Three thoughts at Christmas

Having some bad feelings every now and then doesn't mean that there is a demon attached to your face, and a milkshake might do the trick.

Christmas is a great time to reward good behavior but it probably shouldn't be turned into a Judgement Day for children.

Everyone wants a remote control car and a puppy.

Harnessing Hypocrisy

It is crazy for me to post this post so soon after my post about going ahead and letting your achievement be outside the church but I have this other idea that I have learned from my struggles with motives.  Even though sometimes you really can't do stuff with mixed motives, there are other times where it is more important to get the work done than to have some kind of pure unselfish heart, and the tendencies to want credit and attention can be used in your favor to just get more service out of yourself.  What I am saying is that maybe it is an option to just go ahead and be a hypocrit and get the hungry people fed. And to flamboyantly drop the hundred dollar bills in the offering plates in front of everyone.

Actors, find a stage.

This post is very similar to the one I just wrote, but I wanted to say something else I have learned as a person with acting skills and attention seeking behavior.  I think that if people have acting talent and have a tendency to play out characters in some kind of Christian sense where you are spending energy on trying to seem a certain way, then a way to immediately fix it is to find some kind of theatre hobby where you actually do acting. I am talking about plays, skits, and stand up comedy.  I think that makes people be themselves in other settings where it is tempting to exaggerate something like goodness, or kindness, or anything else admirable.  People might say well maybe the acting kind of people don't have to be themselves.  Well, some people do struggle more, and maybe acting a little bit here and there is being themselves, but God does mostly tell us to be ourselves.

Fame and Glory

This post is something I figured out along the way and I think that for certain people who have certain sets of sinful tendencies, it could really save your life or your church's life. I think it is especially helpful for people who are a little bit attention seeking like I am.  Basically I noticed as I grew up and tried to follow all the great teachings from church and the Bible, that some of the worldly attitudes and habits that Christians are supposed to avoid can actually be somewhat unavoidable in a way that makes people choose the option of pretending.  And what I am saying is that even with basic intentions to not be overly concerned with things like fame, wealth, and power, these ambitions often just get transferred to Christian settings instead of denounced entirely which is most people's intention. So people who do mean well decide not to spend their efforts on making a lot of money or trying to be famous, and they try to instead live a life of humble service.  That is great and that is the Christian life.  But I think it is hard for some people to not go ahead and pursue that extra love and attention and even a search for money but in a setting where all the other rules are Christian.  So they build their empire as a church volunteer. I mean really it can still mostly benefit people and an ambitious church can be a great gift to the community.  But I am saying that personal desires to be known in a certain way and to have a comfortable life play out in a Christian setting and kind of intrude it with something that was supposedly going to be different than all those bad people on TV.  So what I think is the answer is for some people to go ahead and try to go after their ambitions in a more worldly sense and go ahead and be rich and successful in the way that many Christians have denied themselves.  I am saying that people with some tendencies are better off just going for the worldly fame and glory and that ultimately, even with judging Christians looking on, in their souls they will be more honest and the church will be preserved. And maybe they can give some cash later, and maybe they have an outreach that even they do not realize.

How Good

One time I read a book about the categories of Catholic saint characteristics and qualifications.  I can't remember all the categories that the book focused on, but some of them included teaching and influence, suffering and self denial, service, like to the poor, and maybe one or two more. I wondered at the time why creativity wasn't a category, since that is also a witness of God's nature, and recently I thought that a specific type of suffering, like humiliation, could have been considered a factor.  Most of all, I think that everyone who tries to do what they are supposed to in life has a mix of these things in their lives, and people do not always know what everyone's true sacrifices or suffering is.  So even though I think it can be good to pick some superheroes and say okay everyone, '"this person got it right," I think I side with the Protestants in thinking that asking Christ's perfection to count for them puts everyone on a path of glory where almost anything in their lives will be some kind of demonstration of God's goodness, even if it includes things like failure at being good, and grief about that failure.

For other people with monk tendencies

            I just have a few thoughts for this post which is about appetites and hunger.  Sometimes when people really want to be a good person and pray a lot and accomplish some kind of great service and sacrifice, they try to be strict and disciplined in many ways.  Jesus did say to deny yourself and following Christ does involve great sacrifice in a way that is often habitual.  But everyone needs love and attention and food and happiness.  People can get frustrated by hunger and find that it interferes with their lifestyle goals and keeps them from being as strict or dedicated as they wanted to be, or maybe... seem.  But I have found that these appetites can actually be some of the best things we have going for us as we try to live a good life and do what we are supposed to.  Appetites can keep us honest and connected to others, and relatable.  Going ahead and letting yourself get some attention and eat some yummy food not only keeps you happy and healthy enough to serve people well, but it can be an act of service itself, or put you in the situations where you see other people's needs that you can help with.   Most of all, it can prevent the hypocrisy of always trying to seem better than people. If eating a big plate of food with a friend or hero can be the greatest secret weapon against one of the worst sins, I would say that is the deal of a century and from now on I am only going to read my Bible if I also get ice cream.

Thanks Anyway

You know what is a section in the Bible that confuses me a little bit?  It is the part where Jesus tells people about a guy who was proudly thanking God for not being as bad as other people, and then told about a guy who publicly said "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner," or something like that. Then Jesus says that God prefers the humility of the groveling sinner.  I found that verse comforting during my worst depression where I felt so horrible and guilty all the time, but I often want to thank God for all the horrible things that have not happened in my life, and it confuses me a little bit that maybe we aren't supposed to. Like maybe we aren't supposed to thank God for not being one of those bad Isis people or a child abuser or something like that.  I think the idea is that we don't know all the consequences of our every day behavior and the loss of the good we haven't done but could have.  But I am thankful that I have not done worse things than I have, and especially as someone with mental illness and anger problems, I don't take it for granted that there are a lot of crimes I have not committed.  So I have kind of decided that I will go ahead and thank God for all the ways that things could have been worse for me, including the category of my own behavior, and maybe if I thank him too much every time there is a shooting that I didn't do, then I will eventually feel so bad about my pride that I will say more things like "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner."

Worldly Monk Concept

Water and mud make bricks, especially under the sun, which can be useful for foundations of glorious kingdoms or humble havens.  I feel that a water and mud comparison to what I have experienced helps me view my opportunities with hope as I have learned to make the most of being thoroughly overcome by what has to be the most disgusting culture that has ever existed. My mind and my soul and my life and environment are covered in the grime of this world, and in about years three and four of working at a Barnes and Noble for a long time, I started to accept this reality and decided to take every advantage I could to pray well in this condition.  I have heard people talk about "trappings" before, and how people can sometimes escape the distractions and burdens of life and find sanctuary in places like the mountains or ironically to a "desert" to find rest and spiritual oasis. I have some memories of places like that from when I was a kid, but as an adult, I have found the true traps that people have set to be inescapable, horrifically violating, and burdensome in a soul crushing way that I do not expect to ever recover from in this life. Keeping insurance was the killer for me, but there are other traps in our culture, like the constant threat of debt and bad credit, low wages and high rent, email and personal information scams, unavoidable terrible music, disgusting movies that starve millions for satisfying storylines, and terrible news headlines about other people being violated in far worse ways. I almost can't take it at all, but over time have found great hope through prayer, and am so appreciative of all my links to humanity that retreating seems like it would be the least pure and good thing I could do. I am starting this blog as a place to share some reflections about what I have learned along my nasty, briar filled mud trap sand spur path, and I hope that people can find some happiness in a field of wildflower ideas grown with all the water that my shattered bucket could never hold.