depravity

It's been awhile since I've been reminded of this. And that is this: it's easy to be an okay person around people you are not terribly close to. And when you're around people you're not terribly close to, you begin to convince yourself that you are, in fact, an okay person. Until you truly believe that you're an okay person.

For me, it was much easier to be convicted of my sin in high school. Which is ironic, since I attribute a lot of my spiritual growth to my college years. But it was in high school that I faced real conflict. Mostly with my family, and mostly because I lived at home. But once I went to college, I found myself surrounded by people I knew less well. Sure, I would say that I've made some really close friends, but I was never forced into the kind of intimacy that you have with your parents and your siblings. Or the kind of intimacy that you start to have with your significant other.

And it's worse now that I've graduated. I get along with my family just fine (which I appreciate). I get along with my coworkers. I get along with people at church. But it's taken the beginning of a somewhat more intimate relationship to give me a rude awakening to the fact that, hello, I suck. That there's a bunch of garbage inside of me that I completely forgot about. Sure, it takes some prodding to stir it all up to the surface. But it's there. My recent spiritual life has been a reflection of that inner stagnation all along, but sometimes it takes some (and hardly any, really) intimacy to really bring it all out into the open.

No one has any right to talk to anyone about love until they've actually tried to love someone. And not love someone as in, be nice to your neighbor. Love as in, love. Very descriptive, I know. It's hard. And it really isn't that surprising that the divorce rate is so high. We're not worse off than we were before. We're just better at accepting these things.

I'm writing a lot. But really, what I feel right now, is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I have no right to talk about love, either. Me being so experienced and all... 

But in all seriousness. To those people who say "God is either all-powerful or all-loving, but He can't be both because of all the suffering in this world": if you're anything like me at all, you really have no idea what love is. Would it be all-loving to give everyone what they wanted? What I think is good is so not-good sometimes. Especially in my attempts to relate to others. I'm so self-centered that I'm completely blind to my self-centeredness. And that's a cycle that only God can pull me out of. But really, sometimes I'm so convinced that what I'm doing from self-centeredness is actually the loving thing to do. Blah. Random protip: if you're going to send out a serious email, wait at least 24 hours before doing so. Okay, I realize I'm probably not making any sense here, but that's fine.

Who are we to question God? I think Francis Chan said something along the lines of, God has more of a right to question us about the suffering in this world. I agree.

relationships

Sometimes, when I see a flaw in someone else, I feel that if I don't point it out, they will never realize it and therefore never change. So it becomes very necessary for me to catalog these flaws, and point them out in a very reasonable manner. Once per flaw! And not all at once. I just need to get it out there, you know? And then I can rest easy. They might not change right away after hearing about it. They might not change at all. But I am absolved of responsibility. And who knows? Maybe sometime in the future they'll recall what I said. Maybe I don't need to be there when they do. I don't need to belabor the point, just mention it once.

How ridiculous, right? I really need to learn to let God work in people. To pray for people. To trust that God can change people without my direct intervention. To believe that people can be convicted of their sin without having someone point it out to them. But really. I need to figure out this plank in my eye before I worry about the specks in others'.

hubris

There's some saying. That a bottle empty or a bottle full will make no sound when shaken; but a bottle half full is always the loudest.

Your friend who just started working at HP probably knows just as much about HP's decision to spin off its PC division as you do. Everything he knows he got from the media, and maybe a generic company-wide email that has also been leaked to the media. Yet the fact that he works at HP gives him instant credentials on this subject matter. Blegh, right?

But I've been guilty of this myself. I've been polygraphed twice, and I often talk as if I know all about polygraphs. But the statistics I cite (precision, recall) come from what I've read online, and has nothing to do with me having been polygraphed.

You take a course on evolutionary biology, and suddenly you're arguing with some christian who takes the first few chapters of Genesis literally. You read a few news articles that cite some random climate scientists, and all of a sudden you're indignant at anyone who doesn't believe in climate change. I'm guilty of all of the above. Sometimes my ill-founded conclusions turn out to be true, sometimes not.

But what if you really are an expert in something? You've devoted your entire life to studying physics; not only that, it turns out you're one of the best physicists (if not the best physicist) in the world? I would argue that's even more dangerous, because surely no one can deny your right to be proud. And then you go and use your physics credentials to comment on something like the existence of God. Sure, there are some interesting arguments to be made using physics, but an expertise in one area often provides a false conviction in another.

But wait. What if you devote your entire life to the study of philosophy, of religion, of history, of everything and anything pertaining to the question you are trying to answer. Surely your convictions are well-founded then?

It was said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. But the same might also be said of the wise man. Or the knowledgeable man. For knowledge, and pride, often blind us.

The wise will be shown to be fools, and the fools, wise. It is easy to look down at the christian who blindly believes without questioning. Who blindly serves. Who takes incorrect theology for granted. But who's to say he is the real fool? For maybe he is wise and you are the fool.

Someone said that he'd rather go to hell intentionally, than to stumble into heaven by accident. And really, that notion is appealing. My first reaction was to say, I agree! But wow, such hubris. To assume that the outcome of our lives, even our intellectual contemplations, are dictated by our intentions. And to claim that the child-likeness of someone else's faith is not intentional.

seriously

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

children

When you have your first child, you think... how can I ever love someone more? But when your second child comes, you realize your love isn't divided between the two of them. With another child comes a greater capacity for love, enough to encompass the both of them.

(paraphrased, obviously :p)

The analogy of God as our Father is apt in this sense, and many more I imagine.

marriage

Getting married is like applying a sticker to a sticker board; and getting divorced is like peeling it off. The sticker clings best the first time. Afterwards, it's never the same, and the sticker is easier to peel off on subsequent tries. Soon, you've given up on love. And by the 3rd or 4th marriage, you're just looking for companionship, really. Not the sort of love you first envisioned. It's never, never, the same. So get it right the first time. Pray, a lot.

(paraphrased)

character

"Being the kind of person your dog thinks you are."