Tuesday, November 16, 2010

the cliff and the void

            It is getting late; I should be going soon.  Yet I cannot pull myself away.  I am on the threshold once again and I have to decide if I will jump into the void or stay safe on the cliff.  It isn’t like this cliff is made of unstable material.  My life has been built on this cliff in many ways and there is a foundation that can equate success if I continue to firm up the foundation.  Yet the void lingers.  I have not forgotten that void; there is something about the darkness that beckons to us all.  I stare into the darkness and it is cold, yet in that coldness is a familiarity that is welcome.  It is okay if I don’t always feel warm.  Sometimes the cold is what I want.
            The cliff became smaller for a while.  Or perhaps it is that I just forgot how far down it went.  If you look at the other side you start to see flat land and you forget that there is a steep drop.  I often sit and look at that safe side; confident that I am secure in my comfortable bed and my well lit rooms.  I don’t bother to look out the back; I know what is out there and I don’t want to risk what I have gained.
            Yet there are times like tonight that I am drawn to the cliff once again.  I ponder the jump and the dark.  I long to see if the void is a deep as it always was and if I can get lost in it once again.  There is a power to it that you don’t find on the safe side.  The free fall that gives you a queer sense of purpose.  You forget that there is sleep to be had and food to be consumed and an adult life to be had.  You see the thrill ride and the night time and when you are a creature of the night you never get scared.  Unless you look back to the safe side again……
            

Monday, November 8, 2010

Who or what do you follow?

I just read Joshua 24:15.  It says that you should choose who your family is going to worship whether it be the gods of your ancestors or not but for Joshua; he is going to follow the Lord.  I realize that I have paraphrased that quite a bit but you get the idea of the passage.
For those of you who follow this blog you obviously know that I am a Christian and I follow the Lord as well.  But it this passage got me thinking today.
I follow the Lord, you may choose not to.  You may follow Buddha, or Mohammed, or Ganesh, or someone else.  But do you have a god or God?  Do you follow the teachings and the ideals of a person?  Do you try and live a good life according to those laws?
I think that for a long time everyone would have said "of course".
But is that changing?
Perhaps the reason why there are so many problems right now is that people aren't following a higher power anymore but just themselves.
If you just do what is best for you; how good is the world going to be?  6 billion people out there only thinking of themselves and not each other.  That will make the world a better place alright!
While I haven't studied the major religions extensively I have noticed that they all pretty much want you to act in a healthy and generous way toward your fellow human beings.
But if you think you are the center of the universe and you are the one that matters the most then you aren't going to take the extra time to think of your neighbor if it doesn't coincide with what you want to have happen to yourself at any given moment.
An easier way to say that is that people who only think of themselves don't care who they step on or squash as long as they get their way.
If we all would work on loving and helping our neighbor a little more and thinking of what is the best for everyone and not just ourselves (and everyone did that) then just think of what the world could be like......
That could be a place that we would all want to live and live well in.