The forgotten age of Christendom.

Oh, to live in a non-secular age...

I am increasingly frustrated at the attitude of our world. People have forgotten that for centuries, Christianity (and Catholic Christianity, for that matter, as it was the only Christianity for some time) was the dominant culture of the entire world. Not to say it was dominant in the east, but for the most part, worldwide Christianity was the most powerful driving force in every day life.

However, apparently the past 50 years has undone all of this. People no longer remember an age of Christendom. People act as though Christianity has always been little more than an opinion, a cute emblem of a primitive past. Christianity was once the foundation and saving power of society, intellect, spirituality, and freedom. Those days are, sadly, only a memory. People born in my age have either inherited a crumbling Church that they want so desperately to lift up and bring people into, or have come from families who rejected it long ago...or who are doing so now.

It makes a passionate, fiery young spirit like myself wish that I were a crusader going off to fight a holy battle...NO...NOT LIKE YOUR PROFESSOR TELLS YOU THEY "ACTUALLY WERE..." The Crusades were a rescue mission from Muslim aggression, and only devolved because of the actions of a few without papal permission. Read this article if you're having trouble understanding/believing what I'm saying.

Anyway, I often wish that I could fight a physical battle. It's very hard sometimes being a male and watching what I care about crumble around me. I wish to fight a battle with sweat and blood, not words and prayers.

Yeah, kind of like that! Thanks Aragorn!

I can only imagine the sorts of comments I might get now..."Prayer is a spiritual battle!" "We don't want to hurt people with violence! Jesus said those who live by the sword..." Yada yada. I know this people.

The only way that I can explain this is to simply say that I am the kind of person whom, every once in a while, just wishes to do things concretely and to have excitement and some risk. I am fond of thinking that I would gladly die knowing I actually did some real fighting in an effort to make a difference, than sat idly by while reading story after story of failures of the Church at large to defend society against secularism. If you find yourself thinking any variation of the thoughts in the previous paragraph, just suffice it to say that you just don't understand what I'm talking about.

A nice little way to end this rant, I suppose, is that I know in the end that we will win. The last few verses of the bible quite explicitly say so. I can only hope that somehow I can take part...or something.

Yeah, yeah! I like how you illustrate everything I'm feeling, Aragorn!

Well, reader, I feel I've gotten off track a bit. Please pray for an end to secularism and fight in your everyday words, actions, and expressions of joy in your life in Christ to bring back a Christian culture. Only then can our crumbling world put an end to the increase in suicide, divorce, depression, and of course...sin.

Amen.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to fight for Christendom.

Considerations of reorganizations.

I never thought I would miss having only a few friends.

But I do. I miss the days when I only had one or two real friends. Because in those days, my friendships were real and valuable. But for a long time now I've been stuck in this trap where I have lots of pseudo-friendships where I'm the only one who is reaching out to people. I do all the work in the friendship, they just show up. I'm tired of it.

Back when I only had a few friends, we hung out all of the time. I felt like I was missed when I was gone. I called them, they called me, I was invited to places, everything. I thought having more friends would mean I would have more friends like this. But I was wrong. I only found that I would, in effect, lose all of my friends, because a one-sided friendship is not a friendship at all.

I think I'm going to reorganize how I spend time with people. I have a small list of people whom I really believe I connect with (my girlfriend is of course included in this list of friends) and I am going to be dedicated to regularly spending time with. Anyone else...take them or leave them. If they reach out to me, I will reciprocate that and invite them back. But if people don't contact me anymore, don't do half the work of keeping a friendship together, I won't try anymore. Because frankly, it's exhausting.

How many times have I found out when people are available, painstakingly fit them into my schedule, picked them up, took them somewhere and led conversation? How many times have I tried to make them feel welcome in my life, to encourage them to reach back? How many times have I watched them do this to anyone but me, and I would wait and wait to see myself treated likewise only to be disappointed?

Now you might think that I'm just a special case, and not everyone just reaches out to people like I do. And you would be wrong, because they do. I would think I would at least have one friend who would be a "special case" like me and be "into" asking people out. But I don't. I can't remember more than about two instances where people did that for me. Maybe you are also thinking that many of my friends just don't reciprocate the kind of friendship I feel for them and would just like to hang out with the people they like best. And that's fine, but that would mean I have no friends. And I just can't accept that.

So, for the select few close friends I have, I will be patient with them and their busy schedules and eagerly await when we can spend time together, and if other people reach back out to me like I have to them alone for over a year, then I will continue to be their friend. But I am a grad student now, and I have a job, and I'm busy and I will not stand to be ill-treated anymore.

Perhaps someday I will feel differently and change my mind. But until then, this is the law.

I expect I am saying a lot of goodbyes now.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for no more faux friends.

On types of friendships.

Here are some of my observations on friendships.

Some friendships are those that just sort of flop. You hang out with them at some part of your life and then at some point you just stop seeing each other around anymore. They were a part of your life for a little while and then they become a stranger again.

There are also those friendships where you see each other all the time but never really talk. You're friendly and warm but you're not really friends.

Then there are those friendships which are like the previous two. One day you're close and then another you kind of wonder whatever happened between you two, and you never really hang out anymore. You're always nice and talk about how you should see each other again, but only one person or neither is really willing to reach out and reconnect. If this happens to you a lot, you kind of wish you had friendships like the next category...

...which I lovingly call the "best friends forever" category. These sort of friends are very enthusiastic about each other and "inseparable." I wish I had these sorts of friendships, but I can't ever really recall having a friend like that. Or, well, at least an instance where it was mutual, which is just uncomfortable.

Then again, I am very lucky to have the best sort of friendships, which are the friendships frozen in time. You know when you have a friend and don't see them for a while, but when you do, it's like nothing ever happened in between? You just sort of pick up where you left off and everything is like it once was.

That's what a real friendship is like.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for friendships frozen in time.