thursday is my humpday...
Hello....
yay for my commentors, hina and jenna rock!
If I can give you perhaps a few moments of distraction from whatever is going on in your world, then writing this is worth it :-D
So I know my first post yesterday was titled philosophical babble, and it never got into it. That was because I got given work to do/distracted, and lost the mental state I needed to write what I had originally intended to write when I placed that subject down....
Maybe I'll be lucky enough to regain that state and write some of what I wanted to write yesterday, though a lot of it has gone away with the wind, as things in my mind are want to do....or is it wont?
The long lead into what I was goign to write (which I already wrote in the other post) was simply to show my emotional/mental state, an dhow I was ruminating on thoughts and such.
hehe...I'm listening to french radio on iTunes (I'm streaming Classical music radio, and it turned otu to be french) that makes me smile.
So I've been feeling a bit spiritually drained this past week just due to circumstances beyond my control and my own personal tiredness. Its times like this that I start to question not my faith, but the place in which my faith fits in my world and the world around me. Clearly, being Christian in the US is not a difficult state to maintain (well, compared to other places) but due to the prominence of the religion here, its a hotbed for misapplication, strange interpretations, and quite frankly a lot of things that make me uncomfortable, largely becuase I do not know how to respond to them in an educated, intelligent, and religiously-sound way, such as they are (generally). I feel very lacking in my knowledge about the core of my own faith, and afraid. I'm afraid to share it with others, I'm afraid to delve too deeply into it lest I find somethign I dont' like or that confuses me. I'm living in a little room with no windows.
However, I've recently been striving to change this, through attending of church regularly (the sermons expound upon the message of my faith and such), Sunday School, where we just examine various things in teh bible, usually just a single idea, and how it applies to our world, and now through bible study, which I will go to my first one tonight so I can't really comment on it. However, through all this, while I know I enjoy it and that its good, I feel like a black sheep. I guess that's because I wasn't super involved in a church growing up (we moved to Australia when I was 11, and after that I never really went back to church until a few times in college), and thus I lacked a lot of exposure to the ideas of my faith, the practices of those who share it, and how to apply it in daily life. I guess I feel kinda like an alien who just wants to know, to learn, to possess Reason, but am fumbling in the application of gaining that.
I know what I believe, and I know what I believe regarding some of the hotter issues, but I dont' know how to back up my thoughts, how to explain them and defend myself, as one must do in western society. And while I'm trying to fix that, I'm afraid of what I might find, within myself and within my beliefs, when I do it. I guess I'm afraid that studying my faith and trying to fully grasp it will destroy what I've built my life on so far.
I know that if my belief system as it stands breaks, that does not necessarily mean I will, but its a truly daunting and terrifying thing, to risk finding out, through your own active seeking, that you have been wrong about everything you have based your life upon.
In some ways this was spurred on by a story I heard on NPR the other day. It was about neo-nazis in Germany, and how there is a campaign to integrate the people back into society and away from those views, through psychological support and such, almost like a witness protection program, because once you break away from the neo-nazis, you truly do have justification in fearing for your life. Well, the story that touched me was one girl, whos grandparents and parents were all deep into the neo-nazi culture, and her grandparents obviously lived through the war, and testified taht they never saw any evidence of the mass burnings of Jews in the Holocaust, etc. She married another neo-nazi, and had 5 children with him. They frequently would have meetings/other neo-nazi's over to their home. She, who had grown up so entrenched in this idea of race purification, etc, had a mentally disabled child. Her eldest child was handicapped, and thus her "friends" and family all looked down up it (no genders were given for safety). They judge her child, and she, the mother, who had carried that kid for 9 months, and had gone through the ordeal of childbirth, had done what most mothers done, and fallen in love with the child, regardless of its faults and shortcomings. She had a mothers love. This begane to open her eyes that not everything in the neo-nazi way of thinking was right, becuase she could not see how her child was inferior, sub-human. She began to feel like she was living a double life, the way she really was, which gradually began to get more accepting, and what persona she would have to put on when groups came over and her husband home. She eventually took her children and ran, to one of the reintegration programs, that have helped her deal with the psychological strain, financial problems, changed her and her childrens names, given her a made-up past, and basically given her hope. She views herself as protecting her children from the ideals of Hitler, and lives in constant fear of her own mother or husband finding her and taking her children back.
I can't imagine finding out that everything you have ever loved and known was wrong. Its terrifying, and even moreso to perform the sel-introspection that is necessary to achieve it. This woman literally had to challenge each of her own beliefs, on her own, in a hostile environment, because she saw a "glitch" in the "programming". While that amazes and astounds me that someone could have that much strength, in a way I'm trying to do the same thing. No, I haven't seen a "glitch", except for in my own shortcomings of knowledge, but I'm questing through things in a relatively indifferent (definitely NOT hostile :-P ) environment. It gives me the willies....theres really no other way to describe it.
I have grown up under a lot of emotional and psychological strain. Dramatic events and painful emotional states are no longer shocking to me, and I can move through them with an ease that surprises people, but its because I have literally lived, day and night, in them for at least a decade. I'm not THAT old either. I can deal with the emotional trauma of death, loss, addiction, alcoholism, coming out of the closet, etc. I can deal with that. I know emotional pain better than I know happiness, because it was my "friend" for most of my life. My constant. Here I am, my mother's in recovery (5 years now, bless her), she's quit smoking too, most of my friends have moved away just due to the normal paths of life, and I'm very distant from everyone I used to know and define myself around. And I'm having to now face the largest struggle ever, and that's against myself. Against my addiction. My addiction to problems, to drama, to strain, to helping others, to disaster. I'm a codependant and an enabler, and I am terrified by normality. Crises are nothing to me...its everyday nothingness that I'm afraid of.
And its not like I haven't dealt with it before. In japan, while I didn't really face many crises, there was still strain, being different, language barrier, etc. Now I'm back and tryign to settle into normal life, and still facing a lot of culture shock, and I don't know what to do.
Its almost like I'm a soldier coming back from a war, and just not being able to leave the war behind. In a way, that's exactly what I am. It leaves me bone-hollow sometimes....
Hmm....I'm not really sure the direction that this post has taken...is any of this realyl classified as philosophical? Introspective might be a better word for it, I dunno....
this is vaguely along the lines of what I wanted to write, but with a brief addition:
I took a "test" online through my church to find out what my Spiritual Gifts are (leadership, shepherding, even prophecy is on the list, prayer, etc). Where my spiritual strengths lie. My top three (what it gives you) are as follows:
1. Faith: the divine ability to act on God's promises with confidence and unwavering belief in God's ability to fulfill His purposes.
2. Wisdom: to apply spiritual truth effectively to meet a need in a specific situation.
3. Generosity: the divine ability to contribute money and other resources to the work of the Lord with CHeerfulness and generosity.
Now, the only one I had problems with was Generosity....aren't you never supposed to use the word you are deifning in its own definition? I also felt it lacked sufficient explanation, thoguh I do not deny its existence as a Gift.
This all led me to think that while I do accept and believe that I possess them, and I'm happy that I do, I feel as though I could have done "better", that I need to pursue more than just these three, and to create a more well-rounded self....except that in this, specialization is preferred :-P.
I'm having to realize who I am, what I am, and where I can go, both in a restrictive and releasing manner.
True self introspection is one of the hardest things to do, because everyone has demons, secrets, monsters, and everyone has fears.
I hope none of this was too preachy...:-P
yay for my commentors, hina and jenna rock!
If I can give you perhaps a few moments of distraction from whatever is going on in your world, then writing this is worth it :-D
So I know my first post yesterday was titled philosophical babble, and it never got into it. That was because I got given work to do/distracted, and lost the mental state I needed to write what I had originally intended to write when I placed that subject down....
Maybe I'll be lucky enough to regain that state and write some of what I wanted to write yesterday, though a lot of it has gone away with the wind, as things in my mind are want to do....or is it wont?
The long lead into what I was goign to write (which I already wrote in the other post) was simply to show my emotional/mental state, an dhow I was ruminating on thoughts and such.
hehe...I'm listening to french radio on iTunes (I'm streaming Classical music radio, and it turned otu to be french) that makes me smile.
So I've been feeling a bit spiritually drained this past week just due to circumstances beyond my control and my own personal tiredness. Its times like this that I start to question not my faith, but the place in which my faith fits in my world and the world around me. Clearly, being Christian in the US is not a difficult state to maintain (well, compared to other places) but due to the prominence of the religion here, its a hotbed for misapplication, strange interpretations, and quite frankly a lot of things that make me uncomfortable, largely becuase I do not know how to respond to them in an educated, intelligent, and religiously-sound way, such as they are (generally). I feel very lacking in my knowledge about the core of my own faith, and afraid. I'm afraid to share it with others, I'm afraid to delve too deeply into it lest I find somethign I dont' like or that confuses me. I'm living in a little room with no windows.
However, I've recently been striving to change this, through attending of church regularly (the sermons expound upon the message of my faith and such), Sunday School, where we just examine various things in teh bible, usually just a single idea, and how it applies to our world, and now through bible study, which I will go to my first one tonight so I can't really comment on it. However, through all this, while I know I enjoy it and that its good, I feel like a black sheep. I guess that's because I wasn't super involved in a church growing up (we moved to Australia when I was 11, and after that I never really went back to church until a few times in college), and thus I lacked a lot of exposure to the ideas of my faith, the practices of those who share it, and how to apply it in daily life. I guess I feel kinda like an alien who just wants to know, to learn, to possess Reason, but am fumbling in the application of gaining that.
I know what I believe, and I know what I believe regarding some of the hotter issues, but I dont' know how to back up my thoughts, how to explain them and defend myself, as one must do in western society. And while I'm trying to fix that, I'm afraid of what I might find, within myself and within my beliefs, when I do it. I guess I'm afraid that studying my faith and trying to fully grasp it will destroy what I've built my life on so far.
I know that if my belief system as it stands breaks, that does not necessarily mean I will, but its a truly daunting and terrifying thing, to risk finding out, through your own active seeking, that you have been wrong about everything you have based your life upon.
In some ways this was spurred on by a story I heard on NPR the other day. It was about neo-nazis in Germany, and how there is a campaign to integrate the people back into society and away from those views, through psychological support and such, almost like a witness protection program, because once you break away from the neo-nazis, you truly do have justification in fearing for your life. Well, the story that touched me was one girl, whos grandparents and parents were all deep into the neo-nazi culture, and her grandparents obviously lived through the war, and testified taht they never saw any evidence of the mass burnings of Jews in the Holocaust, etc. She married another neo-nazi, and had 5 children with him. They frequently would have meetings/other neo-nazi's over to their home. She, who had grown up so entrenched in this idea of race purification, etc, had a mentally disabled child. Her eldest child was handicapped, and thus her "friends" and family all looked down up it (no genders were given for safety). They judge her child, and she, the mother, who had carried that kid for 9 months, and had gone through the ordeal of childbirth, had done what most mothers done, and fallen in love with the child, regardless of its faults and shortcomings. She had a mothers love. This begane to open her eyes that not everything in the neo-nazi way of thinking was right, becuase she could not see how her child was inferior, sub-human. She began to feel like she was living a double life, the way she really was, which gradually began to get more accepting, and what persona she would have to put on when groups came over and her husband home. She eventually took her children and ran, to one of the reintegration programs, that have helped her deal with the psychological strain, financial problems, changed her and her childrens names, given her a made-up past, and basically given her hope. She views herself as protecting her children from the ideals of Hitler, and lives in constant fear of her own mother or husband finding her and taking her children back.
I can't imagine finding out that everything you have ever loved and known was wrong. Its terrifying, and even moreso to perform the sel-introspection that is necessary to achieve it. This woman literally had to challenge each of her own beliefs, on her own, in a hostile environment, because she saw a "glitch" in the "programming". While that amazes and astounds me that someone could have that much strength, in a way I'm trying to do the same thing. No, I haven't seen a "glitch", except for in my own shortcomings of knowledge, but I'm questing through things in a relatively indifferent (definitely NOT hostile :-P ) environment. It gives me the willies....theres really no other way to describe it.
I have grown up under a lot of emotional and psychological strain. Dramatic events and painful emotional states are no longer shocking to me, and I can move through them with an ease that surprises people, but its because I have literally lived, day and night, in them for at least a decade. I'm not THAT old either. I can deal with the emotional trauma of death, loss, addiction, alcoholism, coming out of the closet, etc. I can deal with that. I know emotional pain better than I know happiness, because it was my "friend" for most of my life. My constant. Here I am, my mother's in recovery (5 years now, bless her), she's quit smoking too, most of my friends have moved away just due to the normal paths of life, and I'm very distant from everyone I used to know and define myself around. And I'm having to now face the largest struggle ever, and that's against myself. Against my addiction. My addiction to problems, to drama, to strain, to helping others, to disaster. I'm a codependant and an enabler, and I am terrified by normality. Crises are nothing to me...its everyday nothingness that I'm afraid of.
And its not like I haven't dealt with it before. In japan, while I didn't really face many crises, there was still strain, being different, language barrier, etc. Now I'm back and tryign to settle into normal life, and still facing a lot of culture shock, and I don't know what to do.
Its almost like I'm a soldier coming back from a war, and just not being able to leave the war behind. In a way, that's exactly what I am. It leaves me bone-hollow sometimes....
Hmm....I'm not really sure the direction that this post has taken...is any of this realyl classified as philosophical? Introspective might be a better word for it, I dunno....
this is vaguely along the lines of what I wanted to write, but with a brief addition:
I took a "test" online through my church to find out what my Spiritual Gifts are (leadership, shepherding, even prophecy is on the list, prayer, etc). Where my spiritual strengths lie. My top three (what it gives you) are as follows:
1. Faith: the divine ability to act on God's promises with confidence and unwavering belief in God's ability to fulfill His purposes.
2. Wisdom: to apply spiritual truth effectively to meet a need in a specific situation.
3. Generosity: the divine ability to contribute money and other resources to the work of the Lord with CHeerfulness and generosity.
Now, the only one I had problems with was Generosity....aren't you never supposed to use the word you are deifning in its own definition? I also felt it lacked sufficient explanation, thoguh I do not deny its existence as a Gift.
This all led me to think that while I do accept and believe that I possess them, and I'm happy that I do, I feel as though I could have done "better", that I need to pursue more than just these three, and to create a more well-rounded self....except that in this, specialization is preferred :-P.
I'm having to realize who I am, what I am, and where I can go, both in a restrictive and releasing manner.
True self introspection is one of the hardest things to do, because everyone has demons, secrets, monsters, and everyone has fears.
I hope none of this was too preachy...:-P