptist backgrounds die hard and I doubt I'll ever use either.

New Reality - The pre-modern man struggled to survive in the world, the modern man discovered and conquered the world, and the post-modern man invents his own world. Given these 3 options I would choose the modern world. I would love to explore and discover things, but i'd like to be in shape as well. My brother Jeremy is to me the hero of this modern period, out in the wilderness and on the edge of civilization, if I had it in me, I'd like to do the same thing.

In WoW I can enjoy the best of Post-Modernity. The world of warcraft is full of new and exciting places to see and things to do, I can find my own friends from all around the world and have a ton of fun living as a brave new explorer in a brave new world.

Pure Fun - at the end of the week, I can usually (this week excluded) just jump on and have a ton of fun. Last night is an example, I just jumped on my Shaman and rode around on my wolf through an Alliance (enemy) area, and I found other low level players and would kill them in one shot and then dance on their corpses and ride away. This is entertainment for me.

I like playing games, and as I said it is a horrifying thought that I have spent this much time in a fake world doing essentially meaningless things, but when faced with the reality of life that to have fun in this world I would have to diet, exercise, face all of my problems, try alot harder, pass my G test (which I'm still ignoring) and go into new and scary situations. OR I could jump on a game and get almost all of the same enjoyment. Sloth is a sin, but it is the reality of my life, and thus I play World of Warcraft.

WoW

I'm playing my 61 priest and 50 shaman again...

Alone

I took myself out to see "The Dark Knight" again the other day. I don't think most normal people go out to movies by themselves. I drove home without the radio on, not wanting to listen to Joyce Meyer talk about 'the flesh', and also feeling that solitude was what the occassion called for. It only took 14 minutes to drive home, but it felt like an eternity, it felt like being God watching evolution take place, knowing that in some small way things were progressing, but also knowing that it would be a long time before I would have anyone to talk to.

I guess the dogma of the Trinity kind of eliminates my 'lonely God' model, maybe if I functioned in a Trinity my whole life would be an outpouring of love as well.

I was at work the other night and they gave us even more stupid uniforms, weird red hats that look like the kind Anglican Seminarians wear. I saw a girl I worked with who looked really cute, smiling and laughing and talking about going to a party. I am not like that person. I don't go to parties. Post-Modern Fun, and I seem to have a philosophical/moral difference, and can't quite see eye to eye on principle. So once again I felt by myself, not looking particularly cute in my red hat, just looking as one co-worker who hates me described it 'as a big cherry'.

I've always conceived of God deistically in a way, that he was huge and utterly different than us, it was somehow influenced by Reformed theology that nothing I could do would appease him (sola fide) and thus Catholicism is offering new challenges to me. It teaches more firmly the dogma of the Incarnation, the idea that God "pitched his tent with men". It teaches an ongoing sacrifice for sins in a sense and that we can participate -as the body of Christ- in the work of the cross by suffering. It is scarier to think in that way, that as Gladiator says "what we do in life, echoes in eternity". Atheism is the cowardly faith really, it's much easier to believe we are a pleasant mistake. My personal phrase or philosophy used to be "don't worry, you are to insignificant to do anything really terrible". So maybe loneliness is a great comfort and a great despair.

I try to think of a bible verse everyday for work to meditate on and think about all day.

"God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity/nature" (Wisdom of Solomon 2:23)

Weak

My teeth are terrible. With no exageration I probably have gum disease and gingevitis. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow for the first time in 2 years. Not since Grade 12 before graduating. I am terrified. . .

This is when I realize how weak I am. How I am in complete pain right now because of the pain in my mouth (from flossing). I am reduced to silence and fear. If I am amazed by any of my abilities, it is my ability for pride in a way. I've not really ever been proud as in feeling great or better than others, but when I realize my sheer weakness, it's amazing that I ever feel strong in any way. All it takes is a minor affliction and I'm back to fear and trembling..

Money

St. Paul writes to his padawan / bishop in training St. Timothy that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil". Today I had to listen to parents argue about money. I realized as well today that I hate money. People at Capernwray were so taken aback when I told them my dad owned a plane and that we were rich that they thought I was lying. Probably because I don't spend much money, and I've never viewed money as mine, since my parents can take it whenever they want with no questions asked.

So basically I realized again that the monastic life is strangely and in some ways even more appealing. I truly hope that God will strike me dead before I have to argue with someone I love about money. I have to leave for work in ten minutes to earn money. I don't care about my money, it will all go to school, which will lead to nothing, it's so meaningless and traps so many people. In my principles - not my everyday life example - I believe it is better to be homeless. I believe the bible says 'blessed are the poor', that's a very old Christian virtue which has been lost by the Sodom and Gommorah in which we live (remember the sin of Sodom was neglected for the poor according to Ezekiel).

I saw "Into the Wild" the other day, I'd read the book years ago. I always liked when he burned all the money he had. I've wanted to do that. It is the ultimate sign of faith I think, and of worldly renounciation. The Government controls so much, and in our idolization (if not worship) of money, I wonder if the greatest incidences of Caesaro-Papism are not left in the pages of the East-West schism but are in our Post-Modern world.

God help us all from this root of money which so easily ensnares the world.

Weight

Our Lord once said "come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give ye rest" (or something to that effect, somewhere around Matthew 11:28). Lately things seem so heavy. I've gained huge amounts of weight since Capernwray and even since last year. I'm 270 pounds. That is downright disgusting, sometimes before I eat, I pray "Father forgive me for what I am about to do" as I make the signum crucis.

Sin also weighs down. I confess my sins to God, but I am constantly haunted by Jn 20:23 and know that I may very likely remain in mortal sin, and the threat of eternal damnation. I try to cry alot, remembering St. Ambrose quote about the 2 regenerating baptisms, that of water, and that of tears (contrition).

I read the promises of Scripture (rom 6:4) I think of St. Paul's rejoicing that we have the Spirit which will save us and lead us into new life, but I feel the dead weight, the death of sin, which haunts me at every turn. The utter inability to do what is good, to love God, to love my neighbour. I often wonder if I am the only student of theology who might think he is damned, even though he believes all the right things, and can extoll and exposit the Word of God and lead others in the path he is too weak to walk himself.

Again the weight of it all carries me down. I know all the verses, I know the theology of liberation, I know about the Cross and the Resurrection, but life seems so far. I feel like a ship stuck on a rock a few miles from a lighthouse, I tell the passing vessels where the light is, I know where the light is, and I want to go where the light is, except I can't, I'm weighed down to much to sail.

I am a great coward. It appears so easy to live right, and it is the just requirement of all who bear the name of Christian. But it seems I am too unregenerate, too burdened, too lazy, too fat, and in truth, alone.

abnormal

I am very abnormal. I was offered a job for more money at a better place for more hours today, but I really don't want to take it. Why? who on earth would want to work at Sobeys. ... I guess, me, would be the answer. I am afraid of almost everything, and I dislike change. I just try to exist with as little struggle as possible. I hate work, and the reason I hate it is because it's unpredictable. But now Sobeys is predictable and I want to stay there. I am comfortable, and I have enough money, and I have some friends there. But the person who offered me the job is going to be pissed.

Today was one of those days that, if suicide wasn't a mortal sin, I would totally drive my car into the lake or jump off Brock tower or something. Wow I hate my life right now. What an ungrateful bastard I am.

I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well

I actually found a song with meaningful lyrics and here they are. The song is by Harvey Danger, and the song is called "Flagpole Sitta". I like it because it reminds me of Total Depravity and that inside we really are pretty fucked up. I also think it's interesting about how he sings he's in Hell just in this life. I feel like that all the time. Lots of the lyrics are just stupid punk crap, but some of them are really good.

I had, I was in them
I was looking into the mirror
To see a little bit clearer
The rottenness and evil in me

Fingertips have memories
Mine can't forget the curves of your body
And when I feel a bit naughty
I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes(but no one ever does)

I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot cause I'm in hell

Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding
The cretons cloning and feeding
And I don't even own a tv
Put me in the hospital for nerves
And then they had to commit me
You told them all I was crazy
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, goddamn you

I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot cause i'm in hell
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin to live so well

I wanna publish zines
And rage against machines
I wanna pierce my tongue
It doesn't hurt, it feels fine
The trivial sublime

I'd like to turn off time
And kill my mind
You kill my mind

Paranoia paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
Im running under ground with the moles(Diggin big holes)
Hear the voices in my head
I swear to god it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me

I'm not sick but I'm not well
And I'm so hot cause I'm in hell
I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin to live so well

I love the lyric "and it's a sin to live so well" I feel like that all the time. Last night I was thinking, today 28 000 children starved to death, probably almost a hundred thousand people died, and I'm still alive. How utterly ungrateful. There either is a profoundly important reason we're all alive, each of us, or the world really is going to Hell in a handbasket.

Footballer

I'm watching Football on Tv right now. Not American Football, what you folks would call soccer. Switzerland versus Turkey. 1-0 for the Swiss. There are hundreds of thousands watching this match. The players are probably getting paid millions. They're all decked out in their fancy uniforms playing with so much intensity. Old men are standing on the sidelines screaming advice at them. It's just a game though. No one is being saved by it, no one really helped. Diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Turkey are not being fixed. But still, people like to watch football. It's probably my favourite sport to watch. ... come to think of it, I don't watch sports at all, except football when it's on.

It's good to watch people just play a game. It's not that it has any inherent meaning or virtue in it. I think it's just nice to not think about life for a while. Just to focus on goals completely opposite to those of regular life. Kicking a ball into a net suddenly becomes meaningful when people expect it, when people want to see it, when they cheer for it. Football is essentially an Existentialistic experience. The meaning of it is created by those watching, and for somepeople the goal scored by Switzerland brings great joy, for others it brings despair, and anger. There's not really anything meaningful about the action or really even the results. It just give people meaning.

Maybe the world is kind of like a play, and God's watching it like football.

Helpless

"There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mindI still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked
and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow"
by Neil Young

This song is on a dvd called the Last Waltz and he plays it with the band called "The Band". It's amazing. I also remember watching this dvd back in the day with a girl while we did stuff... good times. I like the song though. Helpless is the word that comes to mind when I think northern Ontario.

A New Hope?

I was watching an interview with George Lucas today and he was asked what the 2 sunsets represented in A New Hope. It has always been a powerful scene in my mind, the sweeping and swelling music of John Williams as Luke looks out to the horizon and sees this stunning view. Lucas said that it represented life outside the box, the adventure that one can pursue in the horizon. He says that the characters live in the boring everyday life and look out at the sunset, and when they decide to chase after the adventure, fulfill their destiny they head out towards the sunset in glory and hope or the darkness of space in courage and fear.

I guess this isn’t a revolutionary idea, but today I was trying to figure out which character I was, Luke, or one of his cousins who just sit at home and eventually get turned into burning corpses. In the story it’s only after everything is lost that Luke decides to begin a new life. I wish I had that kind of opportunity at a soul level. I wish that I could head off for the sunset and change completely, but I have a feeling I’d have just called the neighbours and asked if I could live with them.

I’ve also been realizing the immense separation between soul/mind and body, it’s really strange how in our minds we can desire something so much and yet we fail to live out those things. As well, how much social ideas affect our life and actions. For instance if I wanted to head out to New Zealand with Danny and give up on everything here it would be immensely difficult, just because no one does that. I’m expected to fulfill the same roles as all those around me, and to be almost the same with just enough uniqueness to pretend that I am different, pointing at a straw and calling it a hay field. Everyone dreams about it, but no one does it. I guess they dream about the fun parts, not the sleeping in the mud parts.

As well it’s amazing to me how much fear sculpts everything we do. Maybe it’s only at the end of our rope when we realize that we face death and the loss of everything that we can have to courage necessary to act. I am amazed constantly by how much fear shapes everything we do. Fear of failure, fear of everything. I’m afraid.

Fear as you know leads to the dark side, maybe I need to get rid of my fear. I tried doing it near the end of school, and everyone thought I was crazy, I did worse than ever at school, even if I was a lot more at peace.

So ya, if I could actually sell all my stuff and get a plane ticket and go it would be so amazing, I’d be my own hero, but I’m sure after a month I’d be begging to come home and say anything to recant and to try to remake my life from the shambles. But I wish I had the determination to actually set out and live my life, live it the way I want it to look, and be the person I want to be. If instead of just dreaming, I would actually act. That’d be amazing.

I could live my whole life perfectly and struggle to succeed, but I think when I lay on my death bed at 42 from heart disease, I’d have traded all that time from now till then, just for one chance at adventure – as I believe one Scottish Rebel William Wallace said in Braveheart. I think that maybe life would be infinitely more meaningful if I became that person. But I’m pretty sure I won’t. I’ll catch a break, figure out a life, get a job, tell myself it was the right thing. But I think every time I see that sunset I’ll always remember what might have been.

"Work Sucks I Know"

Those lyrics sung by Blink 182 were poignant for today. I got home after helping my mom get groceries and having to already go to work and the phone rang. It was Sobeys. I am now working 5-10. Catastrophe has struck as Aristotle would say, and my felicitous day has turned into a bland service in the life of a proletariat.

Obi Wan Kenobi

" 'When I left you, I was but the learner, now I

am the master.'- Darth Vader
'Only a master of evil, Darth.' -Obi Wan Kenobi"

... OWNED

One of my dear heroes is the late great Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi. He was quite a guy, the model for self-sacrifice and a life devoted to virtue. I wish I could be him. I think I hate Luke more now as I write this. At least he could talk to Obi Wan in his head, Obi Wan was like his Jesus. Wouldn't it be awesome if Jesus dressed like Obi Wan? he already has superpowers.... sweet. I'm not trying to be sacreligious, in fact I think if Jesus has a list of favourite movies Star Wars is on it. And Alec Guiness who played Obi Wan in the original series was a convert to Catholicism. So Jesus already likes him.

Obi Wan Kenobi, what a guy, he had some amazing quotes. "That's no moon, it's a space station". "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine". "My allegiance is to the Republic, to Democracy!". and finally his relativistic philosophizing: "only a Sith deals in absolutes".

I really hope that if I ever get my arm chopped off, or I'm hanging on the bottom of Cloud City, or I'm laying partially unconcious in a snowy planet (Yavin 5) that I could call out to Obi Wan and hear his voice in my head.

I think my life would be exponentially cooler if somehow he appeared to me and trained me in the Force. All these Catholics and their Apparations of Mary, Our Lady of Fatima? if you left it up to me I'd rather have 'Our Jedi Master of a galaxy far far away'. I still can't figure out if Darth Vader killed him, or if he just evaporated, or if he became one with the force.... and whether that counts as a mortal sin or not.

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." - Princess Leia's Prayer to Obi Wan, patron saint of princesses leading rebellions against galactic empire's.

Ethos

I'm starting a new plan for trying to change my life, it's to reorder my ethos - my whole life ethic a bit. I'm using texts from three different religions in as much as their creeds help me to live as a better man. Don't worry I'm not converting to anything else, I'm fine being a Catholic Christian. Here they are:

1. Buddhism: I find that the ethics of Buddhism are actually quite easy to reconcile with Christianity, their way of life is difficult much like Christianity's, but I find that while I disagree with their theology and much of their philosophy, the actual pragmatic morality/religion part, I do agree with, here it is:

Buddhist Eightfold Noble Path
i. Right View
ii. Right Intention
iii. Right Speech
iv. Right Action
v. Right Livelihood
vi. Right Effort
vii. Right Mindfulness
viii. Right Concentration

Jedi: thank God only about 2 people even know this blog exists, because shaping your life after Star Wars isn't really 'cool' in any sense of the word. I read the jedi creed the other day and found it to be a very good mantra, it's basicallly just western style buddhism, but I like it. You can also Christianize this by just switching 'The Force' with logos which is Plato's concept of God which St. John uses in chapter 1 of his gospel to describe Christ as the eternal divine omnipresent deity.

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force (or logos).

Christian
“We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.” - St. Paul, in Romans 5:35 (CEV)

God blesses those people
who depend only on him.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven!
God blesses those people
who grieve.
They will find comfort!
God blesses those people
who are humble.
The earth will belong
to them!
God blesses those people
who want to obey him more than to eat or drink.
They will be given
what they want!
God blesses those people
who are merciful.
They will be treated
with mercy!
God blesses those people
whose hearts are pure.
They will see him!
God blesses those people
who make peace.
They will be called
his children!
God blesses those people
who are treated badly
for doing right.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven.” – Lord Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount (CEV)

Shadow and The Final Surrender

I've been thinking as I sit here in Latin, learning a language in the dumbest way I could imagine, I feel once again as I did last week and feel utterly tired of this way of life. If you want to teach me a language, teach me about the people, about how they would actually talk, and about their phrases. Teach us what their poets said...

In the movie homeward bound there is a point in the journey where the animals are on their way home to their family. They have crossed the rocky mountains and are crossing these train tracks about 10 minutes away from their house. Right then Shadow the oldest do falls into a pit (I have no idea why there are random pits near traintracks there just are). All the animals around him keep encouraging him and telling him he can make it, and he tries to climb out a few times.

But he can't make it out. He's stuck in the pit. That's when he tells them that he is simply too old and that he can't do it, he lays down to die. That's how I feel. Even if Michael J Fox were shaking me with all of his parkinsons power, I feel like I still would just lay down. There's nothing left. I'm at the stage right now where I've lost the will to everything. I've lost the will to do school, I've lost the will to work and get a new job. I just want to lay down and give up.

In the end it seems that Shadow has made the final surrender. Shadow doesn't know that in 10 minutes he is going to appear on the horizon and everyone will embrace him and he will be with his family. All he knows is that it is Game Over.

All he knows is that he is going to die, alone in a muddy pit grave amonst the wreckage and garbage of an old train yard. That's how I feel.

I know ultimately that Shadow pulls himself together and climbs out of the pit and sees Peter again. I know Psalm 40. But right now, today, I am shadow. I am lying in the pit, I have finally surrendered. May God help me.

Mediocrity

Mediocrity.

1. averageness: a quality that is adequate or acceptable, but not very good His
poetry seldom rises above the level of mediocrity.
2. mediocre person: somebody who lacks any special skill or flair.

Sometimes life feels like it's lived at this level. I've realized that there is an ongoing search for unconditional love. Usually in life if you fail people get over it once you succeed again and get back on your feet. It's easy for someone to forgive you so long as you improve again. But what if you just suck at life. What if all you ever do is fail? Will anyone accept you? I have come to think not.

Even Jesus says in John that 'he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me' Even that is conditional. I think I'm just looking for a love that puts up with mediocrity.