Do you ever feel alone in a crowded room? Despite the fact that this is a terribly cliche question, and an awful line in a "Jack's Mannequin" song, its true. In fact it is the tagline of the modern western world. It is not okay to be lonely. If lonliness were good, procreation would not be advisable; they would've have never been such a person as Eve. Humans exist in interdependance. But this does not mean that we all have to be friends. I used to think that. It does mean that that mores formed within our group of friends, need always to be examined in light of the mores of different groups, and dropped if need be, or preached harder if necessary. We are effected by and do effect people who don't even know us, with whom we have no relations. Our actions are all meaningful and impactful. If you must feel alone, be assured that it is only a feeling. It is not the truth. Random rant. Perhaps useless. Peace all.

Restlessness

  LIfe is a basically restless thing. Its a series of unexamined letdowns and over romanticized hopes, or unexamined consequences, and over romanticized fears, but it is rarely what it seems. We have all experienced good times and bad times, only to come out of the bad times entering the good times amazed that we could have such a gloomy perspective on life, only to come out of the good times entering the bad time amazed that we ever thought life was so good. We may even do this same kind of juggling in our opinions of ourselves. And perhaps the problem with us is that we think of ourselves way to often, perhaps the basic cause of our restlessness. 

 Still, it has yet to be examined whether or not life ought to be restless, if there is anything we can do about it. If we cannot do anything about it, there is no sense worrying about it, there is much sense in contentedness in restlessness. Certainly this is contradictory. Therefore there must be something that we can do, or somebody can do for us to make us content. The question is asked: Can there be restlessness in a person without self-conscience? If a person were unaware of themselves as a distinguishable self, could they be restless? Assuming this kind of person has desires, what kind of desires would they have? And ah, perhaps it is, no, indubitably, it is desires from whence springs restlessness, so that it would not matter whether or not the person has self-conscience, he would still be restless since there is no reason to think that he would not have desires apart from self-conscience. His desires would simply be desires for others, and therefore he might have hope, he might have fear, he might have joy, he might have sorrow, but all of these outside of himself. Does he now truly live? 

  It is the recognition that restlessness is a product of desire that the Stoics resolved to think that desire was overrated, if not needless. But perhaps the idea that desire is dissolvable in a human being is an overestimation. Could not one propose that indeed, the distinctive quality of humanity is found in its ability to desire? 

  It has been long assumed that animals operate on instinct and not on desire, only what appears to be desire to creatures like us who operate on desire. Whence is the distinction between man and beast? Psychological research has demonstrated that at least to some degree human beings operate on instinct. Is the soul just a product of unparalleled intellect? The key to the question is found in the human sense of right and wrong. Even human beings who participate in war find it to be a necessary evil. But some members of the animal kingdom, have zero qualms about killing their own race in the name of survival. Animals care nothing about marital faithfulness, which partly explains why they are no such things as ceremonies in the animal kingdom, not to mention illiteracy. Thievery is an everyday errand for many animals. Why are some things wrong? Could it be that thousands of years of human civilization was built on an unscientific, ignorant, artificial morality? If this sounds preposterous, it may be because it is. It is safer to believe that a sense of morality is derivative of an innate sense of the an ideal than to believe that the ideal is the problem. What arbitrary code do wrong acts or thoughts break?  The code is not arbitrary. It is instilled. 

  Persons made in the image of God have desires for the world, and as such can be disappointed when they are not fulfilled, and joyous when they are, fearful that they will not, hopeful that they will. But persons confused about what right and wrong is are restless. Persons who have taken a bite from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, have chosen to doubt the innate sense, and have created in their own image the concept of an ideal. That is not to say that the ideal is not ideal. It is to say, that without the knowledge of good and evil, no comparison to bad can be made, and therefore the concept "ideal" would not a part of the human vocabulary. The great ethical dilemma is that ethics has to exist. We are restless, not  simply because we have desires, but because our desires are confused, because we have lost any ground aside from human reason to be able to determine what is right and what is wrong. In a world of confused desires and gratuitous trust in our ability to reason there will exist a scary ability to rationalize our wrongs. Faith is the only acceptable return ticket to contentedness. 

Nothing to say

This has been my last month: Car broke down, computer crashed, have to find rides everywhere... yet, learning about how much my girlfriend really loves me. Finding time to study my Bible, not polluting the atmosphere, and feeling like life is really being lived, except when Rachel (my girlfriend) has to drive me to work. Not the typical life of a pastor. But I don't mind it. My "cross" if you can even call it that, is not near as heavy as Jesus', and yet sometimes it feels like I can't even carry this one, let alone the fact that  its doubtable that I have even picked up "my cross" yet.  All this to say that I haven't written in a while. As you can see, and now you know why. I suggest that everyone reading this, whether you be a christian or not read the 2nd Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians.  I did, and am better for it. (I sound like an infomercial). Anyway that's all I got to say because there's a song written by a guy whose name is Jon and he says everything I might be trying to say in this blog better than I can or ever will. I'd like to "recite" these song lyrics to you. Here goes:

  

  Feeling all the bad times, the guilt and all the shame

  I have learned to accept my existing hurts and pains

  All the grief I have learned to set aside

  Because I am, I am, I am, I am...

  Feeling a little under rooted

  Feeling undermined

  Can this grace of God cover me this time?

  And when I feel then pain I know, oh, I feel strange

  And when I hear the rooster crow, I am ashamed

  Jesus take this cross. Set this cross upon my back.

  I have learned to submit, then I wine about my lack

  Sometimes I drop my cross; deserve a little rest

  That's when I run to you and I'll nail your feet and your wrists

  Feeling a little under rooted 

  Feeling undermined

  Can this grace of God cover me this time?

  And when I feel the pain I know, oh, I feel strange

  And when I hear the rooster crow, I am ashamed

  And do you really love my soul even after I hated you?

  And do you really know my name?

  Can I really come to you?

  Are you really more faithful than the changing of the seasons and the morning sun?

  And do you really know my name?

  Can I really come to you?

  I can. I can. I can.  I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. 

  I don't care if the rooster crows.