Mission Accomplished

Shower, Ibuprofen, nerve pill. And even though I wanted to take lot of nerve pills, I only took one.

I think it’s pretty sad when things look so bad you use substances to numb the pain. It’s not really numb, though. Mostly I’m just too tired to cry anymore. Well, almost.

I think this is called despair. I first found this thing when I was very sincerely a Christian. It might have been a year [maybe less] since my conversion when something started to go wrong. I was doing the things I was supposed to, I was loving God and trying to grow closer to him through prayer and study, I was going to church and taking a class on discipleship.

What I honestly don’t understand, and what destroys me, is that the more I studied and prayed, the more miserable I got. Why? How did something that was supposed to be so wonderful, that was supposed to make me holy and perfect, end up making me so incredibly miserable?

What did I do? Why wasn’t I worthy enough for God to help me? Why wouldn’t he show me the way out? Why did the church I was in start out a loving place to be, and by the time I left, it was completely dark there? Did I cause that? How could my sincere heart cause something so horrible?

I stayed there, hoping that my ‘dry spell’ would finally come to an end. I waited over seven years. Then we left the church and moved to a different church. It had a completely different atmosphere, but nothing changed.

I had begun to be suspicious of the church, I guess. I just know that when I went into Christianity, I was fairly happy. When I came out, I was in a chronic state of clinical depression that lasted for three years, non stop, and a few more with intermittent spells of it.

So many people testify how God changed their lives and made it better. How he’s helped them to deal with issues and heal. If God is real, he made me do it myself.

There’s one lady who talks about how God reaches down and rescues you from ‘the pit’ I prayed, believed in faith, prayed some more, and even tried to get counselling [but financing fell through] but nothing changed. The pain in my soul was so great, it almost destroyed me, and yet… nothing.

So we moved after Steve got his assignment, and I was feeling better because I got on medication for my depression. It was a temporary fix, but it allowed me to function, although from a numb place. I looked at churches here, knowing that God would lead us to the right church.

We were here to start over in a way, and I figured, maybe at last the drought would end. Maybe I would find some people who could guide me and help me find where I had gone wrong earlier [this was before my search into other religions].

I found a decent church, and some good friends within that church, but still the issues within the church detract from its purpose. And still, the drought.

I began to learn about self-talk through reading books, and eventually was able to largely control my depression without medication, just through the power of paying attention [and controlling] what my dominant thoughts are.

I read some books on post-modern thought, and how to be relevant to the current times as a Christian. I kept thinking that there has to be a way to be so close to Christ that you just glow, or have some kind of something like he did, and then people would see the light and, you know, go toward it like little bugs or something.

I was dealing with my depression on my own, and figuring out how to direct my own life because most of my life has been about waiting. And things started to come together.

But my spiritual hunger was still there, and Christianity, whether through a fault of my own, or of the religion, failed miserably. And that’s completely backward from what you hear people say about it.

Maybe it was my own fault, although I would think that a true conversion, a sincere heart and a willingness to trust and learn from my ‘elders’ would count for something?

My anger has come out as being aimed at the church, because if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t the church, then it must be God. And if it’s God, is he unwilling to help me because he loves me and wants me to learn something from this?

What I’ve learned is that if anything is going to be accomplished, it will only happen through my own efforts. Shit. That’s not Christianity.

If it’s God, is he unwilling to help me because I’m not worthy?

Is it because he really doesn’t care about me at all?

Is predestination true and I’m not invited?

If God did this. Wow. Then he really, really hates me, and that really hurts and brings me back to despair.

Exhausted

I’m supposed to go to church in the morning.  I’ve got the shakes from being hungry, tired, and borderline hysterical for a while.

I don’t know what I want.

I need a shower, and some ibuprofen, and a nerve pill.  I want to wake up tomorrow and know.

I’ve tried different ways to find answers, and it’s just not working.  Things only go so deep, and I hit a wall.  I look elsewhere to find the answers to the questions my heart is asking, and I find more confusion and loneliness.

I know there has to be more than this, but I don’t know what else to do to find it.

My head hurts.

Stupid conscience.

So my mom offered to keep my three year old daughter at her house for the eleven months that I go to LPN school.  She lives three and a half hours away.

Mom e-mailed me and said, “Sometimes you have to sacrifice to succeed.  Is this one of those times?”  And I thought of my baby daughter, who will only be this age once, and I realized that I can’t possibly bear the thought of letting her go anywhere for a year.

I looked at her today, and noticed every little mannerism, every cute thing she did, her gorgeous eyes and smile, and I realized that in a year, all of that will be different, and a new child will have taken her place.

So now I’m thinking.  Do I have any other options?

I am incredibly picky about who watches my kids.  I’ve had friends who I thought would be good with them, and they were complete jerks to my babies.  It wasn’t anything horrid, but if they were harsh for no reason, or didn’t seem to enjoy them [or love them] I couldn’t do it again.

No one will love them like I will.  My mom and dad come close, and if we lived closer, she would be my babysitter, no question.  But 180 miles is too damn far.  And the one person that I would have trusted from here to take care of my kid  is not doing daycare anymore, and the other person already has a job, working days.

I need to talk to Steve and he’s asleep.  Dammit.  I really think that I’m going to put it on hold until she goes to kindergarten.

The thing is, we are surviving on what Steve makes.  The budget is incredibly tight, but we have enough money to take care of all of our needs [most of the time], and a few of our wants.  If it was an issue where we were going hungry, the sacrifice would be a no-brainer, but this is really about trying to reach a point where we’re comfortable.

We live on the edge of financial ruin, and have for over ten years now, but we’ve always made it through.

My desire to get a job is partly to give me something to do that will help me feel worthwhile in society, with family and friends, but mostly, it’s so we don’t have to worry so much about finances.

So if I send Michaela to my mom’s, am I sacrificing watching her grow up for money?  Is it worth it?  Is money more important than spending time with my child?

That’s kind of a no-brainer, too, isn’t it?

Well Now.

So.  I start nursing school in a month and a half.  I was stressing about paying for daycare for my youngest [Michaela, who’s three] and worrying about finding a good place for her to be.

I e-mailed my mom about my worries, and she wrote, called and left several messages demanding that I call her tonight [this is not annoying to me, but sweet, cute, and funny ’cause my mom is absolutely wonderful].

So I did.

She is going to keep Michaela with her while I go to nursing school.  She hates the thought of daycare [so do I.  No one will love my kids or raise them the way I will, and I really really reallly have to trust you to let you take care of my kids.  I’m protective of them, Mama Bear style:  If you hurt my kid, I’ll rip you to shreds, you know?]

It will be hard, because they live a long way away, but honestly, I can’t imagine something that will be better for my baby.

Wow.  I really didn’t expect that, and a massive load is lifted.

In other news, my religious discussion with ArtemGr is moving to e-mails, but if I learn something that interests me, or my views change on anything, I’ll let you know, ’cause you know, that’s what I do.

You know, I enjoyed my sabbatical from blogging, but I really love this.  It’s good to be back.

That’s a funny joke, right there!

An e-mail forward from my mother-in-law.  It made me giggle.

Pecans in the cemetery

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.

“One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me,” said one boy. Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.” He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off.

Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along. “Come here quick,” said the boy, “you won’t believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls.”

The man said, “Beat it kid, can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.” When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery.

Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me, One for you, one for me.” The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been tellin’ me the truth. Let’s see if we can see the Lord.”

Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord. At last they heard, “One for you, one for me . . . That’s all. Now let’s go get those nuts by the fence and we’ll be done.”

Shelbi’s thoughts on the infallibility of the Bible

From the time I became a Christian, I heard from my fellow protestants that Roman Catholics were weird, and very likely wrong about a lot of things.

I heard about how the Catholics were in cahoots with various kings, and that many of the popes were depraved, evil men.  I heard about the “Apocrypha,” [that’s Maccabees and all those other books at the end of the old testament that you find in the Catholic bible, but not the protestant version] that the Catholics added to the Bible [turns out the protestants took it out, but that’s semantics, right?] and the protestants believed that the Catholics used the apocrypha to justify things like paying alms for the dead, purgatory, and various other things that protestants don’t believe in.

So here’s my beef.  Regardless of who’s right, either way, we have a real historical documentation of someone adding to, or taking away from, the holy scriptures.  If we have one such case of distortion/altering of the Bible, how can we know for sure that it’s the only one?

We can’t.  Which puts the veracity, the infallibility, of the whole thing in question.  Which parts were changed to suit the religious leaders of the day, and which were there in the first place?

Knowing that the Bible very likely has additions or subtractions that did not come from God is a whole helluva lot more difficult to deal with than blind faith in the Bible’s infallibility, but given that one ‘for sure’ instance of distortion, how can anyone seriously believe that it is infallible?

God gave us free will, so you can’t use the whole, “Well, because God wouldn’t allow it to be changed” argument.  If someone wanted to, he would allow it.  Besides the fact that we already know that he did allow it at least once…

Run Away!! [More religion stuff]

This is from ArtemGr’s comment on the post addressed to him/her.

There is a difference between the essence and the act. What is essence to as is an energy to God. That is, the whole world is an act of God, His doing. To us our world has essence, to Him it is an energy, an act. You see, the One who created everything, can not be a part of that which is He created. What you’re saying, that we and the God are of the same energy, is logically unsound.

Dude! You have no idea how this cuts me to the quick! Logic is not my strong suit by any means, but this theory is one of the few things on which I’m logically sound. Here’s how I reasoned it out:

In the beginning there was God. Nothing else existed but God, and there was no beginning or end to him. He was just there, in whatever form he takes [spirit is my guess, and although I can’t really tell you what that looks like, I can feel it].

So at some point, God had a conversation with himself and decided to create the world. So he created a ‘void’ or an empty space, right? Which means that he gave himself, or our universe, depending on how you look at it, some boundaries. My guess is that either he made himself smaller than the universe, thereby giving himself limits, or he created a space within himself to contain the universe.

More than likely, he created the void within himself, and if God has a physical form that is roughly humanoid, I’m gonna say he created the void right in the heart area, ’cause I like the imagery.

So then he starts creating the universe. “Let there be Light,” and all that jazz. Now, I don’t doubt that he created it all, whether in six days or six hundred billion years matters little, you know? But my contention is that after he created the void, he created the universe within that void, and the thing he used to create it was himself, his own energy, because there wasn’t anything else around.

And because he’s God, he was able to take his own energy and form it into all sorts of interesting things, which is what we see [and don’t see] around us.

I was thinking about our molecular structure, and the molecular structure of everything in the universe. I’m sure you’re aware that on that level it’s all just energy, right? It has different densities and such, but it’s all the same stuff.

And then “AHA!” It’s energy. God created everything and used his own energy to do it. He used part of himself to make me. Am I separate from him? Yup. ‘Cause he made it that way, but I am also connected to him, and so are we all.

One more quote:

But since you say it was ambiguous, i would risk expanding by saying that what i seem to like about your writing is that it is serious but instead of being boring, it’s humorous, it’s reserved, but instead of being secretive, it’s sincere. It reminds me of an Orthodox icon: plain (austere) in stature, but soft (kind) in emotion.

What bothers me, is that there is sometimes a cynicism, which might imperceptibly change kindness into humour into satire, change austerity into indifference and contempt. But that is a possibility which i fathom more with imagination and experience than with eyes.

Thanks for clarifying.  Some of my content kind of bothers you, but overall, you like they way I write… right? 😛

You’re right, there is a cynicism sometimes.  There are days when I’m pissed off about something [if you’ve read any of the posts from when I was on steroids, you probably have seen the best of my mindless rage] or nothing, but need to vent.  This is where I do it, and sometimes it’s not pretty.

There are days when I see something in the news, or hear someone spout garbage and call it Truth and I just want to scream.  The most frustrating thing for me, is that I’ve been there and spouted the same crap, so I know that most of the time, it comes from a sincere heart [mine was].  It’s just a sincerely misguided heart,  you know?

I give Evangelicals the hardest time, because that’s what I’m most familiar with.  I’ve found other denominations and beliefs within the Christian church who are just as sincere as their Evangelical brethren, but somehow get the truth within Jesus’s message and try to live it.

It is amazing how different those people look than the ones who try to control the moral lives of people through legislation, browbeating, and ‘grass-roots’ movements.  The Christians I get most frustrated with, and the people to whom my angriest religion posts are directed, are what I consider the “Pharisees” of today.

There were a lot of Pharisees in Jesus’s day who genuinely thought that they were doing what was right, but Jesus repeatedly tore into them because they missed the point.  Many of today’s Evangelicals are doing the same thing.

I know that by venting it here I’m probably not doing much to change the situation.  I mean, how many Evangelicals have ever read this thing?  But these are things that hurt me, and since I’m at a loss as to what else to do about it right now, I vent.

Mostly, I love these people.  I want desperately to help them ‘see the light’ so to speak, and yet I know that the chances of me changing any hardcore Evangelical or Fundamentalist’s mind about, well, anything, is slim to none.

I remember what it was like to be steeped in the religious teachings of a very conservative Evangelical denomination.  I remember what it was like to believe with all my heart the things I heard, to accept the arguments that ‘unsaved’ people could never understand the things that we did because God had given them up to their depravity.

I know the beliefs about the Bible being God-breathed, in fact, I embraced them whole- heartedly for a long time.  I studied the Bible, and learned apologetics, and tried to be an Evangelist for Christ.  I was passionate, gung-ho, scream it from the rooftops in my enthusiasm.

But then I decided to look at it from a so-called ‘post-modern’ view, or from the perspective of an ‘outsider’ and I realized that a lot of what I believed was more than likely garbage, put out by men who may have been good men overall, but had control issues, and wanted to control the ‘little guy’  Much like the pharisees of Jesus’s day.

I began to look into other religions, and learned that at their core, most of them come down to the same message, which is the message of Christianity [“Love God.”  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”]

They all have a little different take on it, but it’s there.  Buddhism skips the God part, but the second half of the ten commandments are in their Five Principles almost word for word.  Hinduism has a lot of ‘little gods’ but they also believe that there is one God over all… they even have a trinity of sorts, and their ‘rules of behavior’ are almost identical to Christianity.

I’ve learned the Christian arguments of why other religions are different, and therefore ‘less’ than Christianity, but when I did my own research and looked for the similarities in the various world religions, for their core beliefs, they were all amazingly similar.

There is a vein of Truth that runs through all religions, and because of that, I realized that while the Christian story of God is pretty cool, so are the others… um, and they’re probably the same guy. They all more than likely go back to the one true source of all that is.

Well, there’s my ramble for today.  Peace out.

Overheard

Michaela:  I’n a baby.

Matthew:  No, Michaela, you’re not a baby anymore.  You’re a little girl.  You’re three now.

Michaela:  I’n a lillo gurlllll.

Matthew:  You’ll never be a baby again.  You’ll just keep getting older and older and older and older until you’re a grandma.  Then you’ll die.

Michaela:  I’n a baby.

To ArtemGr…

Thank you for stopping by my blog. Your comment was welcome, as are all comments, even from people who disagree with me. I read your letter last night right before bed, and began composing an answer instead of sleeping, which was stupid since I can’t remember any of it today, but there you go.

It was the first thing that I thought of this morning, so here I am. I’m still debating with myself exactly what I want to say, so this may end up being more of a random nonsense entry, but since I’m still depressed, and therefore still wanting to write, here goes!

You wrote:

First, i would like to comment on your literary style, which is, well, pretty stylish for my taste. You write with sure and sharp strokes, which might be a touch of a true writer. I enjoyed reading your last entries. And not only because of the literary style, of course, but intricacies of why else are hard to put into words.

Um, thank you, I think. I am glad that you enjoyed my last entries, but I have to say that ‘pretty stylish for my taste,’ is a bit ambiguous. Sounds kinda like when someone tells you you’re style of dress is ‘unique’ but they really mean horrible. It’s cool, though. I liked they way you worded it. It actually made me happy, which is damn near miraculous right now!

I would like to begin from the end, and answer your question of “Is it even possible to reconcile myself to that?”, that is, the question about the importance of godhood of Jesus Christ. Again, I’m not feeling important enough (in your personal existence) to convince you, that is why i hope I won’t try to argue with you, but will just lay some answers, in case you need them, and if I miss something, you can always inquire me further on any topic concerning Christianity.

Thank you for that. I do appreciate the way you made it clear that your aim isn’t to argue. I’m not crazy about arguing, but I do like a good discussion. There’s a fine line between the two, and I’m always excited when I can have a ‘debate’ of sorts without getting nasty. I’m a bit of a drama queen, but I avoid confrontation at all costs. Weird, huh?

So anyway. I’ll just take your answer and ask questions or share my own point of view, or ramble aimlessly for a bit as the mood hits, and we’ll see what happens, okay?

Here’s my favorite part about blogging.  I’ll continue this tomorrow, and continue until I finish, or until I lose interest and move on to something else.  No offense, I just do that sometimes.

Blindsided

Well, this is a surprise.  For the past few days, I’ve been more irritable than usual which is usually the first sign of depression for me.  Last night, I realized I felt sad.  I don’t know why it takes me a while to figure this out, but it kind of sneaks up on me when I’m not looking, you know?

So this morning [this afternoon, actually] I was pissed off for no reason.  It was bad.  I felt the same rage I do when I’m on steroids, which is white hot in intensity.

I’ve been wanting to run away again.  This has happened before, and it scared the hell out of me the first time, let me tell you.  I’ve made a commitment to my husband and kids to be here until the end of time, so wanting to run away and start a new life can be, um, disconcerting at the least.

I don’t really want to find a new family [been there, done that, you know?] but I want to run away and start over by myself.  Minus the pressure, I guess?  Only being responsible for and to myself sounds like a dream.  It would be for a week or two, maybe a month or two, but then I’d want to come back to my family.

I think I need to get away for a while, and I don’t really see any way to accomplish it, you know?

I’m having a lot of anxiety about these damn scholarship applications for nursing school.  I’ve been out of the workforce for over ten years, so letters of recommendation have to come from friends, ’cause that’s all I have.  Also, I’ve only got until July 2nd to get the forms mailed out to people and get them back, which makes me nervous, too.

I was excited about actually having a career and being a ‘professional’ and making a decent wage only a week ago.  Now I’m scared as hell and just want to be an artist.  Maybe writing and art are my fallback dreams when real life gets too difficult? Fuck if I know what the deal is.

Depression also makes me want to write.  Not being depressed makes me want to get out and live.  It looks like I can’t have it both ways, doesn’t it?  I’m just sad and confused about life.  My religion [well Christianity] is pretty much gone.  I still believe in God, but I think I’m more agnostic than Christian now.  I guess I’m just not wired up to be closed-minded.

I should have known it was a bad fit 13 years ago, but I loved Steve and figured since I didn’t really have a religion of my own, I’d try his.  It seemed to work for a while, as long as I didn’t ask any of the hard questions, as long as I just accepted on faith that the Bible was true, that it was God breathed.  Well, maybe it was God inspired, but men wrote it, and in my experience, men [and women] are a pretty fucked up lot and their heart issues tend to run over into other areas.

So I think some of those men had preconceived ideas about right and wrong and stuck them in there, thinking they must have come from God.  I think most people have a picture of God in their minds that is really a big mirror.  As I’ve gotten less judgmental and more loving, ‘God’ has begun to care less about a person’s religion and more about their hearts.

It just makes sense to me that if an Atheist is a great humanitarian and does a lot to help out the human race, then they’d be a helluva lot better in God’s eyes than a lot of Christians I know.  That totally takes Jesus out of the picture, and that’s what would get me into trouble with Christians, but somehow I think Jesus himself would approve.

He was all about ripping the religious leaders a new one by telling the general population that they could all come to God and didn’t need to be great followers of the law.  And yet, many of the Christians of today have begun to make the faith all about obeying the laws.  Even making it so that no one who doesn’t accept Christ as savior gets to heaven is following a ‘law.’

In my eyes, it’s just as evil as the people who said you must be circumcised to become one of God’s people [interestingly, the Jewish faith acknowledges that non-Jews can go to heaven, and they have fewer rules to follow than Jews do.  How the fuck did Christians get so backward?  Jesus came to show that anyone could come to God, and we’ve made it that no one can, except the ‘few,’ which of course doesn’t include any other faiths.]

It’s been at least a month since I went to church.  I had to go to a ladies’ Bible study a couple of Thursdays ago, and it was difficult.  I’m not angry at Jesus or God, ’cause I know that they didn’t cause their followers to become stupid shits.  Like I said, a person’s religion is just a mirror of their own hearts, and if their hearts are judgmental, closed-minded, or vengeance oriented, then their religion becomes that, too.

That’s why some people of all religions [even atheists] ‘get it.’ They believe the same basic things because their hearts are true.  The names they give their ‘creator’ or higher power are irrelevant because at the heart, the beliefs are the same.  And some people of all religions are idiots, and their religions follow suit.

The sad thing is, there are a lot of sincere Christians [like I was] who believe the crap they’ve been taught and embrace the ugliness of another person’s heart, accepting it as Truth, when it’s just a pitiful lie.  They try to make it fit, but end up like I did: depressed, miserable, and desperately thinking/praying, “There’s got to be more than this.”

I think a lot of people wrongly begin to believe that following Jesus, or believing in God is evil.  It’s not the divine that is evil, it’s the heart of the person spewing the bullshit that is evil.

It’s funny, because Jesus said you have to be ‘born again’ in order to be able to see the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is right here, and after you have the ‘epiphany,’ a point in your life where you embrace love over hate, you can see pieces of heaven everywhere.  Your heart has joy because you begin to be able to look upon even the unloveliest with love and compassion.

Jesus was a magnificent example of what that looks like.  He loved his enemies and accepted his fate, probably knowing that by dying his teachings would live on.  He probably hoped that as time continued, that more and more people would look at his example of love and see the truth in what he did.  He wanted others to experience the kingdom of God as much as he did.

The church of 400 or so CE wanted to control the people, so they distorted his message and used it to control people, the same way the Pharisees did in Jesus’s day.  Sad, but true.

Jesus was a son of God the same way that we all are sons and daughters of God.  He ‘got it’ more than we do, and that’s why he is such a great example to aspire to.  That’s it, though.  Any one of any religion can look at Jesus, or Buddha, or Gandhi, plus various other great souls, and find the truth.  If you follow Buddha, guess what?  You’re following what Jesus taught.  And if you follow Jesus, guess what?  You’re following what Buddha taught.

And I didn’t make that up, either.

What sucks, though, is as you can see, I don’t really fit in at church anymore, and that’s where my friends are.  So I’m alone again, and that makes me depressed.  I can’t go back to the way I was before, because I know better now.  But that leaves me floundering about because my husband is still a Christian [although a good one] and wouldn’t go into a different religion.

My kids ask about going to church, and I feel guilty because I don’t take them.  But hearing what they teach makes me angry, and I don’t think I can deal with it on a regular basis, you know?  I certainly don’t want my kids exposed to the negative side of Christianity, either.

I could go to a Unity Church if they had one here, but the nearest one is an hour and a half away.  I guess I could ‘attend’ an online church, but that doesn’t answer the need my kids have.

It’s funny how when I’m depressed, I always struggle with religion.  I know that I need some kind of faith/religion in my life.  I’m ‘spiritual’ I guess 😉 but Christianity in evangelical terms doesn’t fit me anymore.

I think I may be nearing a ‘coming out’ post/talk/e-mail or something to my friends.  I’ve broached the topic with one of my friends, but I lose the words in anger.  I still feel betrayed by the religion, I guess.  I’ve been trying to reconcile my beliefs with continuing to attend my church, but my church bases its entire faith on believing that Jesus is the only Son [capital S] of God, the Savior of the world, and the only way to heaven.

Is it even possible to reconcile myself to that?

Jeez.

Well, I’m still depressed, still confused, still angry, and still.  So I guess I’ll probably be blogging again until this lifts.