Hello everyone, I have another idea to share, and it is pretty crazy.  It has to do with regrets and how what might have happened on those alternate paths could have been randomly horrible.  I had to say random when I am discussing God's plan, of all things, but what I am saying does support being thankful for God's overall providence. Many people already teach that he has a plan for each person and does everything for the benefit of anyone who loves his son Jesus Christ. So that is good to know.  But there is something else to say on a more practical level, and I hope people can see the difference between the main teaching and this other reassuring thing that is less appreciated.  It is just a comforting thing to remember when you actually have made larger mistakes.  And that is this: You could have been killed by a random tornado or accident or choking on a jelly bean on that other path that you think you should have taken.

Do you see how that is kind of absurd and yet true?  Like we just don't know the bad things that could have happened on the better trajectory of success or getting what we think we wanted. Like okay, I would have like to be a successful English teacher for twenty years.  But we don't know that I wouldn't have wound up in the news after an emergency I didn't handle well, or even something stupid like trip and fall outside of the school and be paralyzed for the rest of my life. I mean the stupider and more unlikely the incident, then the closer to the point I am trying to make.  

And here is the other thing about this:  A lot of times, meaninglessness is actually more of a weapon of pain and evil.  Senseless problems are a sad thing in the world.  But what if you can take that and console yourself about what has happened.  We all have things to be thankful for, and even when you are sorting out problems of poverty and failure, there are random horrors that haven't happened and to our knowledge, could have happened on any day if things had turned out better.

 Hello everyone. This post is about a connection between a bible story and mental health topic.  I never thought about it until a support group leader named Kyah said something that made me think of it.  It is about suicidal people staying alive and Jesus's commendation of the widow who gave two cents.

In the bible story, Jesus said that the widow who put two coins in a charity jar gave the most because she gave all that she had.  I always thought about this story having to do mainly with money.

But I think of course it can refer to other things, and for my life, I relate to it as a commonly suicidal person.  Sometimes people with depression or other chronic conditions can only manage to survive.  And the strength is not enough for a lot of other relating and achievement for certain stretches of time.  But as the group leader named Kyah said, staying alive can be a lot.  And I think that is how God sees it too.

So that is interesting. It is very simple.  I mean it can apply to everything, and how it can always pay to do whatever you can, even if it seems like not that much.

When God is good and people are bullcrap

  Hello everyone, I just watched a sermon from my church called echo church. The pastor relayed some teaching from another pastor who I did not follow, and who I just now realized might have been one of those people peddling a popular idolatry narrative where everything in your life is compared to idol worship because you don’t subscribe to a popular evangelical surge of membership. Often it is assumed that you have that problem if you have depression, anxiety, or other mental illness and disability. But what really happens is that you have increasing amounts of unfulfillment because you are left out of the main church effort. It could be because you are female, black, gay, depressed, or anything else that causes you to lose the race or clamor or whatever that word is to get to the podium. So you invest your life in other options, usually more “worldly,” only to be held up as an example of someone who might have well done blood sacrifices to gold statues. 

This is the most popular teaching of the conservative presbyterians. I am too tired now as a person to really stand up to it. So do you know when they will be confronted about it? On Judgement Day with a speech from Jesus Christ. They will be heartbroken. Well you have had literally thirty years to figure out you were wrong. Will you be relieved to see that a hundred million people actually go to heaven after all? I mean maybe you already know but are too stubborn to admit that you just wanted the attention at church. What else will you throw behind your charade? Lives. Lives of full grown people.

So while you baptize a dwindling few people with a handful of water, your hitmen go after everyone else with electric shock gloves.

It is you, it is that nagging sense of social betrayal that you learned to ignore as early as college, and it is also the people who weren’t won over to anything because they found their attention by disliking you. 

You know who you’re like? Nietzche, with his big complicated book explaining his bullcrap denial of God. Only some of you have a whole life dedicated to your lies as well. A following, some publications, and your growing dread of that day that God forces you to admit in front of everyone that the whole world is a prop in your little Y- Wam skit. People want names. I have a good example to use, but won’t say it, lest people mistake that person for a lamb.