A View From Distant Shores.

I wrote an Email to my friend Azzy, but I felt the need to share part of it with the world. Here it is.

Amber went home for two weeks and I essentially became a monk for that time. I stayed off of the computer for pretty much the entire two weeks and spent most of my free time getting reacquainted with God. I have not prayed nor read my Bible consistently since I was in college. I've felt the need to start again.

It was a good two weeks, but I was surprised to see how much I've changed in terms of relating to God. I'm far more aware of how inadequate and frail I am. As a result I think I'm a bit more humble and hopefully more malleable. I also find that while I may still disagree with some things that God has done and may be doing in my life, I am far more willing to obey. Some days I am confident I will be okay. Other days I'm sure I should be on an express elevator to hell. As I've said, I have struggled with some of my own inner darkness for years. I've come to accept it as a part of me, and largely find positive outlets for it; but it's still darkness. I think that's okay though.

Re-reading the Bible, I can see some of God's darker nature as well. Not evil, just aggressive and ruthless. He knows what He wants, He knows that some people will have to suffer in order for Him to get it. He proceeds anyway. What He does do, that I respect greatly, is take responsibility for it. I see the cross as just that, now. God makes salvation easy just for that reason. (All we have to do is believe in Christ and do our best; there is no mandate for obtaining perfection or enlightenment, just doing our best and not quitting.) He also came down here and suffered both with us and for us. In the case of Christ that is readily evident. In the case of the Holy Spirit, the suffering is less evident; but I believe it is there.

To put this in context I think I need to share how I kind of view the world now. A few years ago I came to the conclusion that God is trying to create a perfect world. In my view, the only way to accomplish this is to fill a world with loving and relatively unselfish people. God tried twice creating worlds with perfect conditions. The first time a full third of the population rebelled and started a civil war that rages to this day. The second time, 100% of the population rebelled, and there was only one rule: "Don't eat from this one tree."

I think that's why God's biggest commandments are to love Him, and to love each other as we love ourselves. If you love Him, you respect Him and His wishes. This includes following His rules, most of which (especially in regards to carnal rules) are just medically and psychologically sound advice anyway. If you love yourself, you respect yourself and take care of yourself. (I think this is where most of us fall short. We don't respect ourselves. We tend to indulge in things that we would protect our children or others from, whether its some minor carnal delight or worse; harmful attitudes. I tended towards self-pity in college and in the intervening years. It took a few years of working with troubled kids and realizing I was maintaining many of the attitudes that these juvenile delinquents were harboring. I was also starting to see where those attitudes would lead. I think that began my road to repentance.) If we love others, we respect them and treat them well.

If you can populate a world with people who are willing to follow guidelines for healthy physical, emotional, and social living, who respect themselves, discipline themselves, and are able to admit to their mistakes, and who respect and care for others; it doesn't matter what the conditions are. That world will eventually become a utopia because of the people in it. The trick is finding those people. I think that is the purpose of this life. We choose whether or not we will be one of those people.

I do need to say that I don't envision utopia as a place that is filled with people who are happy and singing all the time. (I would have to kill them all, especially if they are singing before noon while I am trying to sleep.) I envision it as a world filled with people who really do care about each other, and do their best to look out for each other. We each give a little and get a little. We all sacrifice for the greater good. (This means I keep a lot of what I think and feel to myself, and I do what I know is right or good or kind even if I don't feel like it. In return people do what is right and good and kind for me. It means I try to want for people instead of wanting from people. To me that is huge and difficult. I try to balance it with a philosophy I learned from Chris called intelligent self-interest. I do nice things for others because I will want them to be pre-disposed to do nice things for me. I also obey God because He is bigger than me and everybody else.)

Anyway, I base a lot of this on God outright stating that this world is a process of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the lambs from the goats. He makes lambhood easy; care for others and hang in there. (It's the hanging in there part that is difficult, especially when you've had to struggle for a few years. That's where the poem So this is Faith came from. It's on my myspace. I don't know if you've read it.)

Of course I may be entirely off base with this.