Things I Must Blog About: This is for the Ladies

A friend of mine wrote down three topics which I was told, “I must blog about.”  It’s taken me awhile to get around to it, but here is the first.  All three of the topics are incredibly deep and nuanced theological issues, so I won’t pretend that these blogs even come close to exhausting all that could be said about them.  They won’t be overly academic or as detailed and in depth as many available sources on the topics would be.  They are just some of my thoughts and ideas reflecting my own research biblically and otherwise into the importance of these ideas and how they affect our lives.

The first blog request is about egalitarianism and why it is biblical.  Egalitarianism is the view that women and men are equal partners in marriage as well as in the functioning of the Church.  I won’t spend time laying out the opposing views of egalitarianism, there are plenty of resources available if you’re interested.  Let me just say right off the bat, that I am fully onboard with egalitarianism.  I believe women can and should be pastors, elders, and church leaders of all sorts and I fully intend on an equal partnership in my future marriage.   All right, now that that’s out on the table, let’s talk.

Just within the last few weeks the Church of England voted against ordaining women as bishops within their denomination.  I watched my Twitter feed carefully, hoping it would be a landmark day in women’s rights within the Church.  I was sad when the vote narrowly went against women bishops, but some of the writing that has come out of the debate has been great.  NT Wright, one of my favorite New Testament scholars wrote about why he believes women can and should be ordained.

The crux of Wright’s argument isn’t based on refuting famous passages used to silence and exclude women in the church (1 Corinthians 4:34-35, 1 Timothy 2:11-14).  There are fantastic arguments for how these passages should be interpreted from an egalitarian point of view (see Craig Keener’s Paul, Wives and Women), but Wright’s point comes from somewhere else.  He argues, and I agree, that the beginning of all Christian ministry is declaring the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The primary job of Christian ministers and leaders is to declare that Christ is risen, and to teach people to view every aspect of their lives in light of such.  And who did the risen Jesus first appoint to declare his resurrection?

John 20:11-18, but especially verse 17 tells us that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and told her to tell his disciples he had risen.  Mathew 28:10 records that Jesus gave the same task to Mary Magdalene as well as “the other Mary.”  Mark 16:9 and Luke 24:9-12 have similar accounts.  So, first and foremost in each of the four canonical gospels we have a woman or women being commissioned to declare the good news that Jesus is alive.  I think this is critically important because Jesus himself instructed the women to do so and thought them capable and worthy of the task.  At some point we have to be okay with reading Paul in light of Jesus, and not always the other way around.

Paul himself adds weight to the egalitarian position though.  Just a few examples: in Romans 16:7 Paul greets a female friend named Junia.  He calls Junia an apostle which was the highest office of teaching in the early church.  The letter to the Romans was delivered by a female deacon named Phoebe.  Typically an epistle was read and taught by the one who delivered it.  This means Paul entrusted Phoebe with delivering and teaching some of his richest theological writing to the most important city in the world at that time.  The New Testament also speaks often (Acts 18:2-3, 18-19, 26, Romans 16:3-4, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19) of Paul’s friends Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple.  Many scholars believe that because Priscilla is typically mentioned first she may have been the primary teacher over her husband.  Acts 18:26 records that they instructed Apollos-one of the church’s most articulate teachers-how to better understand the word of God.  Luke has no problem recording that a woman taught a man from the Scriptures; and the argument that she did so under her husband’s authority, like so many others against egalitarianism, is an argument from silence.

This is already kind of long.  There are many writers and scholars who are much smarter than me who have a lot to say on this issue.  This blog is focused primarily on women in ministry, which the early church was full of .until the rise of the office of bishop in the 2^nd century. There is still much that could be said about wives and husbands, as well as a great deal more on women serving in the same ministry positions as men.  So here it is.  I welcome your thoughts, feedback and disagreements.  I’ll just end with Paul’s words from Galatians which I believe are talking about the launch of new creation in Christ.  In him all ethnic, class and gender distinctions are made null and we find equal footing before the throne of God’s grace.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

(Galatians 3:26-29, NIV)

Spoken

Peace is somewhere in the middle.  Somewhere between being ruled by my emotions and completely repressing them.  Peace is knowing that nothing I feel is bad.  Not on its own anyway.  But I am not at peace.  I have lost my voice.  I can’t say the things I want to say without crossing some imaginary line I’ve drawn.  And the things I can say seem boring.  So the conversations play out in my head but never get the privilege of becoming words.  Never to be breathed out into eternity.  Never to echo off mountains walls or drift through fields of flowers.

I don’t have my voice.  It has been taken away from me.  I can only say what I’m supposed to say, but I think that’s what got me in this mess in the first place.  Me and this keyboard could set the sky on fire but I’m not allowed to go to the places where the flames come from.  Maybe the inside is better off than it was, but outside still feels like a veneer.  Some façade that hides the me I am and shows the me I’m supposed to be.  I keep it all to myself and don’t feel anxious about it; but I don’t feel honest about it either.

Forgiveness.  I don’t understand it.  It’s something I have no concept of how to do.  Is it just letting go?  Something tells me it’s more than that.  I wonder if I’ve really changed or just bought into some new lie.  A lie that tells me that feeling good is the same as being whole.  An untruth that whispers about how it’s my responsibility to protect myself.  Or am I trying to protect everyone else?  By not saying the words and writing the rest.

It’s like there are two people at war inside of me.  My head calmly asserting what I know is right while my heart screams about what actually is.  They’re almost never on the same page, except for those brief moments when they are holding hands.  And that’s when I know peace.  Peace is somewhere in the middle.  Between the raging heart that has it out for the world and the head that knows cooler heads can prevail.  Headaches and heartache fuse into one unending siren’s song, calling me to do something, anything.  Luring me to a misty, far-away shore where I can say anything and not be ashamed.  I want to go there, but I don’t know if I believe it exists.  I need it to exist.  I need it to be real.  I need to be at peace.  I hope I’m on my way.

Her Name...

Her name is on my lips and they speak it often.  Some times a whisper, barely audible over the breeze.  And others a roar of unbridled love, rivaling the crashing waves on this jagged shore.  Her eyes blaze like the first rays of dawn, burning into mine.  Cool grey like the sky before a storm, they light up the dark places in my mind.  My blood boils, threatening to burst the paper-thin walls of my heart.  She whispers my name and I melt.  Like a candle burning at both ends; I don’t have a chance.

“Take my hand, you’ll like it,” she says with a furtive grin.  So I do; and I do.  I let her lead me, because I’m still an egalitarian.  I don’t care where we’re going.  As long as I’m with her I’ll go.  You tell me I’m selfish, that I hurt you too much to keep.  I know it’s true, and I’m as sorry today as when I said it the first time.  But she’s calling me now and I have to go.  I can’t stay here anymore.  She pulled me back from the cliffs of my despair, kissed my tear-stained cheeks and made me dance with her till sunset and I’ll go wherever she leads me. 

Beautiful.  That’s the only word for her.  I don’t deserve her and I never will.  I ask her why she loves me and she says, “Don’t be stupid.”  She knows I hate it when she calls me stupid so she does it all the time.  And I love her for it.  Her name, and how much I need her pass my tongue and vibrate through the cool autumn air.  Why do you love me?  “Because you’re you silly boy.  You’re mine and I love you and that’s the end of it.”  I can live with that.  Because I believe her.  She’s taking up all the places that used to be yours and filling them with rainbows, and daisies, and sunsets for days. 

Her skin, soft as rose petals, glows in the last moments of day.  This is electric, raw.  Something I’ve never felt before.  Because it’s not just a feeling.  My whole heart’s in it.  And she knows.  She cradles my head while I fight my demons.  Runs her slender fingers through my messy hair and tells me she’s not going anywhere.  I have my anxiety, and I have her and that’s more than enough for one heart.  You wished me well, and maybe I am.  I’m not sure yet.  But with her I know I have a chance.  She puts her lips close to my ear and tells me who I am.  “You’re you.  And I love that.  I love you.”  God she’s good at this.

In the darkness, with just the sound of the breakers on the precipice, the sweet breeze caressing my face I can smell her.  Like pine trees in the mountains and chocolate chip cookies.  It’s a love spell to be sure.  I call her name but she doesn’t answer.  My heart skips a beat, then two, three; and then leaps into my throat as she slips her hands over my eyes and says, “Guess who?”  We laugh as I turn and hold her in my arms.  Not as strong as they used to be, but that’s alright.  She’s strong enough for both of us and tells me she’s not letting go.  You let go and I’m learning too as well.  Dreams I saw with my waking eyes burn off like fog as she kisses my fear away.  She is amazing, she is beautiful and she is saving me.

Rain begins to fall, but neither of us care.  It’s she and me and a field by the ocean.  She laughs at me when I get angry because she knows I don’t do it well anymore.  There’s no room to be mad at you with her filling up the cracks in my heart, my soul, my everything.  You ask who she is, why she’s so good for me. You want to know her name.  But if I tell you, it loses some of its power.  You taught me that, although I think you were mad when you said it.  But it stuck with me.  I can’t explain it.  Can’t map out exactly what she does to me, but it’s magic.  She sings me to sleep and her songs bring my troubled heart peace as she wipes away my tears.  I love this girl, I always will.  And she loves me back.

Now she’s running through the tall grass, towards the jagged end of the world.  Her long brown hair flowing out behind her, dancing in the starlight and full of flowers.  I try to keep up but she’s light on her feet and races ahead.  My breath comes fast and ragged, but the smile on my face never breaks because I know she won’t run forever.  Just until I’m about dead with exhaustion.  She thinks that’s hilarious.  I do too.  I catch her at the edge of the cliff.  She’s staring out over the horizon; its the same color as her eyes.  Those pools of light that drown my heart in happiness.  The first rays of the sun flash behind us and light up the sea like a giant canvas.  Colors and patterns and beauty that make Michelangelo look like a kindergartner with a coloring book.  We stand next to each other, captured in the moment.  Our fingers intertwine, and in just a hoarse whisper, barely audible over the dancing waves, I say her name.  “Michael?” she asks.  I tell her I love her.  “And I love you.”

Moirai

Stretch out the thread of my life.  See where it begins and where it ends and how it’s thin in the middle.  Be careful where you cut it.  Not too close to my heart and not at all if you can help it.  Between your fingertips is a life, my life, and it hangs in the balance.  I thought I was strong enough to unravel it myself, but I have been tried and found wanting.

I traveled down the valley, enclosed by snow-capped peaks which scrape the heavens.  The long and arduous journey to the sea.  And now I stand on its shore and stare at the distant horizon.  So small.  So fragile.  Plunged into the icy breakers my heart beats quicker, threatening to burst its delicate walls.  Pounded by a thousand waves of truth and despair I watch the sun fade into the distance.  Pain gives way to numbness in the watery grave.  No more feeling, no more needing.  Only the icy embrace of Death’s cold fingers on my flesh.

Words are the passageway to meaning.  Giving form and shape to ideas.  A heart is not a heart.  Heart is a word that describes a thing.  The thing pumps blood through arteries.  Talking about the thing requires more words.  When did mine stop having any meaning?  When did they start returning to me empty?  Words without meaning are useless.  Words without meaning are nothing. The thing in my chest, that pumps my blood, that hangs in the balance on that flimsy string is buffeted and battered by the waves.  But just before it quits I remember.  And I choose……

Life.  With all its chaos and struggle.  Its lows and lowers.  Its agony, excruciation and its beauty.  Laying in the sand, covered in blood, gasping for air.  That sweet, sweet gift that surrounds us yet goes unnoticed.  Until we need it.  Until it is all we have left.  Numbness gives way to pain in the pale light of morning.  Thawing out in the misty arrival of the dawn and feeling my heartbeat slow.  To its final beat or back to normal.  Normal?  Does that exist any more?  The rising sun brings its warmth and I am made new in it.

Bloodshot eyes survey the distant mountains.  Who can ascend their heights?  Who can stand on their peaks where heaven and earth meet?  They are the dwelling places of the gods and their foreboding slopes appear unassailable.  But I have survived my crucible.  The midnight descent to blackness and back.  And I will make my assault, undaunted by the seeming impossibility of the task ahead.  You’re holding that thread, spread between your hands and wrapped around your fingers.  Now let me climb.  Let me walk among the heavens.

I don’t know how it will end.  Will I stand at the summit of Zion, turn east to the rising sun and greet each new day from above the clouds?  Or will I find my final resting place somewhere along the way?  It doesn’t matter.  The end is not the goal.  Who I have become was.  My heart-string is still thin, tattered and worn.  But for now it is uncut, and I will continue.  On.  A slow and steady endeavor.  No one said life was supposed to be done quickly.  Who wants to live in a blur?  Blue eyes pierce into the full blaze of a new day’s light, feet rise and fall.   

I’ve begun my masterpiece.  My Mona Lisa, my 9^th.  The world will see and hear, and will know that I was alive.  And that my heart was on fire.

Gravedigger

The mirror fogs up as I press close, trying to see who I’ve become. The shovel scrapes the tiny patch of earth where the fragments of the past are laid to rest. I set fire to my memories and am warmed by the flames. Each time the shovel falls, another tiny piece of last year disappears. Another thud as the sweat pours freely, and I still can’t see what’s in the mirror, but I don’t stop looking. Ask me who I was on this day 365 days ago and I will say “I don’t know.” Ask me who I am today and I will say “I don’t know,” but I like this guy more. He knows he is broken but he knows he has a future. He’s less of a jerk and the right kind of confident. And he’s burying the dead. Making room for new life.

I’m trying to keep my feet on the ground. Learning to walk after the crawl, longing to fly over the clouds.

May I find solace in the stillness of the night.
Rain and clouds halt early light.
Lightning strikes the same place twice.
And the freshly turned earth reaches flush on all sides.
I wish it was true but I know it’s a lie.

Michael Aaron La Farge

September 3rd, 1985-September 25th, 2012

Beloved son and brother

Grandson and nephew

Cousin? Friend?

Student or teacher? Pastor or preacher?

What else?

Is Mike enough?

The bones beneath the ground trying to get out.
My knees hit the grass and hear their shouts.
What’s buried can come back, can be raised back to life.
But I get back on my feet, I haven’t finished this fight.

Fog in the mirror obscures the future I had all worked out. But not knowing the future doesn’t scare me anymore. Oh, I’m scared. But not of that.

I’m afraid I’ll miss all I can be.
Terrified of one lost moment wasted on anxiety.

So I lay me down to “sleep,” the long sleep of an endless night. Making room for new life and new joy and new love. Those burning memories blaze, into new passions and illuminate the next little step along the way.

I’m walking along the quiet rows, shovel over my shoulder, humming a happy tune. Not looking back and not needing to. I know what’s back there and I’m glad to say it’s gone. At least if I let be. Here comes a faster, stronger, nicer Michael. With the same baggage as the old one but better handling. The first streaks of color tear into the black sky and I know the sun is just over the horizon. Hands raised high, heart on fire as cold, sweet air fills my lungs. The gate swings closed behind me and I lean the dirt-stained shovel against the red-brick wall. Humming my happy heart song and staring into the dawn.

A patch of fresh-tilled earth marks the spot. A mark. A scar. I’ll show you mine, you don’t have to show me yours.

Lines traced on my heart that may never fade.
But the one who hurt because of them is buried in that grave.
I carry his memory with me, a monument to the person we all knew.
And I'm moving down the sidewalk seeing the blackness turn to blue.

I See Blue Skies

How do you tell the truth without telling too much? I want to be known but I don’t want to feel like I’m asking for pity either. I don’t want pity. I want life, and life more abundant, and I want you to be a part of it.

For so long I lived in a world of grey, surviving one day after another. Days and weeks and years flowing together in an apathetic blur. Life lived in a haze of not really feeling and not really caring. Phone calls to let me know someone I love has cancer. Hugging a family member for the last time before the bitter moment of death. Trying to open my heart to a new love but always hearing the small, but powerful voice of my anxiety saying “not too much, protect yourself.” Life was happening around me and I was in emotional autopilot. Saying the right things, doing them too sometimes. But never feeling like a human being was meant to feel.

But I feel now. So much so that sometimes I think my heart can’t stand it. How different it is that often I feel so much heartache that I just want to shut it down again, but at the same time I’m thankful that I feel anything at all. After years of being closed off in the world of the heart it’s as refreshing to hurt as it is to feel unbridled happiness. How ironic that I chose to open up my heart to the world of feelings, to be more than a logical, rational person and life decided to come after me with a swath of its fury.

Some of it I had control over. It was the result of being closed off and more a head than a heart. And some of it happened because all lives end in death eventually. There is more than one way to feel heartbreak, and I decided to walk through them with my head and heart holding hands. These days when I cry it’s for real. Like snotty nose, face soaked, get it all out cry sessions. And quite frankly I love it. Not the pain that causes it, but being able to feel bad feels so good. And these days when I laugh it’s real. It’s not just because something is funny or I’m having a good time. It’s because deep down inside I know I have a lot to laugh about and my life is not so serious that I can’t just relax and enjoy it.

I’m far from complete. I am nowhere near where I will be when Jesus gets done with me. But man this is a hell of a ride. I am in process and I love it. I love hope. And I have a lot of it. I have a psychiatrist, and a therapist, and medication, and really good friends and family, and all of these are helping me become a healthy, whole person. But more than any of those things I have a savior. He died for my sins, but he also died for my heart. To bring it alive fully. He set me free from death, but he is also raising me to new life. He tells me he loves and that he’s with me no matter what and I believe him. And because of that I can face the brutal reality that life is not always going to be nice to me, but I can soar with him through the heart of any storm, because he holds my heart and is making it new. He is binding up my brokenness.

You are not alone. No matter how lonely or empty you feel, or if you don’t feel at all. You are not alone. There are people all around you facing the same awful truth that you are; that it’s not always going to be easy and a lot of times it’s going to be downright terrible. But there is hope. Hope isn’t wishing for something to happen. It’s believing that all the pain and turmoil this life throws our way is all worth it in the end because if we let it, it draws us to the feet of Jesus. And there is no better place to be than that. So don’t let life beat you down. Talk to somebody, maybe a professional, or maybe just a really good friend. But talk to God too. He loves you. He loves me. He’s sculpting me into something new and it hurts. But he’s chipping away a lot of crap and idiocy that I’m glad to be rid of.

I don’t know how to end this. I’ve learned to accept that tension is a part of life. And I feel a lot of it after writing this. This is a little bit of my heart. I’m glad there’s more of it

Goodbye Sunshine

I guess I didn’t realize how many ways a heart could break. More than one. And this break makes me feel so small, so insignificant. In a universe where my sun is small in the grand scheme of things, what is my life? It rises and sets without fail, but little lives on this spit of rock and water start and end by the millions. I blow out candles on a cake with 27 flames. Forever and 27 years, and 94 somewhere in between. I wonder if God made sunsets to show us that ends can be beautiful. That closure can come with fire and lights. My heart’s a freaking wreck and it might be for a really long time. Life has decided not to be gentle right now, but neither have I. My sunset might be tomorrow or 67 years from now. I don’t want to live forever, and I’m not afraid to die, but I’d like to think there’s something left for me to do.

Death sucks. I hate it. Maybe only God hates it more. It’s the last enemy and one way or another it takes us all. I’m not fascinated or obsessed with it. I just want it to end. I know what I know is true but I’m broken by the human condition. We’re all a few seconds closer to sunset, but we live like it’ll be sunny forever. I want to walk to the road that realizes night is coming. Not dark and lonely, but aware that my failure culminates in death. When death dies, that’ll be a glorious day. But until then it’s drawing the curtains and blocking out the sun one little life at a time. When my sun starts to set I hope it’s in a burst of color. Oranges, reds, purples and blues that emblazon themselves on eternity. I’ve seen a sunset 94 years in the making and I’ll never forget it. Maybe mine will be half as grand. I wouldn’t be upset. Today, tomorrow or in 2079 it’s coming. It’s on its way. It’ll be here soon and I’m ready. My eyes, my arms and my heart are open.

Writing

How did we end up like this? A page turn away from "happily ever after." But now the book is closed and I'm picking up the pieces, spread around the sunrises of my life. But I'm not alone. There are too many shards to find by myself. The reconciliation mission is on. Day by day, piece by piece it's coming back together. I've blown out the candles on another year and the one that is coming looks bright. 365 days of moments to live and chances to soar. I am not okay, but I am cleaning up so well. Polishing the edges that used to be rough and blood pumping through a heart that is softer since its reconstruction. Every tear has been caught, every lung-full of screamed breath has been worth the cost. I am more who I am supposed to be than I was yesterday. And tomorrow is looking good as well. I'm on the road to renewal and even when it hurts, and it's hard and I don't want to go on, the path winds before me. I don't know where it's going and I'm terrified of where I might end up. I've sold my soul and I'm a soul in motion and my soul is overwhelmed but I won't give in. I've got a plan to lose it all, a moment to release my grip and rest in the freedom of dependence. Each day crawls by, full of moments where I'm flying in the clouds. Peppered by seconds of the raw. Heart wounds that I'm desperate to have heal over. Scars are okay, they remind me where I've been, what I've lived through. But open wounds burn when the salt of a sudden memory slips my guard. I want to let my guard down but the memories are too close, too vivid. I don't want to be mad anymore but the anger is easy to process. I'm in a new book now, with more pages in my right hand than in my left. Words are filling pages and chapters are coming together. Please don't be a footnote, a passing thought on a page I won't remember later. Be a heading, be a section, write a line or two. I don't know how many chapters are left, but I'm excited for them. I'm ready for all of them.

The Drive

East on 50 with a head full of memories. Memories I'd rather forget but since I can't I accept that they are making me who I am. Little mountain towns set against soaring peaks, trees reaching toward heaven and a heart aching with memories from a past I didn't want to end. The beauty of both is overwhelming. The air is thin and my lungs are empty. Screaming through the night with everything but the sound. Here I am, not where I want to be but probably, no, exactly where I need to be. Shaped by the pain and the trial. Carved into something new. Ready to head West on 50 and be home. Where my heart is, where my family is. If home is where the heart is my community has the pieces of it.

Written-8/18/12

At-Sierra Pines Camp/BYA Retreat

Out of the Depths

I realized this morning how poorly I deal with stress. It wasn’t a total surprise actually, but acknowledging a problem tends to shed more light on it. So I sat down at my desk and read Psalm, I don’t know why it popped into my head, but it did, so I turned in three different translations to Psalm 130. And the Holy Spirit spoke life into my situation.

The psalmist cries to the Lord out of “the depths.” This is the opposite of what I do when I’m in whatever the equivalent of depths is in my life. I go silent, quiet, AWOL. I shut down and try to reason my way by sheer willpower. I don’t cry out to the God who saves, rather I turn inward, trust in my own strength and sink further and further into the depths.

And it’s wrong. It’s so far from how I should react in these situations. The Message (which I may or may not be liking more these days) says in verses 3-4 “if you, God, kept records of wrongdoings who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is you habit, and that’s why you’re worshipped.” I’ve been sinning. I’ve been overwhelmed by the reality that life is not always for me and I’ve selfishly trusted my own ability to fix that “problem” instead of releasing it to God and as this Psalm encourages, to wait on his deliverance and loving kindness.

So I’m stressed. I’m broken. I, I, I. All these problems are about me, but the world is not. But I’m crying out. Asking for deliverance; waiting on God’s abundant redemption. He made me and he loves me, stress factory and all. I don’t know where my life is headed. Sometime I wonder if I’m cut out for anything greater than trudging along and “getting by.” But Jesus seems to suggest that I am. That I was worth suffering and dying for. That my dreams are birthed in the passions and desires he has enflamed in my heart. So my mouth will cry out. I will praise God from the depths of despair and the swells of my stress. He is good. He is faithful. He will deliver me from the depths.

Existential Musings

Every once in awhile, when I’m left alone with my thoughts, they scare the heck out of me. Especially when I start thinking about existence, the nature of being. I’m not a philosophy major, and I haven’t read a lot about it, but when I think about the fact the somehow a consciousness exists within what essentially amounts to a bag of flesh, bones, sinews, nerves, blood and a lot of other junk, my mind is blown. What is my body apart from the “person” that exists in it? I am it, or am I in it? Who is Michael La Farge of Roseville, CA apart from the body that forms the limits of his existence? And likewise, who is God, the God of the Bible, who exists outside the constraints of a physical form? When I think about that I realize just how incredibly low Jesus stooped in the Incarnation. Honestly, it’s easier to think about football.

So my mind is already melting a little, and then I think about my girlfriend being a similar collection of molecules and atoms (granted they are very well put together) and I wonder, who is she in relation to me? How is it that me, what ever that is, loves, whatever that is, her, whatever she is? Something about her existence causes me in my isolated, individual consciousness to care more about what happens to her then to me, at least some of the time that’s the case. And there are 7 billion other individual people who are separated from me by their bodily existence, but connected to me via our status as God’s creation. Once again, mind blown out the back of my head. It’s like listening to Coldplay live; it’s making me question everything.

And the result is, when I really get into one of these existential funks, an incredible amount of humility. I’m getting smarter all the time. I learn new things every day and I realize I’m pretty good at what I do intellectually. Not great, but not bad either. But when I think about the fact that I’m alive, and that there is assumedly some reason for me to be here, I’m just humbled by the absurdity and complexity of it. When I dwell on it for too long I think, “Crap, now I might have to write about this.” Or get PhD in philosophy. But for now I’ll settle for being amazed by it.


On: May 17, 2012
At: Home
Listening to: Coldplay Pandora Station