Best Laid Plans...

Warning you in advance: this one's gonna be a two parter. The first part will make some points, wonder about some things, and possibly meander a little bit. The second part will be a bit more cohesive, and will be more of an application. As always: I remind you that this is simply my opinion. It's just the way I think. I could very well be speaking out of my ass. It's hard to say for sure, 'cuz the words are being translated through my fingers to the keyboard, and while I think I'm thinking them, it's entirely possible that it's just my ass that is thinking them... =)

Now, I've been meaning to write the ka-blog for awhile... Hm... "ka-blog..." Sounds klingon... Anywho! It's kind of the blog I've been itching to write the most because it's very central to my way of thinking and how I view life. Now, some of you might have a better idea than others what I'm talking about when I start talking about ka, and some of you might not know what I'm talking about even once I finish talking about it, but... my idea of "ka" is basically a concoction of some observations I've made, some borrowed ideas from a famous writer of horror and fantasy fiction, the things I believe about God, and some creative deductions that have come as a result of all that. I tell you all this not because this blog is about ka (at least not directly anyway), but because the second part of this two-part blog is the ka-blog. The first part is essentially set-up...

And while I was getting around to writing these blogs soon anyway, what compelled me to go ahead and make them the focus of my very next blog has largely to do with my brother. He wrote a blog a couple weeks ago that I didn't see before it was deleted, but can guess at what it was about thanks to my incredible powers of deduction... Anyway, THAT blog in turn led to him writing another one about God's so-called plans (to feel well-informed, you might want to take a moment to go read Nate's blog... Go ahead; I'll wait...), and that blog got me thinking about a number of things, including the ka-blog, which is essentially all about how I think God enacts His plan in our lives. And since I couldn't just comment to his blog like a normal person, and even though he and Clay seemed to have worked out what he thinks, what he meant, and why he thinks/meant it in his comments, I still want to go on about what I think.

I'll start with the part that Nathan's blog got me to thinking about that is aside from (though applicable to) what I already thought about ka and/or God's Plan. This is the part of the blog where I'm just going to muse about something without necessarily having a point to my musings...

I never really thought about the idea of God changing His mind before... I don't know why. I think maybe it's just because I'm a member of a church which believes that God perfected His Word about two thousand years ago, and has had no need to change it since then, meaning that He hasn't changed his mind about anything in quite a little while. But according to the Bible, there was a point in history when God seemed arguably a little wishy-washy about His Creation. He made man, decided there should be more, and added woman. Man and woman kind of sucked at the obeying, and God kicked them out of Eden. There are a number of times when He came to regret having made stupid people, and decided to wipe them out, one of those times actually wiping out everyone save Noah and his family...

For some reason, despite wording that specifically said that God changed His mind about something, I never really stopped to think about God actually doing such a thing. The way I saw it, God is omniscient, and is so from a place of perspective where He could (at least if He wanted to, I suppose) sit back and view the entire course of humanity from beginning to end, being that He exists on a plane beyond time and space, which I think we can determine to be true because Heaven is supposed to be eternal, and while I suppose that could be defined more simply as ever-lasting, which might imply a beginning with no end, I've always looked at it as eternal as in: beyond the existence of time as a factor. I've always viewed time itself as another part of God's creation, and I tend to think that this idea is supported by the Bible, since the passing of time, day and night, took a whole Day for Him to Create...

It's possible that I'm losing perspective, and making no sense... Fortunately for me, like I said, this part of the blog is really just about musing, and I don't have to have a point. And I could be wrong. About any part of it, or all of it. I don't know. But these are the things I think about...

Anyway, at the idea of God changing His mind, I'm inclined to take one of two different opinions on that, and at this point, I honestly don't know which one I buy into... Either 1) God really did always know what He was doing, knew already how man would screw things up, but allows things to happen as they do because they must, and the description of God changing his mind has more to do with our ability to understand that then it has to do with God making an actual change in Himself (this arguably touches on my Balloon Theory, which we'll eventually get to...), or 2) Maybe God COULD view the world from an eternal standpoint, but chose in the beginning to get right down into the dirt of it, from which perspective, He may have had a change of heart from time to time, but has since taken a step back and now views the world from an eternal perspective...

I think the second one probably fits better with how the church of Christ perceives it, although to me, the second option opens up more questions, in that it means that God COULD change His mind about something; there's precedent to prove it. I think others would probably disagree with me on this, but to me, if God has changed his mind about us before, He could again, which just opens up all sorts of questions in me about the "perfect" nature of the Bible... which also gets into my Balloon Theory... that's coming; I promise... But I've always been more of a mind for the first idea, that the language of the Bible has more to do with how we've changed than that God has... that its worded for our limited understanding, perhaps...

I don't know... I don't know what to think about that. It's pretty complicated stuff. It takes me to the furthest reaches of my reasoning ability, and not to boast (especially if I'm self-deluded here in my abilities), but I kinda think I have some pretty good reasoning skills in the existential and theological arenas as it is.

Anyway, that's some of the more creative thoughts that were inspired by my brother's blog. In my next blog, entitled "... Of God and Men," I'll get into the specifics of how I actually think God works in our lives, and how that applies to his Plan. One other thing before I go, though...

I also don't believe that there is one specific person out there who is the perfect romantic match for another one single person. Interestingly, I do believe in "soul mates," in that some people seem to interlock so perfectly (in mind and spirit) it's like puzzle pieces fitting together, BUT I don't believe that these people often make the best romantic pairs (though sometimes maybe). I think that there are any number of people out there who a person can MAKE their romantic soul-mate, though, and personally, I think that this is a much more romantic idea than those two Ones magically finding each other and falling in love anyway. Sure, the fairytale romance is a nice idea; it's sweet and easy, and I get wanting it. But oh so much more romantic (at least in my opinion) is the idea that a person chooses to love you. I'd take someone who chose to love me every morning upon waking over a so-called "happily ever after" any day.

BUT... (there's always a but...) I also believe that God gives us opportunities. I believe that there are people in my life that are there because God wanted them in my life. I also believe there are people who are not in my life that are not there because I missed the opportunity when God presented it or because I let them slip away. I believe that. I believe it with all my heart... But that's all part of the ka-theory, actually, SO until next time...

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts!

With Halloween just a couple days away, I decided now would be a superb time for my "ghost" blog! So that's what this is...

Growing up, I was fascinated with the supernatural. My friend, Keith, and I developed something of an obcession for awhile, and we started checking out books from the library about all sorts of "supernatural" phenomena, like ghosts, monsters, and aliens. At some point, we even came to believe that we had a ghost on our hands, when someone drew the word "ghost" in the dirt and left it to be found and we let our imaginations run wild (supported a bit by my brother pranking us a bit, which resulted in the ghost following us home from school...).

As I got older, I grew into something of a cross between Mulder and Scully. I was skeptical, but I also "wanted to believe." And that has resulted in both a continued interest in all sorts of fantastic and supernatural stories, as well as me developing more reasoned theories on what may exist in the world, how and why. When it comes to ghosts, I both believe and don't believe in the existence of such things.

As with all things in my life, I'm deeply impacted by a religious upbringing. My religious beliefs have led me to believe in a Spirit, independent of (though tied to) our physical body, but it has also made me skeptical of the idea of spirits separated from their bodies through death lingering in this realm. I just don't think that happens. When a person dies, I believe their Spirit goes somewhere, and white light or not, I don't really believe that a Spirit can turn away from that destination and hang out here instead.

So I said that I both believe and don't believe, but what I just said seems to say that I firmly don't believe, right? Well... not exactly. It just says that I don't think the ghost phenomena is caused by a Spirit that's stuck here. (And I should say: I do believe that SOME of the ghost phenomena may be legit; though I'm also sure there's plenty that's people letting their imaginations run wild, not unlike ours did as kids...) So what do I think ghosts are really all about?

Well, if you've been reading my blog or if you've read any of my book, Legends of Az, you may be hip to the fact that I'm a strong believer in the possibility of so-called mental powers... I think that part of the function of the brain is to be a conduit between our physical bodies and our true essences: our Spirits. I believe the Spirit is an incredibly powerful thing, and that our brains in that function have a lot of untapped potential for what they could theoretically do. I actually believe there's a whole Spiritual world out there, that our Spirit interacts with, and leaves little imprints on. You might think of this in the general realm of "auras," or perhaps the astral plane.

Anyway, the imprint of that "aura," if you will, is what I think ghosts potentially are. Ghosts are often said to be produced by paritcularly violent deaths, or are associated with places or things that the person had a strong attachment to in some way. I think this jives perfectly with the idea of our Spirits. Say that a particularly mad individual (I mean that as the original definition of mad, by the way) were to commit a particularly ghastly murder, woulnd't you think that that may leave a sort of imprint on the place in which it happened? I think that ghosts aren't really the person sticking around, but an echo of them. So in a way, it could be a little bit of that person, or that emotion, or that act.

For a lot of people, this idea is not very easy to accept. Many Christians find it easy enough to think of us as having Spirits, but they don't seem able to think of the full extent of what that might mean, or the effects it may have on the world around us. Granted, I could be absolutely wrong, but I think that there are things in this world that are not easily explained. We can ignore those things, or we can believe in the wilder theories, but I choose to believe in what I consider to be the most likely explanation. I think that there is some truth to every fiction, and that it may be found by trying to find an explanation in what you know to be true.

So... that's all pretty easy and simple. You don't have to agree with me. I'm just telling you that's what I think. Of course, with this belief, ghosts don't necessarily lose any of their scary points, since they might be capable of as much as imprints as they would be as Spirits... particularly since some imprints may be more strongly imprinted than others... But then again, an imprint is essentially little more than an idea... I don't know where I'm going with this...

Okay, so... maybe next time you think to calm yourself down at the thought of ghosts, maybe it won't be so easy to just push the thought away because you don't believe that Spirits linger... because maybe they don't. But that doesn't mean that ghosts don't exist...!!!

Next time... I'm not sure yet what my next subject will be, but with elections next week, don't be surprised if something politically-slanted crops up... Then again, I kinda hate politics, so don't be surprised if I go for something sillier either.

All You Need is Love

If there is a single-word, easy answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" that answer would surely be: Love. Love is what it's all about. It's the thing that makes it all worth it. And it's the thing without which makes it all seem so very horribly desolate. It's a huge thing. It's an immense force. There is nothing greater in all the world, in all time, in or out of Creation. So what exactly is this greatest of all things called Love? How do we define it?

Per usual with this series of blogs, I'm going to start with the Christian perspective and then broaden out from there. Despite a more negative image that many so-called Christians bring to religion whether by their false teachings or their imprudent methods, Christianity is really all about Love. Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and the second is to love one another. If you ask me, all of Jesus' teaching ultimately comes down to one basic goal, and that is to love. But again, what is Love anyway?

Most people would probably refer first to 1 Corinthians 13, often called the "Love Chapter." Quoting the NKJV, starting in verse 4, it reads, "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails..."

Now, I think that this is an excellent description of love, and tells us certain things about love, which I'm going to get into more in a moment. But I do think of it as more of a description, than a definintion. No, for me, the real defintion of love is in an even more famous scripture than this: John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." To me, the definition of Love comes is simple: Sacrifice.

Love is the giving of yourself to another, in heart, mind, soul, and strength. Loving someone is not just something you feel. You do feel Love, sure, but the emotion is the effect, it's not the thing itself. Love is something you do. No matter what kind of love we're talking about, that's still the gist of what love is.

And there are different types of love. There were several different words for love in the greek, each referring to a different type of love. Eros is a romantic and/or physical type of love. Philos (I might get some spelling wrong here, by the way; I haven't double-checked anything here; I'm just working off of memory) is brotherly love, like the love between friends. If I recall correctly, I believe there's also one that's something like storge, which is a family-type bond, I believe. And of course, the greatest of the loves is agape. This is the one that Jesus was talking about. It's a selfless type of love, but I believe that any other type of love is simply a subsect of agape, and as such, they all can and should bind to the same things as agape (even the one that we most often allow to be ruled by passion, more than anything else: eros).

So... getting back to our definition... The key to understanding love is to understand the direction it flows. It flows out. Loving someone or something is you giving something of yourself to that person or thing. There is where the application to faith and hope come in. You can't love without the other two because you simply don't give yourself over to someone or something that you don't have faith in. The existence of love precludes the existence of faith, so if you have the latter, I daresay you have the former as well whether you realized it before or not. At least to some degree. Hope is also important here because you give out your love with the hope that doing so isn't going to run you dry... which brings us to an interesting point...

If Love is only ever giving out, never keeping it for yourself, then could you potentially run out? I think yes. Returning for a moment to the Bible, another important reference to Love is in 1 John, where John writes that God is Love. Now, I think there's an idea behind accepting God into your heart and following Him that should ideally provide us with an infinite well of Love, but at the same time, we're human, we have an endless parade of faults, and I think that even once we have accepted God to the point of having Him dwell in us, we still often live enough in our own heads, refusing to rely on Him that we have a way of cutting ourselves off from that bottomless well of Love. So there's something that I like to think of as a Plan B in Christianity, which is in our community. Also part of the idea of Christianity is our Love for one another. If we're doing our part, giving our love to one another as we should, then not only should we not run out, we should probably be overflowing, because the proper course of a loving relationship should be going both ways: Yes, we give our Love out, but if things are working like they should, we're also getting others' love back, thus refilling us, so to speak.

Which holds true for non-Christian relationships too. Any type of relationship that is based on Love, in fact. If you're giving Love out, then the other person loving you means they're returning it, thus solving the problem of running dry. If you find yourself devoid of love, then there's an excellent chance its not your fault. You could have given it all out, having the faith an hope in another person to return it, only to find your faith unfounded. Of course, then again, I think its worth taking the time to ask yourself if you were loving in the first place. I mean, Love is a giving of yourself, so if you're not doing that...

Now, don't get me wrong. None of this is easy. Or at least it's not easy maintaining it. Love is still a powerful force, full of strong emotion, and as such, it's easy to get swept up in it. There's enough of a current, that the initial force alone could be enough to carry you for a long time without ever really having to put in any additional effort. This is where I think a lot of relationships stumble and falter. They get caught up in the current (I like to think of Love as a river), happily drowning themselves in it, but never taking the opportunity to truly utilize it. As a result, sooner or later, the flow is going to slow down and many find themselves washed up on the shore, not quite sure how to get back in, and generally lacking the faith to find their way to stronger waters once again.

But true love does require effort. Of course, there are other problems. Most notably, successfully piloting the river of Love with another (whether its in a romantic relationship or otherwise), requires the participation of both parties. A person who repeatedly gives their love to someone incapable or refusing to return it will find themselves repeatedly washing back up on dry land. So both people have to be in it. So long as they are, and are willing to work, giving faith, hope, and love to the other, I believe they have the potential of surviving everything. It only takes one person to leave a relationship; it takes two to make it work.

Two more things before I'm done... I've neglected to say anything here about Hate. I am going to talk about that. Hate will get its own blog somewhere down the line. It'll be called The Opposite Blog. I don't know when, but it's coming. Hate isn't nearly as happy a topic, of course, but I find it very fascinating. Opposites in general are fascinating to me...

The other thing is that I want to mention one other major description of Love that could sort of be inferred by Paul's "Love Chapter," but isn't specifically mentioned... Love is irrational. Let me explain... (For the sake of protecting the innocent, I shall now play the pronoun game.)

Awhile back, a dear friend of mine told me something that they had been thinking about. They were ashamed of themselves for thinking what they had been thinking, and knowing me to be a Christian, with all my uptight morals, they were afraid of what I would think of them. Immediately upon being told, I couldn't imagine what they were afraid of. I love this person, and there's nothing they could tell me that would change that. From that, I could see the irrationality of love from both sides.

Their love was irrational because it made them afraid of losing something that they had no chance of losing BECAUSE of what that thing was in the first place: love. My love was irrational because with the standards I hold myself to, cold logic might have dictated a less loving response. But love is love, and it was unaffected by anything either of us could have told the other.

I think the inference of Paul's "Love Chapter" to the irrationality of love is that true love will bear anything... that it isn't reliant upon circumstances to dictate how it behaves. It doesn't seek out fights (though if a fight ever does break out in a moment of love forgotten, love would seek to repair it)... Maybe that's not quite so irrational, but it might seem so from a certain perspective. But the other side is the more irrational side. The side that doesn't see that love will sustain any hardship. I understand it. I've been in that frame of mind myself, and will be again. I've been afraid of losing relationships for something that I might have said or did or something even less than that, but if somone truly loves, that fear is irrational. We should never have to fear losing love, because if love truly exists, then what wouldn't that person forgive?

And so, that's why Love is the greatest of all things. But also why Faith and Hope are steps on the way to Love. I don't believe Love exists without them. Until next time, know this: whatever may be going on in your life, whatever hardships you may face, I have faith in you and what God has planned for you; I hope for only the best; and I love you dearly. Thank you each for the Love that you have first given me, because I would have none of these things if you hadn't shown me first that it was possible.

Next Blog: I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts!

Hope Springs Eternal

Optimism, Pessimism, or somewhere in between is often considered to be just a way a person is. You may be a half-glass-full kinda person, or you may be a half-glass-empty kinda person. You may even be a "What glass?!" type person. Hope and optimism aren't PRECISELY the same thing, but they generally keep each other company. You're not gonna find a whole lot of hopeful pessimists. So what is hope exactly and why is it important?

Well, of course, in Christianity, when we're referring to hope, I think we're generally referring to the Hope of Heaven. That's a big part of what makes it an extention of Faith. We have Faith that God exists and that he cares for us, and as a result, we have the hope of eternal life in Heaven. But like Faith, I think this is generally true of hope's extention from faith in anything. Hope essentially springs from faith. If we have faith in something or someone, then the hope of a good result from that thing or that person is the effect of that faith.

That much is all pretty easy and simple. Where hope gets hard is actually having it. In many ways, hope is even more of a leap than faith is. It's groundless because it's rooted in something that's often barely grounded itself. Which is what makes it hard to believe in. But that's why I see it as a progression.

The reason it's important is this... I mentioned happiness in the previous blog about Faith. Everyone's looking for happiness. But everybody's looking for all the wrong places. Have you ever said to yourself something like, "If I can just get done with high school, I'll be happier!" or "Once I'm done with college and have a good job, I'll be happy!" or "If I can just find that special someone..." or "Once we get married..." or conversely, "Once we get divorced..." Maybe your aims are a litle lower: "Once I have that big-screen!" Whatever. Everyone seems to think that happiness is a result of circumstances, your state of being. But it's not. Happiness is a state of mind. You can only ever be as happy as you allow yourself to be.

If you focus on the horrors of the world, the sadness, the suffering, then that's going to be the center of your experience. If, however, you focus on the hope, the faith, the love... have a positive outlook, it's enough to make all the difference in the world. Hope is essentially a positive outlook, it's believing that things will work out, believing that people will come through for you (even when it doesn't and they don't; hoping still makes a difference). It's the dissolution of worry and regret, which only cause stress and pain, both physically and mentally. And that's why it's important.

And because Hope, because Hope is all about the positive side of life, Love is going to spring from Hope, in the same way that Hope springs from Faith. And that will take us into the next blog...

Gotta Have Faith

Not too far from this time last year, I found myself engaged in a discussion about Job, in which a friend who will remain nameless, thought to call God a "bastard" for what He did to Job (so to say; I believe it would be more accurate to say, "what He allowed to happen to Job"), and even more so why He did it. He didn't mean it quite as blasphemous as it sounds; he's just an opinionated guy who says what he thinks, without bothering to take the time to filter his thoughts as most people would. But I understood where he was coming from, and while I didn't entirely agree with his assessment, I did agree with a few select points of his... if only I could remember what those points were now...

Regardless... this was not the beginning of my analyzation of Faith, but it was a refocusing of it. Around the same time, a very good and interesting study on the book of Job was being conducted in the Wednesday night Bible class I attended. And in the coming months, I would see the faith of a number of my friends (each with varying levels of faith to begin with) tested in their lives, even as my own was continuously tested as well.

The discussion of Job doesn't contain all I want to say about Faith, but I do think it's a good starting point. We'll start with a very basic summary of the book. When the book begins, Satan comes to God and challenges Job's faith, and God basically gives him permission to frak up Job's life over and over again in order to prove that Job's faith is, in fact, all that and a bag of chips. Then when Job's life is more than sufficiently crappy, his friends come over and want to know what sin he committed for God to punish him so much. And then when Job has finally had just about enough, and he himself starts questioning why God has done all this to him when he has done nothing to provoke it, God basically comes along and takes offense at the questioning of his ways. I may have left some stuff out there, but if I recall correctly, that's pretty much the short of it. (But Job's steadfast faith is ultimately rewarded.)

Now, first thing's first, I have to say that I'm not entirely convinced that this is a true story. In my humble opinion, Job reads very much like a fable. It's a story made for a specific purpose, to teach the reader a moral. In fact, I believe that this is the truth of the story whether Job was a real person or not, and whether things went down exactly as the book says or not. I think even the placement of the book in the Bible suggests that I'm not the only one who thinks it may be less history and more story. The chronological placing of the story would put it somewhere in the book of Genesis, but the book appears in the Bible between the history books and the poetic books of the old testement, kind of as if it could be one or the other, or in fact something in between. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it is just a story. I don't think that that possibility takes away any of its effectiveness, though, as a teaching tool. Jesus taught in parables all the time, but The Prodigal Son or The Good Samaritan are no less meaningful for being stories.

That having been said, either way, I think there are a number of things we can learn about God and what Faith is through the book of Job. First off, I want to address the way horrible things happen to Job. I don't believe that God makes bad things happen to us. Allow them? Sure. But it's not like he's up there pulling strings to a puppet world. One thing that's important to remember about the real world is that here we are, six billion people, all with free will that affect each other's lives and shape the world around us. A lot of the bad things that happen in the world, or the mistakes that are made are directly or indirectly caused by humans. The only way God could prevent a lot of shit from going down would be to remove our free will, which I suspect would defeat the purpose. I think that God works in this world through indirect means, but that gets into the whole ka theory, and that's a blog for another day...

Something that I know challenges some peoples' faith or ability to have faith is the question of how God could stand to let us suffer as much as we do? If He truly is a God of Love, then how can he stand to let us suffer? That's a hard question to answer, and a much harder one for someone who honestly asks it to accept an answer for. But I believe there are answers. One has to do with exactly what Love is, and we're going to talk about that in a couple more blogs, so I'll leave that one be. Another is that... At no point are we ever promised happiness. I know a lot of people like to believe that God wants them to be happy, and actually, I kinda think He does, but I don't think that happiness is quite what they think it is, nor is God's intention exactly to make us happy. If anything, what God does promise us is, in fact, suffering. And I know that sounds messed up, but it's true. What's more, His followers may well be the ones who can expect the most suffering.

But what does suffering really have to do with happiness anyway? Happiness is a state of mind. It is often directly influenced by our circumstances, but it doesn't have to be. We're in control of our own happiness. It's not something that just happens to us. It's something we have to take. True happiness will not be found as a result of any physical state of being. You can have everything you ever wanted and still not really be happy. For that matter, you can have nothing at all and be the happiest person on the planet. I don't think happiness is the issue at all. The only thing that I think happiness has to do with Faith is that a person who has Faith is more likely to have Hope is more likely to have Love and is going to end up a happier person for all of this...

Furthermore, just because God loves us doesn't mean he's going to sweep down and intervene in our lives all the time. A good example is how I feel about the characters in my own writing. I realize that this isn't an adequate comparison for many people who wouldn't view fictional characters in the same way as real people, but I think that's just because the lack the writer's perspective. These characters are very real to me. They make their own choices, they think and act for themselves. And I know and love them deeply. I don't make bad things happen to them. The story just sort of writes itself, and the characters really do make their own decisions based on who they are (which they tell me who they are; not the other way around). Just because I love them doesn't mean I halt the story, sweep them up into the loving arms of my mind, hug them and tell them everythings gonna be all right. I can see a plan for them, and I allow it to happen because for all that I love them, I intend to see that plan through. In the case of real life, maybe you think that's harsh of God, that it seems uncaring, but I believe He can see the whole picture, and it's going somewhere.

And I suppose ultimately, that's what Faith really is. It's just the belief that it's all going somewhere, whether that direction and destination matches your own plans or now. It's trust. And it's hard. But I believe it's worth it.

Getting back to Job, though... I believe I've accidentally already addressed the second point of the story: that God doesn't allow these things to happen to us as punishment. Maybe Satan is behind it. Maybe it's a direct result of human free will. Maybe some things happen randomly. And maybe even some things happen with God's gentle and indirect influence touching it somewhere along the way. But whatever the reason, bad things don't happen as punishment. We don't suffer as some type of retribution for past crimes. It just happens.

Allowing myself to get slightly off-track on another tangent issue, I will say that I believe in a form of karma. Although I don't believe that it's necessarily some force that rolls around distributing just the right amount of good or bad energy as a direct result of your own actions. I think that sometimes a person's actions can directly lead to a good or bad result, and that's a form of karma. I do think that there are forces at work in the world, but I think that randomness is a bigger and more active force than purpose, so that also speaks against the idea that bad things in your life are a punishment for bad behavior (random and purpose are going to be discussed more in my upcoming "Ka" blog).

Finally, the hardest thing for me to accept from the book of Job is the moral. I'd love to be corrected on this if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the moral of Job (apart from the points that I've already made) is that God is God, He's all powerful, He knows what he's doing, and we have no place to question him. Although possibly scratch that last part, 'cuz I think that we absolutely have a place to ask questions, to struggle with things, to ponder... I just think we should be careful about how we do it. It's one thing to question, to struggle, to ponder. It's another to challenge Him, as if we can possibly conceive of His reasons, as if we're privy to the big picture just because it's our life. But ultimately, what I really think that part is saying is that we're standing here in the thick of it all. We have a first-person's perspective. We can see the trees, not the whole forest. God is the one with the view of everything and how it all works together. So what I think the real primary moral of Job is this: Trust God.

And so we return to the idea that that's what Faith is. Or rather, that's what Faith in God is. Taking ourselves out of the book of Job and out of the Bible, and just look at faith as an ideal, faith is essentially blind trust. Sort of anyway. People generally define faith as belief in something without being able to prove it. And that's part of it, but I like the word trust more. Belief is just the beginning. The crux of faith is in the trust.

And when you get down to it with faith just as a general ideal, not necessarily attached only to God or the Bible or religious beliefs, who doesn't have faith in something? I think there are very few people in the world who could honestly claim a complete lack of faith. Most anyone puts their faith in something or someone, because with anything in the world, there always comes a point when you can't really be sure of it anymore, and you just have to have faith. Maybe you put your faith in the scientists who tell you how the world has evolved. Maybe you know a little more about it and you put your faith in the facts that you've studied holding true (that is faith; I mean, it's not as if there's ever been anything that's been considered scientific fact only later to be proven wrong, right?) Maybe you put your faith in your family. Or your friends. You're mad if you put your faith in the weatherman, but some do.

Some put more faith into things than others, but surely everyone has some amount of faith that they manage to put into something...

And that actually gave me pause about faith for a long time. 'Cuz everyone puts their faith in something. So what if you put your faith in the wrong thing? How do you know that your belief, but moreso your trust, is well placed? And here's the part of faith I still don't really have an answer for. A lot of people are still stuck on the earlier issues, faith in a God that allows them to suffer, but I'm stuck on this issue: How do you know?

Because a lot of people actually justify their beliefs WITH their faith. This is a significant problem for me. It's like saying, "I believe in God becasue... I believe in God." Faith can't be its own justification. That doesn't make sense. If Faith can justify itself, then who can be wrong about anything? Which in turn, if no one is wrong because their faith justifies them, then no one can be right either, because most of those people are going to include in their justification that in order for them to be right, then others are wrong... We wind up with our own little faith paradox...

So I still haven't really worked that one out. I think that you have to base your belief in more. Get yourself started with something decently evidential, and THEN step into faith. For example, I believe in God because I look around me, I see the intricacies of people, the world around us, the way things interact, and I just can't believe that it's all just incidental. It only makes sense to me that it's by design. So my Faith begins there.

I think that's what everyone needs to ask themselves. What do they believe in and why do they believe it? Then take faith from there. Start out small. Faith needs to grow. It's not something you just start out with. You grow it, you care for it, and you'll earn more. But I believe it's imporant. Not just about having faith in God either. I believe in God and I believe He means well for us (ultimately, even if not always immediately), but I believe that faith is an important thing to cultivate in your life either way. That's actually one of the reasons I believe in Christianity. Although people have a tendency of screwing it up, the ideals its founded on, the point that I believe Jesus was trying to teach, even though we often miss it, is good for our lives, whether we believe in God or not.

So I encourage everyone to find their faith in SOMETHING, even if it's not God. Because it's an important start, and it will lead to even more important things, as I believe the progression of faith, hope and love will show in the coming blogs...

Faith, Hope and Love (An Introduction)

"And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love." -- I Corinthians 13: 13 (NKJV)

A very good friend of mine who believes in God (more or less) but who has a decidedly strained relationship with Him, and much more so with the widely-diverged groups who pledge allegiance to Him, recently attended a wedding at which the above Bible verse was quoted, and it got her to thinking, which in turn got her to talking to me about it, which in turn got me wanting to clarify my personal views on all three: faith, hope, and love.

At least two of those things I was planning on blogging about anyway. Faith is something which I have found myself intently analyzing in particular over the past year or so (not that it was never in my mind before that; just that I found myself at odds with the ideal over the past year, and pondered my views on what faith was, and what it entailed). And Love is something that I've spent my entire life analyzing. I've long considered Love to be what life is all about, and the very center of what Christianity is supposed to stand for. Everything comes down to love. So both of those two topics are something I really want to talk about. The one that I didn't give as much thought to, the one that I think a lot of people neglect to give much thought to is Hope. And that's a shame because Hope is a pretty important component too.

All three are important, I believe, and each one builds upon the other. There's a progression between the three, from one to the other, though each is different, they also involve one another, and I believe that each is an essential part of - not JUST - a Christian life, but even for anyone who wants to feel (relatively) happy and/or fulfilled in life. So in the coming weeks, I intend to analyze each of these things individually, and then also as a whole, in my blogs. I'll begin with Faith, which is likely to be quite a doozy. So stay tuned...

In Dreams

My next post was supposed to be about something called "The Balloon Theory." But it was also supposed to be posted ages ago. I've been putting it off for a variety of reasons. Partially, it was because I thought there may be some other issues I should discuss first. Also, it was that I started to question my theory all together. And lastly, it was because the last few months have been crazy-busy. So finally, I made a decision: Screw the Balloon Theory. I'll tell you about that sometime later down the line. Right now, we're gonna talk about something a little more fun, and a little more out there (and a little less likely to make God displeased with me). I'm gonna talk about dreams...

Now, as always, I have done no research for this discussion. I am not speaking as an expert. I have no special knowledge whatsoever. I'm essentially talking out of my ass... But this is what I think nonetheless...

Regardless of what your stance is on the so-called meaning of dreams, people tend to be fascinated with them either way. Many people believe that dreams have specific meanings, either because your unconscious mind is trying to tell you something (more likely), or possibly because another force altogether is trying to tell you something (less likely). Or others believe that dreams are nothing more than a random concoction of images, thoughts, and memories that we experience while the mind sorts things out (most likely).

Now, from the previous paragraph, you undoubtedly have an idea of which of those ideas I subscribe to, but no matter which one you think I believe in, you're most likely wrong... unless of course you think that I believe in all three. Then you would be exactly right. I do believe in all three, and I'll tell you why.

We'll start with the easiest, and most likely. If you remember your dreams very often, then you can probably recognize when your dreams are throwing up images and thoughts that you've been contemplating, things that you've done recently (especially in the day directly previous), and people you've seen. Of course, sometimes something that seems completely out of left field gets thrown in too, but hey, the mind is a very weird and complicated place. It doesn't exactly require an explanation for why one would think that this is completely random and meaningless. I think it often is. Especially the more lucid we are. Lucid dreams are great, but I doubt they often contain much in the way of real meaning. Although, on the occasions when they might, I would venture to say that it would be...

... Your unconscious mind trying to tell you something. I don't really consider this theory to be in conflict with the previous theory actually. If you've been thinking about certain things, and your mind is throwing images and thoughts that you've been thinking about at you in your dreams, then it stands to reason that you might come upon some self-inspired wisdom (or stupidity; it could go either way really) in your dreams. You might discover how you really feel about something, or your mind might just tell you what you really want to hear. I think that this does happen. I think that it's relatively common, but it happens together with the previous theory and as I said, could lead to stupidity just as easily as it could wisdom. I say take any revelations that come from this kind of dream with a grain of salt.

And by and large, I would say that that pretty much covers it with our dreams. Most dreams that we remember are probably going to fall into one or both of the above categories. But does that mean I think that dreams of a more "prophetic" variety are impossible? Well, no. But I think that there are a lot of other issues that come along with that...

Just for starters, any of us who are Christians at least, should immediately be able to say that we believe that prophetic dreams are possible (even if we don't believe such things are still had today). We should have to look no further than the story of Joseph for biblical confirmation on that kind of dream. The only thing about that is that the modern church of Christ (I'm going to talk about the CoC since its the one that I know; though I know that there are many Christian churches today who believe that this still happens, and if that includes you, or you're not a Christian at all, feel free to skip ahead to a more self-relevant paragraph...) does not believe that such gifts are still bestowed upon people these days. It is the church of Christ's belief that gifts such as prophesy, healing, and speaking in tongues (something else I could go on about, and will one day...) went out when the Word of God became complete and "perfect."

Now that's not something I want to go into more detail with in this blog (though I will in the future), and neither is where I'm taking this (cuz that's a bigger topic too), but I will touch on that and a few things... Now, personally, I believe that the way God works, if something was ever possible for a person to do, then it's still possible for a person to do. Personally, I think that when God gave people gifts back in the day, that was God opening something up inside people that was already there, but that they lacked access to before. I believe that God no longer just opens up those doors for us, but I still believe the potential is locked away somewhere in there, so it's possible to touch upon it, even if only by accident. Again, my views on that and how God works in the world are a matter for another blog, but hopefully that quick overview will suffice for this particular topic.

So I'm going off the idea here that there is potential for "prophetic" dreams inside the mind. Now, that still means nothing if no One is sending us prophetic ideas, which I've already stated I don't believe anyOne is... What I am saying, however, is I believe the mind has the potential of going beyond the physical world, connecting to a higher dimension (again, a whole other bag of snakes... its seriously going to be a challenge to try to explain all my views on things, especially since I dont' know how to do it in order...). Now, theoretically, that higher dimension, as well as being the "location" of the so-called collective unconscious, is beyond the limitations of time as well as space. And if all that is true, then what I'm saying is that there is a time when we are deep in sleep that our mind may connect to a place that could not only theoretically interact with other minds, but could also glimpse the future.

Now, I think that this happens in such a deep state of sleep that we never remember it regardless, BUT our unconscious mind does remember, and as a result, when it's throwing up thoughts and images that it has recently visited or contemplated (do you see where I'm going with this?), it might be conceivable that among those thoughts and images might be something that is out of the future, or out of another mind altogether... theoretically...

I dont' know if all that makes sense to anyone else, but that's what I think in a nutshell... It's also, by the way, where I think deja vu comes from. Maybe anyway. I think that deja vu may sometimes be the mind subconsciously recalling something that it's seen before in the unconsciousness...

The really funny thing is that while this theory is more easily bought by nonreligious people, it actually fits in with Christian ideas the best. I just think we Christians are typically too unimaginative to see it. Anyway... that's the short-version of my theory on dreams. If you have any questions or comments, please - by all means - leave them... Apart from that, I have only to say: That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!