Faith in Man

Almost every time we go anywhere we drive by a church that has a sign that says "It is better to trust in God than put your confidence in men" and it offends me. It provokes me. I want to run in there and yell "You put your confidence in men every time you go on an airplane or use tap water! You're insulting thousands of years of brilliant human engineering, it's not God lifting the airplane or cleaning your drinking water it's the hard work, blood and tears of generations of amazing people!"

If there's anything you *should* do it's put your confidence in humans. We've gotten where we are together, and that's what we should celebrate and be proud of and use as inspiration for our future.

Who do you think you are?

I realized something while I wrote that comment on the post below.

"Who do you think you are?" that voice in my head said. "Do you really think you can come to a better answer, that you can come closer to god, than a hundred generations of millions of Christians or Muslims or whatever. Scholars and priests, kings and peasants. Who do you think you are to believe yourself above them?"

I don't know. I've never thought about it that way, and now that I did, it feels a little embarrassing. Who do I think I am? Isn't it true, aren't I trying to be better than every thinking human before me and around me? It makes my humble Swedish upbringing cringe where it's stored in the basic structures of my brain, but the truth, while difficult to admit, is simple. Yes. I do think I can. My world revolves around me. I am my own god, and my world will live and die with me. I do believe to the fullest of my heart that I have as much ability and right to claim I know my god, to claim my own path to faith, as any man or woman who as ever walked on Earth and any that will ever live.

And in the same way, I also believe it is the right and duty of every human to claim their own path to faith, to belief and religion. Which is why, I realize, organized religion infuriates me. And in the same way, the mindlessness with which people treat other's belief infuriates me to the same degree. Of course I don't want to sing psalms in church, that would be lying. Lying at another's place of worship. If there was a corresponding way to desecrate my own faith, I would want to kill the one who did. Someone said "religion lies in the hearts of men", if I don't remember incorrectly. And that is exactly it. Tradition and ceremony might serve other purposes, but faith, actual faith, has it's own shelf. And it is holy, too holy for organizations and institutions.

Duality

If I'd never seen how beautiful you are.
Every step a longing for something I will never have.
The safe, solid, true spot of my world this soothing fact.

It frightens me to think that I could live without you.
Without ever seeing you, without ever hearing your voice or seeing your smile.
You make me incomparably happy,
but it frightens me so much my heart stops! to think that I might have been happier
had I never known you were.

Every smile hurts, every breath.
And yet it seems to me I have found the secret of immortality, for
in my heart, unendingly I will be here; forever doubting, forever fearing
forever loving.

Always keep the faith.

Baptism

I seem to be writing essays here lately...

Being in churches used to be like visiting other people's homes. It's not your stuff, you're not sure what is expected of you, but you want to show some kind of respect even if the decorations are terrible. It still is when I'm in churches alone, they are for example often great works of architecture and symbols of people's beliefs, along with many other things. Just like it can be fun and relaxing to hang out in other people's homes even if the decorations are terrible. Being in a church when some kind of ceremony - wedding, baptism, funeral - is going on used to be like seeing the family that owns the home interact with it, like having a ritual of who sits where at the dinner table or habits in terms of who uses the shower when. Confusing, sometimes frustrating, a little awkward at times, but in general just another part of life.
It seems with me growing into my own faith, however, the feeling has changed. Being in a church now, listening to the confession or to people singing psalms or praying, gives me an uneasy feeling. The only simile I can think of is if there's someone you really like, love even, but you're not in an outspoken relationship. However anytime you're out or talking to a really handsome person, it feels like you're cheating, even if you're not doing anything incriminating, and even if you did you wouldn't actually be cheating. I've subconsciously put down ground rules for the relationship already; such as don't listen to the heretic blabbering of a smiling dude in white clothes.
And it made me uneasy to see this child being baptized into this church, this belief. Probably like any religious people watching other religions do their thing. I felt like yelling "Hey, little one, they're lying to you, it's all bs! Don't let them do this to you!" but that wouldn't really be respectful. I guess I understand the ones who want to "save my immortal soul" a bit better. Although the thought is a little frightening.

Anyway, little one, I wish you great happiness and success in life. And I know you'll probably listen to the lies, and one day baptize your own children in the same church. If you do, I hope you'll remain blissfully unaware. If you don't, I hope you make a better path on your own. That's the best blessing I can put together right now, and I think it's a pretty damned good one.

Sancrified Ground

I visited the church here a few days ago... or more, it was a while, but I've been thinking to write about it a while, I just forgot, but almost every night I've thought, tomorrow I'll write it down.

It's not about the church per se. Churches are churches, no matter what religion or how big or where in the world. I have one solid idea, or opinion, or thought about churches, so they're all the same in that way. So I don't have a lot to say about the church.

But they have corpses in there. Remains. In sealed coffins on display for so many years. Hundreds of years. It was strange to me, because my faith says that the dead return to the Lifestream and move on, and it was odd, near absurd, to have the bodies of men and women dead hundreds of years ago still here. There was no good or bad to it. Just strangeness. Like watching a man turning himself inside out. Not obscene or facinating or gross. Strange.

And in one of those "rooms", I walked in and around the coffin, and this thought came pounding through in that way I really honestly only read about before. Otherwise I'm all too often aware of how I myself form the thoughts and then present them to myself, but this one was unprovoked. It just came, like someone else speaking. I was wearing my cap, and the thought said, "Take off your hat in the presence of a king!" Exactly those words. In english too.

I debated it for a second or two, because kings are really just men, and if the king cared, so what, and if he actually has some power because he was king, he's still dead, and if he still retains some kind of influence, he probably understands that it's just the modern ways to keep the cap on... and so on. A second or two. And then I took off my cap.

And now when I try to write something that makes sense about it, I keep coming back to; forget it. Thers is no need to explain. And also how representative of my personality the whole thing is.

Art; the extension of Faith

Dance. Like ripples of water through the emotions of the human body. Like expressing the universe with the flickering of a wrist, with the tilt of a shoulder. The language of the body perfected into the language of music, and ultimately, to the beat of a universal heart, the heart of the world.

This is the one thing I cannot express in words. No matter how poetic I try to be, or how accurate, or however well it can have you understand what I mean, this is the one thing I cannot, never, reproduce. Quite litterally. For with my leg I will never dance. And is it the forbidden fruit that sweeps my mind away, or the passion, the immersion, the ability to close your eyes and let your body drift on the ocean of existance or be tossed between the waves of chaos, that makes my eyes tear at the thought alone?

Dance. An embodiment of the concept I call beauty. An expression, an art, but most of all a path to the insides of your soul and the discovery that it is no more separate from the universe than a molecule of air is from the air itself. The world does not matter. Not the one you see or feel through your eyes or your ears or your skin. What matters is the flow, the beat. The beating of the heart of what some would call God, but that I have no word for.

There are no words.

Nature vs Nurture

Woke up in a horrible mood today. Wonder how those things work, those days that you've somehow decided for one emotion from waking up to going to bed, for no apparant reason. It's like laughing to make yourself happy or acting scared to become scared.

There's a manga/anime called Death Note. Awesome. Anyway, in part of it the main character makes sure he loses memory of everything he's done that far in the story, so that he can lie believably and not get caught. But the point of his plan is that he will regain his memory later on. He doesn't know that will happen. He doesn't even know if he'll still want the same things. But he has such faith in himself, he goes through with it.

These two things connect as follows: if you can manipulate so well your own emotions, and yourself, if it is so easy to change yourself, how easy wouldn't it be for others to change you? I wonder all this often, yet at the same time I have the feeling of that it's not true; that you, that I, would still remain no matter what. I believe in DNA, not environment. I believe in self, regardless of circumstances. "I" am as much a fluid concept as it is absolutely set in stone. The world exists to me only because I believe in it. And you can take the world from me, but I will still remain.

My virtue will be Faith.

The universe and me

The universe have spoken.
Faith is my answer.
No thing is weaker than a heart never broken,
but no thing is stronger than belief never tested.
And when all else have proven me wrong
I will still believe
Not that I can do everything
Not that I can do anything
but that I will remain
And that that is enough.
I am the single item
the single person
the one true entity and belief.
I am my own god, for
Without me
there would be no I
And I will remain.

Long beards and plaits

I read about Jews, and thus far, they seem by far the traditional organized religion that most reflects what God must really be. Some Jews, I suppose orthodox mostly, do not accept converting, because they were a chosen people. I think it's an admirable stand. And as for all those born not being a Jew, if they're good, God will take care of them anyway. Listen, if God is good, why would he actively give people reason to murder, like asking them to force religion upon other? How is that mercy? How is that faith? As for where evil comes from, I think it comes from our own minds. I read a book written by a Jew about their religion, and it says that in each and every case of crime, one must look to all circumstances, one must have compassion. Thus, I think, evil is subjective. Only God can judge. We must punish where we can do nothing else, but we must not judge.

We all break down sometimes. According to many of the elder generation, it's because we're all sissys. I think it's cuz we're godless. Not in the blasphemous, burn in hell way, but in the way that we have no faith. I admire the hero that stands up for his cause even when the whole world comes down on him, but would I do it? I would have to have faith. Immense faith in everything, in anything. I don't think my generation was brought up to have that faith.

Well, I'm not blaming anyore for not having faith, it's not something you can just get, like a banana from the supermarket. It's something that has to be planted and nursed into growing, and sometimes we can't do that nursing on our own.

Excuse me if I'm crying, I was watching an episode of The L Word.