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| I have been thinking a lot about disclosure over the last few days.
This page has been home to most of my deepest thoughts and feelings over the last couple of years. I am more open and honest here than even in person. If you know me in person you may have realized this.
I realized that my disclosure was flowing from a desire to be known by,
and to know, others. This is, perhaps, why so often when I am in front of this screen my thoughts turn towards my desire for the greatest of human relationships, the greatest granting and receiving of personal knowledge.
But this blog represents disclosure without intention, that is,
the granting of information apart from the context of relationship. It
was not the answer to a question of a personal being, but the
fulfillment of a mechanical request. Fill in the fields. It is possible
to be observed without the intention of observation. The amount of
information about me that is available apart from relationship to me
grows daily. I am uneasy about this.
I get about 30 hits a day here. I don't know who everyone is. Unless you are logged into Xanga all I will see is a state or country. But what used to motivate me to continue to post has now given me pause. My desire to be known by others (not in the sense of fame, but of relationship) has translated into a completely transparent portrayal of myself to an anonymous audience.
That new light makes me feel like I have, in some way, betrayed myself. I realized this (deeply) while trying to find information about someone I met recently. I suddenly had access, via a simple Google search, to information that this person had never offered. I felt incredibly... strange, in a very terrible way. I realized that I did not want to know these things apart from a series of conversations. I wanted to be offered the information in trust, not to be gathering the information via the electronic panopticon.
So I am going to find a way to make these entries only available to those who request to read them. I don't know if I will be able to do that through Xanga. If not, I will be started a new blog somewhere else.If not somewhere else, no where.
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| i have been experiencing some pretty hefty ups-and-downs lately.
much of that has stemmed from several crises of faith, as well as ugly habits rearing ugly heads once again. all seem to be huge opportunities for growth.
i had a great experience yesterday that really helped as well. first:
a guiding light in my life has been the pursuit of truth for its own sake. that light was in serious danger of going out over the last few weeks. i began to doubt the worth of such an endeavor. it didn't seem to be working. what "working" meant was that it didn't seem to be making me feel good, to be calming my passions, to be granting me my wishes, or making my goals come to pass. it seemed, even, to be counter-productive. discouraging, stressful, alienating.
i have been doing a lot of thinking about what i believe, and what is worth talking about. so much belief ends being totally subjective. it is really hard to move it out into the world. the connection between what i have inside of me and what is going on everywhere else is really difficult to make. (i worry that my inability to "get out" has caused me to make selfish decisions, and i wonder what the solution to that state could be. more effort?)
so truth for its own sake has lost some of its gloss.
i started wondering if i needed a new object for my desire.
beauty has always captured me. could beauty for its own sake be worth pursuing? my immediate emotive response is yes! but the more i reflect on what that would mean i see that it would drive me further into myself and create deep selfishness. that's because i don't think we can capitalize beauty. there is no Beauty as such. beauty is a characteristic that we assign based on a subjective response.
i believe that it is good and healthy to disagree about what is beautiful and what is not.
i want to continue to pursue beauty, but only as a sub-set of truth. it has to be defined by the real, or life will end up in a series of selfish decisions to pursue what is subjectively good, rather than the Absolute Good.
anything less than absolute is less than True.
so Truth for its own sake must be worth pursuing, because it is the only way to obtain True beauty. the delight of the beautiful can only come as a by-product of a pursuit of Truth, not as the prime-product of a search for it by itself.
this was made abundantly apparent to me last night. i got a chance to randomly meet a group of people that were all studying at a bible college very similar to the one i went to. it was totally centered on the Bible. these guys were absolutely lit up. we talked about all sorts of things for a few hours. but it was so apparent that the concern for Truth was shared by all, and we shared a genuine love for that first, and it created a love for each other naturally.
i had forgotten there were such people in the world.
this forgetfulness was certainly due to the closing of my own eyes in regards to their existence.
i am lifted, inspired, encouraged by this.
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| this has been forming for the last few days, in fact over the last few years.
i love God.
i have often wondered if that trite statement was really true, looking inside of myself for some sort of emotion or excitement or indicator of something... love-like.
frustrated that it wasn't there.
but i realize that it is: in dedication, in passion, in sorrow, in frustration even.
God has come and made His home in me, and thank Him ten thousand times i cannot remove Him, not even if i wanted to.
i know He there by the faith that tells me it is so. i know He is there when in the blackest moods He brushes against my consciousness. i know He is there when i fail again and again and feel at once the greatest disappointment in myself, but also the greatest call to stand back to my feet and keep running.
i know i could never walk away from Him. this is, at times, haunting, and at others: joyous. i cannot walk away, only in. sometimes in anger, sometimes in delight, but He draws me. He takes me up and moves me forward. I cannot escape. there is no escape.
it is no easy thing, this.
love is the only word i can use for it. i am taken away, and will be taken further.
Father of Lights, preserve me in love; resurrect that which has died that should have lived; crucify all else.
mortify all but my love for you.
may i seek first the kingdom, it conversation, in relationship, in priority, in honor of You.
my doubting mind is full of pain, my aching heart is full of loneliness. may i find rest in You. abide in Your love.
keep me as the apple of your Eye. hide me in the shadow of Your Wings.
and as i pray Your will, may i know as You know: that You are faithful and great.
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| a question that ruined my week:
How different do two persons conception of g/God have to be before they can no longer be said to be thinking about the same being?
(as to the term, g/God, i usually only capitalize the first letter if i am referring to the
true God, but this conversation makes it hard to make that distinction.)
this is a common tactic in apologetics, especially when it comes to dealing with so-called cults. it is quite common to hear that Mormons "don't believe in the same God as Christians" because they are polytheists. Or that Jehovah's Witness "don't believe in the same God as Christians" because they are anti-trinitarian.
but the real problem for me is that i have realized that most people's perceptions of g/God are different, sometimes drastically, sometimes not. but all it takes is one difference for two things to be distinct. if two given things are identical in every possible way they are identical. (think about it) there are not really two, only one.
so if i, a so-called christian, believe in a g/God who cannot lie, and another so-called christian believes in a g/God who does lie to us to test our faith, do we believe in the same g/God?
is one of us deceived, and, by default, a deceiver?
it would seem.
and this would be true of anyone who denied something about God that ought to be affirmed, or affirmed something about God that ought to be denied. it could be anything from a minor point of personal application ("i believe in a g/God who speaks to me in my heart") to a major point in theology proper ("i believe in g/God who is inside of time") this is because, as much as the mystic would like: you cannot separate what God is from what God does, and conversely, as much as the theologian would like: you cannot separate what God does from what God is.
a difference is a difference, and two things that are different cannot be the same.
but that would throw the majority of persons, including the majority of so-called christians, out of the Truth. only those who affirm and deny properly could be said to actually know God in truth: a stern requirement for salvation (read John in its entirety) you cannot know God falsely and you cannot worship in spirit and in truth if you are in error.
the immediate counter-response: But, no one can be 100% right when it comes to God!
that seems very true, but that doesn't get us out of the dilemma: the objector has only argued that all people are wrong about who God really is. now we are in real trouble.
i don't think it is right to appeal to grace to remove us from the dilemma either. for a very simple reason: you can only recieve grace after you have come to know the true God. idols, mental or otherwise, do not dispense grace, nor does God give grace to idolaters.
so this ruined my week. i am just as caught in the dilemma as everyone else.
some thoughts that helped me on the way out:
the problem with the dilemma is with my conception of identity. it is possible to be mistaken about a certain attribute of a thing and still know the thing. for instance if we are talking about a friend and i believe he is 5 foot 11 and you think he is 6 foot, according to our concept of identity we cannot be talking about the same person: there is a discernable difference. but one of us (me) is simply mistaken. our friend is in fact 6 foot, even though i believed he is 5 foot 11. so minor differences can be attributed to mistakes in our thinking, they are real errors. i am wrong about what i think our friend is. but, it does not negate the fact that i do know him and we are talking about the same being.
if i were to hold onto that erroneous belief, especially in the presence of the friend in question it would cause some real problems, dogmatically held it would end the friendship. if i continue to assert it i am a liar, if i tell others i am a deciever, but for the time being the one in error has not strayed so far.
this would not be the case if the differences were more drastic, such as an arguement over gender (he is boy, no she is girl), personality (he is a liar, no he has great integrity) or existence (he is real, no he is imaginary) it is possible to be mistaken in these areas as well and perhaps still be correctable, but as soon as the erroneous view becomes dogma there are real problems.
we intuitively know when we are no longer describing the same person, even if the location of that line is hard to identify.
we have to become better at identifing dogmatic statements about God:
the ones we make and more importantly the ones we imply. a great many people would be offended if they were accused of being dogmatic in their christianity, but everything we say g/God is and everything we say g/God does is incredibly important, and we all tend to hold these with great rigidity.
i talked to one of my professors about this and his first response was
to say that it was a really hard question. he, being much smarter than
I, had some more thoughts that helped. his point was that since we cannot separate what God is from what God does we can look at other areas of Truth for help. his first suggestion was looking at soteriology, the doctrines of salvation. how a person believes salvation works will directly influence what they believe g/God is.
certain soteriologies are so different from the biblical view that they can no longer be said to be reffereing to the same g/God as each other.
there are two unnacceptable solutions that i also thought of, but my fingers are protesting and its time for a shower.
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