Categories
carrying the cross

Two crosses we must bear

Of all the crosses
we must bear in life
these two are the most painful:

that we cannot be loved enough

and that we cannot love enough
the people we care about the most

Categories
Poems

Salvation (poem)

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God was there
from the very beginning
but I knew Him not
and I turned away

I looked at the world
and beheld its splendor
til that same splendor
snatched me
and I was thrown
amidst its cold brightness
and I yearned for the warmth of home

In despair I wept
and I cried out to my God:
Rescue me for I desire not these things
and I will have none of this beauty
if only to be back in your arms

And my God heard me
and ran to me
and snatched me away from the world
and took me even
within His heart

Therein only
did I find joy
and peace
and LOVE
atlast!

Categories
God Words of Wisdom

Why doesn’t God intervene in man’s affairs?

One of the most common questions asked about God is this- If God is good, why doesn’t He intervene in the affairs of man? This is especially so when there is suffering or an evil that should have been stopped by a good God.

What might happen indeed when God intervenes:
· God stops us from getting sick
· God stops us from dying when attacked by others
· God stops us from sinning
· God stops others from sinning against us

As we might note, if God intervenes, He must consistently do so also in order not to be deemed as imperfect or as evil. And when He does, the Laws of this world He has created shall all be broken by the very One who created it. Freedom and freewill shall no longer be, and He will infringe upon the dignity of the man He has so created in His very own image.

The source of suffering in this life comes from two things
1. Suffering of the physical body
2. Suffering of the spiritual self

To what suffering then must God intervene for us all that we may deem Him Good and Perfect?

· As to remedying sin (cause of suffering of spiritual self), Love cannot be forced
· As to remedying physical illness and death (cause of suffering of physical body), it would be a curse to give immortality to those who have not learned of love.

Categories
Life

What leads us to extreme religious beliefs?

What leads us to extreme religious beliefs? 

Some people would insist on conviction, others would say they are those who found the right way.  Yet what is it that prompts us to find these convictions? 

I think that we are most afraid of things that we do not know, and so we try to explain everything, even at the expense of reaching the extreme.  People are most uncomfortable with the mysterious that we’d rather side with an absolute statement than suffer the vagueness of matters we can’t resolve.

We don’t like the abstract.  And so goes the many beliefs we have now that seems to cast all other things aside-

Beliefs that unless we do this and that, we won’t be saved, and we won’t reach heaven.

Beliefs that since there are many things we can’t explain about God, then there must be no God at all.

Beliefs formed from the wonders we observed in nature, such beliefs that make us worship nature alone.

Beliefs saying that because having desires causes us so much frustration then we should have no desires at all and lose our personal identity altogether.

We cannot connect everything perfectly yet.  And though this should not prevent us from seeking out the truth, uncertainties for the moment need not take us to extreme beliefs either.  I am lead to belief that this line of thinking was what made Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.  They wanted to know everything that they would do everything even if it is not yet time.  Must we eat the forbidden fruit also?  Can we not be comfortable with the mysterious for the moment and enjoy the wonderful revelations given us one moment at a time?

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.” -Albert Einstein