Requiem for a wedding.

I wonder why people make wedding receptions feel like a goodbye party.

I recently attended one for a dear, dear friend. Let me tell you about this friend. She was someone who, against all odds and reason, became my friend and was there for me during a difficult time in my life. Almost every day of last summer, she loved me as if I were her brother and helped me when I needed it the most. And I think I’ll probably never have that with her again. Things always change when people get married, which was all I could think about while I was at her wedding reception, and she was as beautiful and jovial and alive as always. Her story goes on without me. Exeunt: I have left her tale as a character, probably forever. Although I know we will probably speak again, it won’t be like it was in my last summer in the college town I loved…sitting there listening to her, and having her listen to me.

Sometimes when I wonder why it feels like the universe has conspired to make me exactly the strange person that I am, and destiny conspired to bring me to the people and places I needed to be at, that I was chosen for a role in people’s lives that brings so many mixed feelings. I met someone recently who sympathized with me on the feeling that our lives are not our own, but for her it was a joyful, pleasant thing. I would have to say that reading this blog would deceive my readers into believing that it is not so with me. I said mixed feelings: this is true. It was a joy to meet my friend, as it is a joy to have helped her in her times of struggle, and to have her in return help me last summer…all because of chance, it would seem. But the 'saying goodbye' is as painful as the 'getting to know' is joyful. I always lose as much as I gain. And that’s when I write about it. Because, what else is there to do? You can’t go back in time. So I immortalize my memory in type.

I do know that it is not truly destiny, chance, or the universe, but God that has done these wonderful things to me and through me. But as much as I wish it did, this has never brought me much comfort. Even when I sit in silence over the thought that God loves me and that my day will come, it never quite overcomes the feeling that the sort of happy ending I see at weddings is not for me, never for me. I darkle, I tinct, the Man in Black from the Dark Tower would say. It just doesn’t seem to “fit” the theme of my story. My life is about moving, growing, building an empire of love and friendship, watching it topple, and then building it all over again. Perseverance, not permanence; truth, not trust; cynicism, and not certainty.

But, of course, I still want it. Why not? It’s what I do. It’s all I do.

And so I go on as I always do, and I always make the choices that seem like they are the only choices…and when things go well, they go well. When things don’t go well, all I can ask is “what else was I supposed to do?” And there is never a reply.

For now though, I am happy. I am tired and happy, and I could not ask for better than that.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a change in theme.

The Hardest Part, part 2.

I was listening to one of my favorite songs, the Hardest Part, by Coldplay, and reflecting on how it had been my anthem for a little over a year...until now.

The Hardest Part speaks to me about how hard letting another person go is. Saying goodbye as they leave your life that they filled so full of love and joy...even though you might try to fight to get them to stay in your life somehow. They were your silver lining on the cloud, and now they're gone, and you can't figure it out or what it's all about. It's the hardest part of life.

...And then again, maybe the reason I had been so upset over the last few years at college is that there was no breath of fresh air. No sweeping in of new people in the front door of my world. Only a few, here and there, but I would be so eager to welcome them I'd ruin it for both of us. They would come into my world and I would make them my whole world...even done tactfully so that I wouldn't overwhelm them like a clingy borderline person, somehow even if they were my whole world in spirit it would still be ruined.

And here I am. New city, new job, new life. I'm happy as I can never recall being. My life has new dignity that I never knew I needed from working for my pay, it has new excitement and adventure from being in a new place with new people. And learning new things about God! I didn't realize how much my faith life had been stagnating from being in a community that remained the same age while I got older!

There's just one thing that's...odd.

It feels like I've known these people before. Even as I've been writing about new aspects of my life, there's something that feels distinctly the same. Every person I meet reminds me strongly of someone else...sometimes I know who that person is, and sometimes it's only that I feel déjà vu when I see them.

It's an odd new cognitive dissonance. On the one hand I feel like everyone I meet is so unique and unlike anything I've ever experienced...a new universe to get to know! It's so exciting! Limitless potential to explore the life and experiences of another person...as soon as we know each other well enough, I guess. Then on the other hand, it feels like I already know everything about them. Is this a counselor thing? Is this my intuition gone wild?

Maybe I'm just imagining things.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that the hardest part was over.

The new journey.

I find my lack of faith disturbing.

Of course, I always knew I would find I was wrong about the whole transition away from college but I never really felt it in my heart. All I knew was that I was moving away from everyone and everything I ever loved and that I was broken over it.

However, I think I'm finally sane again.

I think being in my beloved college home made me crazy in some ways. I really do. To no wonder! Think of all I put up with during college: saying goodbye to dear, dear friends every year; watching people fall in love, get engaged, get married, move on; trying and failing to gain that for myself; watching friends come and go out of my life constantly. Of course I went insane!

These days, I have already made significant strides in becoming a capable adult. Only occasionally now do I feel an overwhelming urge to call someone on the phone crying, whereas while I was up north it was daily, even if I rarely followed through. I am not nearly as lazy as I used to be, and I feel like I think clearly and with much more confidence. Overwhelming confidence! Not the norm for me.

The best part is I am much less interested in dating than I used to be. Not a day went by that I didn't think about how nice it would be to share my life with someone. Nowadays, I still have that a lot, but I also think about how good and right it is to be single right now. It just makes sense and feels like a good fit. Being single for most of college was hard! I had to watch so many lovely relationships blossom while I spent my nights alone. That was a bitter pill to swallow, especially when it was someone who I wanted for myself!

God's plan pulled through and makes sense, as it always does. I am with good people now - the people I work with, I mean. It's a good fit, plain and simple. They are my kind of people. I also have new opportunities to make lasting friendships, even though it is a much slower process...yuck! I'm building a future full of financial security, much more than I could have hoped for. If I ever have a family, that's going to be a necessity, and why not start now? My whole "I'll live in a box if it means I don't have to leave all my friends" idea...maybe wasn't so smart.

Speaking of friends, the church group seems like a dream come true. It has the seriousness and solemnity I grew to love at the beginning of college, and all the unity of purpose and emphasis on social events that I found later on. I can finally grow in my faith again, something I've felt has been lacking during the past couple years.

This is a good new journey.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to have faith in something new.

Railroaded.

"Maybe it's time to change...And leave it all behind! I've never been one to walk alone, I've always been scared to try. So why does it feel so wrong, to reach for something more...to wanna live a better life? What am I waiting for? 'Cause nothing stays the same. Maybe it's time to change."

I feel like many of the changes and choices I've made in the past year and a half were not my own. My career has never been my primary concern in life (perhaps a fault) but yet, in the past year and a half I've completely changed my career path, and made it a reality...almost effortlessly. I applied to a competitive program late and got in...two years later, I'm going to graduate. I passed both my major exams to become a counselor, with barely any effort. I've been getting congratulated on passing them, but honestly...I barely studied. How did I succeed?

Yet, the things I've put the most effort into the last six years have been mostly unsuccessful. The things I chose for myself, the things I wanted most were always out of reach. My career was always something off in the corner...a necessary burden. But yet, I've succeeded in that effortlessly.

It feels like a path has been chosen for me. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up where I am. It seems like just yesterday, I planned to ask my girlfriend to marry me within months, find a job in English, and keep in touch with all my friends...two and a half years later, I don't have any plans at all, but it looks like somehow I'm going to go off alone to a distant city to be a counselor with no plans to date anyone ever again. I could have never planned this. In fact, I didn't. This wasn't the plan at all, and I have done barely anything at all to push it this way. Quite the opposite. I've fought it every step of the way, laying down my own plans...good plans. I was very methodical, very intentional in everything I did. Yet here I am.

I accept this, now. I don't like it, but I accept it. My good friends tell me I should like it. I agree, I wish I could. I wish I could want what God apparently wants to give to me. But I don't. I don't yet understand or know how to want something that I don't really want. I'm just not there.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to unrail.

Trying again.

"Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt." -J.R.R. Tolkien

It's amazing how thoroughly clouded my view of the world around me can be when I am upset. The world can seem like such a dark place when you've gone a long time without hope of good things to come. You start to forget about the love and kindness that you are being shown by others right now. I can only say how sorry I am that I do not recognize it like I should.

Furthermore, the rather dark nature of this blog over the past year has more than once got me into trouble. Hard words can be interpreted in even harder ways. I no longer know how to reconcile my desire to share my feelings while being obscure enough to conceal my identity and the true circumstances of my life from the internet, and also being understood perfectly. It has gotten me scolded once, and now I've lost a friend for it - or rather, accelerated a disintegration of one.

I do not know how to reverse this process I am going through. It is true that I have a poor attitude. A very poor attitude, indeed. I am attempting to improve this. Already I have made progress. I have enjoyed a wedding without being focused on self-pity very much for the first time in a few years. Furthermore, I feel I have gained some measure of resolved toward rectifying my spiritual life. This is progress.

I think what is most needed in my life right now is to maintain an attitude of gratitude for whatever it is I have right now. It is useless to continue to count my losses, whatever they may be. I have a small group of people in my life that really seem to care about me. I really don't know why. I think most people I interact with I make uncomfortable or am just rather grumpy and rude. But that shouldn't matter. They are there, so they are there. In addition, I also need to be more generous and less self-focused. Of course if I focus on myself, I will  get lost in all the sad things that have happened to me. I will get lost in my worry about the future and my anger over having to let go of my passion for my vocation and focus only on my career. If I give myself to others in whatever way I can, maybe I will forget about myself altogether. Nothing that happens to me has to bother me. That is my burden, my responsibility. I can feel good about life, even if I don't know how yet.

It's just time to try again.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to start over.

On the expression of feeling.

Emotions are a wonderful thing. It seems like everyone has them but not everyone knows what they're for.

Emotions are messengers - they are supposed to send us a message and then leave us in time. When they fester, they become a problem. Momentary anger, for instance, can spur us to the defense of something good or to correct some injustice. Lingering, festering anger leads us to vengeance. Momentary sadness can lead us to seek others or to fulfill a need, but lingering sadness can lead to self-pity, self-hatred, or self-destruction.

I am not ashamed to admit that for a man I am unusually in touch with my feelings. However, this has had its drawbacks as well, because I can't escape them sometimes. I have found healthy outlets for my feelings...but some of them were good only temporarily, or misdirected...see my last few posts if you want to know what I mean.

In the quietness of my life right now, I have returned to writing down my feelings (outside of this blog). I don't really have very many people to talk to at the moment for various reasons, so this is a good alternative. Usually when there aren't many people around anymore, I get all-consumed by my loneliness, and that hasn't happened yet in this quiet space. I feel totally OK. I would very much like to keep it that way.

So, today I wrote a poem expressing my feelings. Tonight, I will be writing a letter I won't send. Tomorrow, who knows? I might write someone an email. Or call someone - if they answer, and if I can think of someone to call.

I suppose for the average person, managing a period of quiet in one's life is probably not a struggle. Not for me. I am weak to my feelings and always have been. My Dad would shame me for crying as a boy, and my elementary school principal told me I wear my heart on my sleeve. If that's a problem then it's mine to bear for good because I haven't yet found a cure.

I am very proud of myself for my progress. At this time last year, I was really a mess from my feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Now, I simply see this for what it is. I accept that if I do not reach out to people, I cannot expect that anyone will reach out to me. I expect that when I reach out, some people may not respond. It's just a fact. For you, reader, this may seem silly but for me this is revolutionary. When everyone left where I live, and no one tried to stay in touch and I was all alone I couldn't handle it. I did not handle it...very well at all. Now I am. Now I can.

I think what also helps is that I now see myself more for who I really am...not completely, but much closer than before. I am really not that great. I am not very special. But I'm worth something and I have dignity. I am necessary and I am loved. I am not always loved by people. I am often not loved by people. But I continue to make my way in the world - the often senseless and thoughtless, sinning, ordinary human being I am has a purpose I still have to discover...some kind of way for me to be a conduit for God's glory in the world...otherwise I would not be here, I would be dead already. I am no longer pretending I know what it is.

I think many times earlier in my blog, I felt I knew my purpose...and that vision led me to despair because I wasn't getting engaged, I wasn't getting a job, I wasn't growing deeper in friendship with certain people, and I wasn't getting anywhere near what I felt my purpose was. Now I know better. I do not assume I know what the future holds, nor do I look ahead. Oh, yes, sometimes I get little fantasies about what I hope will happen. But I try not to entertain them. I am only planning what I absolutely have to plan...because at any moment, God may blow my plans to smithereens and lead me off in a different, wonderful direction.

Who am I? I'm just me. Where am I going, and what's waiting for me there? I really don't know. How do I feel? Just fine.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of true expression.

The war of the self.

Often I feel like there are two people inside of me.

One sees the world in a very calm, relaxed way. "Let it be what it is," he says. He takes things one step at a time and trusts to God's providence. He is the heart.

The other sees that sometimes loving is hard and rational decisions have to be made that might feel bad. He is the mind.

Then there's me...and I'm trying to figure out how to reconcile the two: the rational and the emotional.

Today I made a choice that I think is my first step in finally reconciling my mind and my heart. For the first time, I am not polarizing myself, using just my reasoning or using just my heart. I listened to my feelings and thought about what to do. And then I did it.

It was not easy, but it was right. I think I'm going to be OK.

Though the outcome of what's been happening the last few weeks was not what I wanted, I think I finally understand why I was led here. It's because after I learned how to use my heart without using my head, and then learned how to use my head without listening to my heart, God wanted me to learn how to use both. So he gave me this difficult situation and I responded to his will.

I'm going to look forward to the next lesson. I hope it's a happier one!

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for head and heart.

A whirlwind in my head part two.

Title is in reference to this post.

"It's like a whirlwind in my head...but if I concentrate, I know what people are thinking all over the world. Presidents; diplomats; scientists. I can help them understand each other." - Highlander

"Do you remember when 21 years was old?" - Phoenix, Countdown

The last time I titled a post like this, a lot of things were changing at once in my life. It was like a whirlwind in my head...and it's happening again. In a very similar way.

I'm amazed at how I can finally plant both feet firmly on the ground only to have God knock me off of them. In a good way, of course. Lots of really good things are happening. Jobs are still an uncertainty, but I'm not worried. I think I know what to do.

I am feeling a little old. Yesterday, I happened to walk in on an engagement party. I had no idea these two were getting engaged...scratch that, I knew they would get engaged but I had no idea it would happen this soon. I wasn't really ready. I remember when they were just arriving to college...little more than children to my eyes. They are still really only children to my eyes. And now, they are going to get married. It's stunning. And here I was, off at a bar having a couple drinks with a friend. Life is leaving me behind.

But the good news is that the life that has left me behind is no longer relevant. No offense to those that this comment applies to, but I think the generation of people I poured my soul into the past five and a half years have turned out not to be the people who would remain in my life. It's the younger people who I never planned to meet (hey, until I applied to grad school I was planning graduating and planning to move away) that have turned out to be the ones that have really been reliable. "So much of life has left me and gone on ahead, but what was behind me this whole time has been better than I could have imagined." There are some really special people I would have missed if I had continued to spend all my energy on the people who continue to move on and away from me. I'm not trying anymore - it's just not worth it. God put new people in my life and the old have been swept away. That's OK.

I am continuing to take my own advice and just doing the good that comes to me and trusting in God to take care of everything else. I am really not at all sure where I am going anymore. I am not sure where I stand with my friends, especially one special friend in particular, and quite frankly I don't think it matters that I know. Good things will come to me in time and I will know, I will know what to do when it arrives.

This whirlwind is a good one, I can feel it.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for the wind at my back.

Let it be what it is.

Just recently I went on a nearly-week-long trip to Kentucky for the fourth and last time. I think this trip has been one of the best things to happen to me in a while.

It's like a fresh hypo of grace has been injected into my life. My head is clear for the first time in perhaps a year, and now I can look at my life with new eyes.

I think my most recent life lesson is that relationships need to be what they are. What I mean by this is that I have been so afraid of not having relationships or having poor ones...or simply not having the kind of relationship I want with a particular person has caused me to attempt to control them by means of a desperate system of mass invitations to be a part of my life that left me often exhausted and/or disappointed at the results.

With a little time I think I've realized that perhaps my last post was tipped to the opposite end of the scale. I've needed to find my balance, and I think I know what it is now. This week, there were only four other guys in a group of 24 (?) who went to Kentucky. I was literally forced to break my vow of only investing in male friendships. I did rather aggressively bond with my fellow men, but there were also several women that God figuratively dropped in on me that I was meant to be with. God needed me to fill a role, so I did. As always, God has the better idea. So I let those friendships be what they are.

I still have no plans in the near future to engage in any sort of romantic relationship, but I think I want to be more open to God intervening anyway. Which is really no different than what I said in my last post - only God himself will stop me.

Now, though, I am going to strike a balance and let my relationships be what they are. So much stress is taken on by myself and others who attempt to make relationships something when it doesn't matter (and never has mattered) what we have done. Relationships will always be what they are meant to be. Always. It is only up to us to let them be what they are. Is this a friendship? Then be a friend. That's it. No further questions nor actions necessary.

Thank you to everyone who helped me really cut loose and clear my mind. It's been great. I love you all.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that was what it was.

All that I am.

The only way to be great, is to be a part of something great.

The real tragedy of selfishness, I think, is not that it results in too much goodness for the self but too little. In the grand scheme of things, one person's effort is very little. I have learned through trial and error that everything I do for myself always comes up short. That's why after my last post, I actually changed my mind. Being a part of something greater is worth more than the sum of all of the personal reasons I had.

When I put forth effort to make myself great, all I ever really do is just attempt to feed a desire that can't be fed by myself. It is only when what meager gifts I have to offer are given in love to others that I am actually able to spread myself out into something greater. While I alone am small, together, many people are something great. And by being a part of that, I am great, too.

That is what makes life so grand. That is why God demands so much of us. In the end, the love we give is the love we receive. When I make someone else smile in whatever way I can, I also feel loved. Even when I am very upset and feel like life has been really unfair to me, if I can still make myself small and put others forth, all of that is erased. I diminish, and so do my worries. Others joys can become mine.

This is my only true pleasure in life, which is why I am dedicating it to the pursuit of healing and happiness in other people (my career). I only regret that it really took me so long to realize that the problem was not that others weren't doing enough for me, but I wasn't doing enough for others. In fact, it could never be enough.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to give over myself.

Inside my madness; and other tales.

I am a firm believer in common insanity.

Everyone has their own little weirdness, their own quirks and little insanities. If you follow my blog, you know something of my insanity...I'm quite sure the last three posts or so have been the product of my own special insanity. If you're not sure what I mean, allow me to explain.

If I'm not careful, I can get into some pretty sick thinking.

Observe:



This is a "normal" view of time. The past is permanent, immutable, fixed. Existing only in memory. The future is full of two or more possible directions at any one time.

This is my view of time when I devolve into sick thinking. I count every time I've gone "off the mark" of what I perceived to be the "good path" of my life (marked with blue) into the "bad path" of my life (marked with red). Imagine thinking about every instance of your life where things were inevitably and irrevocably turned in a direction that impacted the rest of your life - and disliking the result. It's not a nice burden to place on oneself.

This is the kind of thinking that has influenced the past few months of blog posts. I'm sorry if it's been repetitive or depressing. I don't apologize for writing it. It was good for me.

Things are better now, because I have relearned (with some help, no doubt) a few gems of wisdom that I feel are important for me to try to keep in mind next time I start this thinking again (and believe me, it will happen). It's sad to think that I've learned all these things before and simply forgotten, only to learn again by making myself miserable. Do you hear me sigh? Here goes.

Knowing the result of everything I try to do is unimportant compared to knowing whether or not what I am doing is good. If I believe in the power of the good, I should trust in the good to take care of the rest. If I truly believe that God exists (which I do) and that he is a good God, the power of good is virtually unlimited. It "echoes in eternity." If my soul is to last for eternity, it must be tied up to the good. If I am striving for that, everything else is nothing.

Knowing who I am means knowing what I can and cannot do. I can invite someone to coffee after only barely knowing them, because I'm kinda curious about who they are, and I'm bold enough to violate any social norm to do what I want, dammit. I can't change the past because it's over and I'm not a time traveller. It means knowing my boundaries. Being assertive. No means no, no matter how many times I'm asked. It means saying what I mean and what I feel, regardless of how others may negatively perceive me.

Finally, I must accept whatever comes my way. There are two different ways to take on life: fighting to make things happen, and surrendering to whatever fate God brings me. What one needs to be happy is to do both...my problem is that I was only doing the former. A fruitless battle guaranteed to make me miserable...because if something is not meant to happen, it will not happen. There is no shame in saying "Very well then. What will be will be." I did not understand this - it felt like cowardice. No more.

This is what I've learned - take what you will.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for sanity.

Control.

If you ever find yourself upset about something only to reply in your mind "Such is life" I think you've reached where I am in this acceptance thing.

I think too much about the way life should be, only to realize not long after that even as long as I've thought otherwise, I've never really had much control over my own circumstances. Things will just be as they will be no matter how hard I try to change them.

A friend of mine is moving away. It just came out of nowhere, like a summer rain. A friend that I wanted to make a part of my life in a significant way. But I know...I know that even though I've done everything I could to make that happen, it would not. It just wouldn't. Fate, destiny, God's will, call it what you want. That can only be the answer.

I puzzle over why my life is the way it is. Don't misunderstand, I am happy about some of the details. Others, less. This is mere genuine curiosity. As I don't really see too many things as mere coincidences, I know there must be a purpose behind it all...why the best friends I have are not the best friends I tried to have - I am grateful for the best friends I have never expected, but in other ways I must wonder why it never worked out between myself and someone whom I felt connected to in a special way.

Someone told me I like having control the other day, and I agreed with them immediately. But after I thought about it for a while, I could actually care less about most things. I don't mind the weather, I don't care who's in charge of my school program, I don't care who cleans the kitchen or how. I don't care about most random things that can change throughout my day, really. What I want to control is actually just people. And that's the one thing I've never had control over, though from time to time I fancied I actually could.

So many things just come out of the blue. Conversations, strange circumstances, accidents, insults. Try as I might to have some kind of master plan for marriage and life long friendships, it has never, ever really seemed to matter what I had planned. Even when I was discerning the priesthood, it didn't seem to matter because I ended up in a relationship not long after.

I suppose I could be mad about it. I'm certainly disappointed. But mostly, I'm just waiting. Trying to be patient. Watching the waters settle, and then flow in a certain direction...and then switch. I feel like the captain of a ship who has believed for a long time that he was an expert navigator, only to discover that his ship, in fact, has just been slowly sinking as he heads in a completely unknown direction.

Such is life.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for patient acceptance.

The characters in your story.

There is very little that makes me angry anymore, but if there is one thing I can count among those things it is ignorance of this fact: you are not just you.

Allow me to explain. Your soul is unique. There is no one else in the world, nor will there ever be, nor has there ever been, anyone just like you. I imagine everyone is on board with this at this point, and there's nothing new. But this is true about everyone else. And God has put the people you know in your life for a reason. Nothing is simply circumstance because everything's existence is contingent on God's benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent being.

There are people in your life right now - unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable people - that you will never be able to fully understand and fully grasp in your life. I don't care how boring, uninteresting, strange, ugly, etc. you think someone is, they are a universe of possibilities. Everyone you know is fantastically complex and full of potential. That is why abortion is such a plague: it ends people's lives before this potential can be unleashed. Your neighbors are not just your neighbors just as you are not just you. Your neighbors are potential lifesavers, friends, best friends, enemies/difficult people, teachers, mentors, and if they are of the opposite sex, potential spouses.

This is what makes me so angry: potential wasted. Other's lives gone unconsidered. How many people go through a day without considering the characters in their lives? Your life is a story. God is a storyteller and he made you...you have a unique life to live and you're living it whether you like it or not. Don't you ever look around at the characters in your story and realize that these people are in your life for a specific purpose and to fulfill a specific role? I know many who don't. Or at least, they really don't seem to. Everyone you meet is not just a person you have met. They are not just what you think they are. Everyone you meet is potentially the person that will change your life. If you write them off as "just a friend" or "just my sibling" or "just my teacher" or "just somebody" you have closed a door to infinite possibilities.

Nothing makes me so angry as a person set in their ways about the people in their lives. Someone who just knows who somebody is. Here's an easy example for someone my age and I hope I'll be forgiven the cliche quality of it: unrequited love. I'm only speaking of the type where a friend of the opposite sex denies another friend because they're friends. It's like saying "I'm sorry, we can't be friends because we're neighbors." It makes no sense.

That's why I think really hard about who is in my life. I want to know about them, who they are, who they want to be, what they think. I know I suck at it. I know sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes I make mistakes. But damn it, I try! I try so hard. And I know I can never learn enough about these people I know. I can't figure out how I feel about all of them or what I really ought to do with them and for them. Sometimes I get tired of it, or fail some other way. But at least I'm committed to figuring it out. I can't say everyone gives me the same consideration. I know that sounds like I feel entitled. That's because I do. I feel entitled to the same consideration that I know I will probably not get. Perhaps this is probably a fault. But I know this is how I see things and I can't change that until I see how it's not true.

I'm so tired of seeing people going through their lives without asking the important questions: who am I and what am I doing? Having a job can never be as important as putting your resources to good use. Having a social life can never be as important as seeking to understand and grow with the people you know. Having a family can never be as important as building a family that revolves around love. I am a poor mouthpiece for this knowledge. But I'm willing to say it. I hope that's good enough.

Reader: who are you? To yourself? To me? What could we be? Are we willing to find out? You can count on me to have an emphatic YES to that last question!

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to explore the casting of my story.

My Conversion Story (And Why You Can Too!) (version 2.0)

Version 1.0: written by [redacted], March-April 2012
Version 1.1: added version history, fixed some minor errors, added further details to Answer 1 and Answer 7, added text to three links, converted to blog format
Version 1.2: fixed more minor errors
Version 1.3: fixed a quote attribution (St. Ignatius to St. John of the Cross)
Version 1.4: extended introduction, added the quote by G.K. Chesterton, added another philosophical proof (argument from desire)
Version 1.5: added a viewing resource section, first entry Catholicism
Version 1.6: fixed two minor references to email (version 1.0)
Version 2.0: expanded and modified parts of entire post

Quick note: This is not a regular blog post. This was originally an email to some friends about why I believe in God.
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And how! (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

Often times, Christians have a very difficult time explaining why they believe in God. I am no exception, though I would say I am better than some. The following Chesterton quote provides an explanation for this trend:

"But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, 'Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?' he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, 'Why, there is that bookcase... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and pianos... and policemen.' The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible." - Orthodoxy, "The Paradoxes of Christianity."

Really, the problem is there are so many reasons at once the Christian has difficulty pointing to any particular one at all. I have tried to solve this (for myself) in the following blog post - first, by telling you my story, and then by telling you individual reasons that point me toward God.

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First off, I want to be clear about something. There will be no empirical proof of God's existence. Why? Because there is none and there never will be any, and thank God for that. I explain more about this at the bottom of this post.

Secondly, this is my story. As such, I'm not going to make an argument that will convince everybody. Heck, I'm not even really going to make an argument, per se. I'm just sharing why I believe. There will be a philosophical Q and A of some of the questions I've asked and gotten answers for, but that'll be about it. Hopefully by the end I will have established at the very least it is reasonable to believe in God.

So let's begin where I begin.

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FAITH AND GROWING UP

Like many others my age growing up, atheist and theist alike, my parents made a half-baked attempt at indoctrinating in us in religion. I am what is often referred to as a "cradle Catholic" ...I was baptized, had my first communion, all that. It was a big cultural thing where I'm from. Faith, growing up, was about the least heroic and inspiring thing I could ever see in any of the people around me. For my parents, it seemed as though it was simply another chore we had to do - go to Church on Sunday, pray as fast as we can before meals, stuff like that. I didn't learn anything about God from them; I went to Catholic school for that. There, it was just a job. If I learned the basics I could go up a grade and relearn them in more complicated language. I think the only influence on my life who was actually a real Catholic - who actually cared - was my Grandma. If you knew my Grandma, you would know she's about as gentle and unobtrusive as can be, and probably figured my parents would prefer to be in charge of bringing me up in the faith.

Well, this only taught me two things, really: that religion was a chore, because everyone around me lived like it was just a cultural obligation, and that religion was boring, because I had to learn it in school. So I treated it like that.

Then came 8th grade. I started going through a phase where since I wasn't really good at anything people cared about, I started trying to be good at being a hardhead. Any conservative ideology, including religious observance, I ate up like a sponge. If I couldn't "be good" like everyone else because I was cool, or good at sports, or a really good student, I would "be good" by being a more moral person than everyone else. Really, my problem was just low self-esteem, but when you're in the 8th grade you know jack crap about who you really are, and all you care about is knowing you're just as good as everyone else.

In high school, things got kinda better for me. For some reason, instead of hating me and ostracizing me as people once did, in high school most people really liked me. That still didn't change much for me, as I still had low self-esteem, so I was still playing the "hardhead with higher moral principles than you." This led me to try and be kind of involved with the Catholic group in high school. If I would have been honest with myself, I would have known that I was really just a lazy kid who had no interest in his faith. But because my self-esteem relied on me believing that I was "morally superior to you," I instead went on a few Catholic retreats, prayed a little "harder" than most other people, kinda took part in the mass a little more. Just enough to get noticed...after all, it was a precarious balance between showing I was more religious than everyone else and actually getting involved in something I considered quite boring. And of course, I felt better about myself when I chose to get involved in something boring just to be better than other people. Haha! Ha! Ha...ah...

SEEDS OF DOUBT

Well, it was also around this time that I began to seriously have doubts about my Catholic religion. There was no philosophical basis for it, really...it was just this intellectual nagging at me that what I was doing was incredibly fake. Yes, yes, it was. I still think it was fake because I was trying to be something I wasn't. But back then, what I thought was that the whole ritual was kind of fake. There would be these...hmmm, moments of clarity, you could say, when I would look around myself at mass, see people not paying attention, teachers trying to look interested, and I would view myself in this light and think "this is just utter nonsense!" I don't think there was ever a time in all that where I really believed that the bread and wine at mass really became anything other than bread and wine touched by a priest. Of course, if I didn't believe in God anymore, I no longer had any reason to believe I was better than other people at school, so I would bury these thoughts like a cat turd in a sandbox.

So, I must have put on a really good show for everyone in high school, because when I graduated they actually gave me a medal for (essentially) being a good Catholic. It's called the Bishop's Cross, and I still have it. Heck, even if I became an more or less permanent atheist I'm pretty sure I would have kept the thing. It's pretty sweet.

When I was looking for colleges, I can't really say at the time I was super interested in it. My search was pretty lazy, but I knew there was something special about a certain college (BGSU). To this day, I really don't know if it was something about the brochure, or the fact that it was close to home but not so close that I would have to live at home, or a genuine experience of God really tugging at me. I just knew I had to go to BGSU, or college would really suck. So I did.

THE FALL OF MY FAITH

I was quickly roped into a Catholic group on campus called Creed on Campus. I never really intended to join a Catholic group, as I considered my job well done in High school and I could just go on feeling good about myself for at least going to Sunday mass, unlike the rest of the heathens on campus. Heh. Anyway, by some kind of divine intervention, either literally or figuratively, I got involved in this group and made a lot of friends. I still don't know how. By the end of the year, though, I was really getting tired of the cognitive dissonance in my head. Sometimes when I would look around at my fellow Catholics, I would think to myself "I can't be the only one here who doesn't actually believe in this stuff" and of course I would bury that thought down and be like "Haha! Funny trick, brain. Yeah, I believe in this. Of course I do. Yeah..."

Well, that summer I started playing video games...a LOT more. I have always been an enthusiast, but this was always tempered by my father's limiting of my game time. While I was emancipated my freshman year of college and could play as much as I wanted, this, too, was tempered by the fact that I was making friends and stuff. By the summer, I returned home and was working full time, and had very few friends I could spend time with. I was super lonely. So, on my off time, I would play video games, specifically a browser-based MMORPG called RuneScape.

By the time I returned to school, I had made a ton of agnostic/atheist friends on this game and had some serious doubts about Catholicism. Specifically, prayer. This fundamental belief that we can commune with God somehow was thwarted by the feeling that in prayer, I was doing jack. In fact, I think I had this feeling since I was in high school, too. I decided to finally express my doubts to a Catholic friend of mine, who was unfortunately not full of answers. In fact, she seemed to kind of have the same doubts. Well, that was it for me. Game time!

For the next year and a half, I would go to mass faithfully on Sundays, sometimes even attend the Catholic group, but mostly on my own I would do whatever I wanted. I was living like there was no God, and for some time I enjoyed it. I remember one time, sitting in mass, I was watching the consecration of the Eucharist and in a moment of truth a voice in my head (mine, I thought) said "I am an atheist." Well, I was momentarily stunned and then horrified, and of course buried that deep down. Remember, I was still pretending I was a believer because it made me feel like I was still OK. I do believe atheists can be good people now, but back then I had a completely different idea of atheism.

THE SPRING OF MY CONVERSION

Well, at some time during this year and a half, I began to be very lonely. Of course then I didn't realize it, nor did I know why. I just thought I needed more online friends, not real life contact. Still, I was miserable on the inside. My online friends saw more and more of me, and I think I spent more time as my online persona than I did my true self. I was entirely lost within my online personality. Sometime during this I became internet famous as Jek Nexus, a video maker and "high level" on RuneScape, and this, of course, gains you the adulation of adolescents from around the world. Even though my fanbase was, on average, about 6 years younger than me, I fed off of this because of my deep-seeded self-esteem issues. I was so lonely though. Having fans and friends on the Internet was only a band-aid to my inner problems...they masked it while it got worse and worse. Then, something happened.

I had met a girl online who was from Pennsylvania, "only" about a 6 hour drive away. Her name was "Kayla", and I thought she was my soulmate. She was very attractive, nerdy, had some faith (I still valued this even though deep down inside I was hiding the fact I had none), and most important of all, was really nice to me and thought I was swell. I met her in September, and by October I was already talking to her on the phone almost every night. I would text her during class sometimes, and she would text me back. It was like I had a girlfriend without actually having one. Looking back on this with more mature insight, I am quite sure she knew I liked her, and I thought at the time she liked me, but she continued to pretend like we were only friends. But she knew, which was why it made her nervous to give me a phone call in November.

By the time that November rolled around, I was already very, very upset. Kayla was already being very distant and "busy" and even though I was kind of stupid back then, I wasn't a moron. I knew something was up. And then the phone call came: she had a boyfriend. I was crushed...destroyed, even. I had put all my trust, all my hope, all my feelings...into this girl. And of course she hurt me, she dealt me a blow that became a nightmare over the next few months. I didn't know why it hurt so much, but I do now. I had made Kayla my God.

I didn't know this back then, all I knew was that I was hurt. There were times I really, really wanted to die. I started playing RuneScape less and less, and spending more and more time at the Catholic parish nearby, and at the student group I was by this time only marginally attending. I really only wanted friends...people to talk to besides the people on the Internet like Kayla who only hurt me over and over, and I was slowly discovering that when I actually made an effort to be friends with people in the real world, I actually satisfied some of those lonely feelings I had. By God, I actually felt better when I had some real, personal contact instead of internet chat! By April, I was ready to quit RuneScape, and I did. To this day, I have never logged in to that game again.

There is a lot more to say about this time in my life, but I'll keep it simple and talk only about the things that led to my conversion. During my depression following the November let-down, I rekindled a few old friendships and made some new ones. These people, of course, kind of knew that I was incredibly depressed, and like good Catholics, just ascribed it to a poor relationship with God. I played along...but this time, I was actually kind of curious about the faith. I felt as though I never really gave it a shot. It was always a half-baked sort of faith where I "kinda" tried to learn about it, I "kinda" lived it, and of course I believed I knew everything about it. This time, though, I knew I was wrong. So I began to do some reading.

AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD, DEAD BRITISH GUYS

My first foray into Christian literature was C.S. Lewis. My friends liked him a lot, so I thought "Why not me?" Within a few months I had read several books by him, including "Mere Christianity" which I was surprised to see was clear, rational, and intellectually pleasing to me - and about God, of all things. I got so many answers to many of my age-old questions - answers that I couldn't help but feel as if somehow I had already known. And I corrected many of my misconceptions about Christianity. I will explain some of these later in a Q and A format.

My hunger for more knowledge of God was proven to be insatiable. It was like a hunger I didn't know I had was suddenly being fed, and so of course this hunger just got stronger. At the same time, I began to have an active prayer life and also attended mass almost every day. I couldn't get enough of it, I just loved it and I can't explain why. I really can't. This is one of the biggest problems in explaining the allure of God to those who don't know it. It's just there.

Not only that, but my belief in God was also changing me as well. I was growing in patience, generosity, love of others, and I was really happy doing it, too.

PROBLEMS

Well, this was destined to not last forever. Eventually I began to have questions that weren't being answered again, and the good feelings I had were mostly gone. Needless to say, I was concerned. I remember clearly one time, during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, standing up in my disbelief and walking out in tears. I just felt so ridiculous sitting there, and I ran out to the pond where I was accustomed to praying and just walked around it, crying for a while. A good friend came to talk to me, which was nice, but inside, I felt as though I was back where I started.

I didn't know why I could no longer pray. I was really concerned that my whole conversion was just some kind of illusion based off of my emotions. But I knew two things: I was not happy as an atheist, and being Catholic changed me. I had tried to change myself without God, and it didn't work. Somehow when I prayed and believed, I was changed.

I returned to my books in earnest. It turned out that there were answers for me...I was just looking in the wrong places. I was reading the easy books on God, and I was ready to graduate. God must have withdrawn his support from me to make me search harder. I had slacked off. What I needed most was to search for Him - because that would change me for the better. And it did.

In this "dark night of the soul" as St. John of the Cross calls it, I purified my desire for God. My desire before was superficial and selfish. I only wanted God because He made me feel good. I didn't love God. And God wants to be loved.

NOW

I suppose all that's left to say is that I have continued searching for the truth, and for God. And I believe I've found Him. It sometimes disturbs people who are not believers in God when I say I really can't foresee having doubts about Him again. I know that God must exist - the universe makes no sense without Him. But I am always interested in further dialogue between atheists and believers. How can I say I'm interested in the Truth if I am unwilling to listen to other's perceptions of it?

In conclusion, I really don't think that any atheist can be convinced of God's existence. If you don't want to believe in God, you can find a reason not to. If you do, and you continue to do so, you will find Him if you are really looking. Sometimes, He finds you.

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For a list of my questions and reasons why I have chosen to believe in God, read on to the next section. For a list of philosophical proofs of God's existence that I have found compelling, scroll to the bottom. I have also included a "further reading" section at the bottom, for those who still want more.

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Questions I have asked and Answers I have received

1.

Q. Why doesn't God just prove himself to non-believers? Can't I just pray for God to show himself to me so that I can believe? Is He that selfish?

A. It's easy to forget the implications of being an all-powerful, all-knowing deity looking for love. Love must be a choice, after all, and I think if God appeared to all of us, we would really have no choice but to believe in Him and follow Him - we would be too terrified not to. God doesn't want mindless, terrified slaves. He wants us to love Him, and in return, that is good for us (as I've tried to show in my story how well loving God worked out for me). God, of course, has appeared in many forms in the past, but this has always seemed to be a very selective calling, and done very delicately. I think I understand this best when I consider what it would be like if God had never appeared to anyone at all - we would have absolutely no record of God working throughout history to speak to mankind by extraordinary means. In addition, demanding God's appearance in order that we may follow Him presumes that seeing someone is necessary to love and obey them, or that it is, in fact, somehow helpful. God's appearances have always been depicted as terrifying occurrences done to people who already believed in His existence - and as many atheists often say, it is a poor reason to believe in something out of fear.

2.

Q. You keep saying that God loves us. Why? Isn't it rational to have the deist view that God just created the universe and stepped back, rather than doing it "because He loves us"?
A. God needs nothing from us. That is a necessary corollary of being all-powerful. As such, I can see why deists could believe God would create the universe and then do nothing. However, this also explains nothing. My main problem with this view is that it is easily disproven with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. There is plenty of historical evidence for Jesus, such as the 2,000-year existence of Christianity, which would be pretty odd if He didn't actually exist, and I think it would be intellectually dishonest to just dismiss it as some elaborate hoax. Something happened. Many ancient writers such as Josephus and Pliny the Younger also left accounts of Jesus’ existence. This is why I can't buy the deist view that God would create the universe for no purpose at all - because obviously He did, if He was willing to die a human death for it. And if He died a human death for humanity, then He must love us. That is why I believe God is interested in our love, over anything else.

3.

Q. Why does God have rules? Am I going to Hell because I don't want to follow all these Christian laws?

A. Well, why do laws exist? Good laws, I think, are designed to create good citizens. If we had no laws, there would be absolute anarchy. Not that it wouldn't be fun for a few days, but after a few busted windows and stolen cars, I think we'd get sick of it. Since the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, I think God has always tried to give us laws not because He is some kind of eternal supercop, but because He doesn't want to leave us to just "figure it out." The laws are for our benefit, not His. If you really think about it, if everyone followed the Ten Commandments, we'd probably all be better off.

4.

Q. Why does God seem like a real jerk in the Old Testament? What about laws about slavery, and the orders from God to kill people? What about the she-bears eating those kids (Kings 2:23-24)?

A. Haha, that last one is my favorite example. This is one of the big problems with not putting the OT in its historical perspective. Let me just speak broadly first. The common expression as beings created by God is to call ourselves "children of God." As children, we don't learn right from wrong right away. When we are young, we have different rules, rights, responsibilities...when we grow up, we have less of those. We're called to more - more responsibilities, less rules. Think of this in light of the Old Testament and New Testament. God didn't change from the OT to the NT...we did. In our youth in Genesis, Exodus, etc., God was slowly trying to build us up for more. In the NT, Jesus came and "fulfilled" those laws, and called us to more. Think of Matthew 5:3–12 as God sitting us down for a talk as teenagers and giving us the car keys if we promise not to wreck it.

Another thing about this question is that the Bible can only be properly understood in its original language and original context. This is why the Catholic Church often emphasizes Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic when speaking about the meaning of a passage. If you want to see a great example, click this. Another great example is talked about in this article. A response to questions about Abraham being asked to kill his son can be found here. People love to take odd bible verses out of context and hail them as examples of God's cruelty (and thus, His non-existence at least as a good God), all while forgetting that the Israelites were often evil people who needed to be slowly converted - but still treated themselves and other people better than other nations! Moses, after all, wasn't a king, and had to slowly bring the Israelites to conversion...which is showing its fruition in Christian society today. Even now, Christianity and other religions are sometimes used as justification for horrible policies and behaviors - however, are the religions really to blame, or is it a misogynistic/violent/intolerant culture? Would people act the same if there were no religion? Considering religion has also been used to justify good actions that were culturally opposed (e.g. slavery/emancipation), I am thinking yes to the previous question.

5.

Q. Why would a God who loves us send anyone to Hell?

A. It's not so much that God sends us to Hell, as we send ourselves to Hell. C.S. Lewis says "the gates of Hell are locked from the inside." I really think Hell is little more than a necessary corollary of two other beliefs we couldn't do without: our free will and God's love. God doesn't want mindless slaves. He wants love. Who ever said a rapist loves his victim? I'm pretty sure no one. I hope so, anyway. What is God if we have no other possibility than to live with Him in the heavenly marriage forever? I'd say He's a rapist. Hell is merely the result of our free choice to not love God. Simple as that. How do we love God? We simply follow our conscience as best as we can towards Him - seeking Him always. We make no presumptions about who goes to Hell, not even atheists - we just know how to go there.

6.

Q. Doesn't evolution disprove God?

A. On the contrary. I think if that were true, it would be equally true that it proves He exists, which is of course nonsense. The Bible is not a science book. In fact, it's not even a book. It's a library. There are many literary genres within its pages - historical, metaphorical, How to Be Hebrew for Dummies...it's all there. Heck, if Genesis were really meant to convey a historical truth about the origin of mankind...why would there be two contradictory stories right next to each other? Hahah. That would be bizarre.

7.

Q. If God is all-powerful and all-good, why does evil exist? Seems like a contradiction to me.

A. Not really, if you consider that God is also all-loving. Love, understand, does not mean kindness. It means willing the best for another. What if you were omniscient and knew how to prevent all evil? What if preventing one evil meant causing another? It is against God's nature to cause evil...evil is simply the absence of God. Just food for thought, that's not really my argument.

Obviously, God has a prerogative not to interfere with free will if He wants us to love Him. Sure, He could prevent people from doing evil, but in the end, that person will probably just do it again. Do we want God to control us? He has no interest in puppets, He wants us to love Him (see question 2 above).

That said, what about natural evil? What about hurricanes and tornadoes? I suppose you could say that nature has been given a free will as well. Before the Fall, nature had a perfect order as we had a perfect order - we had absolutely no inclination towards evil (concupiscence). God gave us dominion over the world, and as we were in perfect union with God's will, the world was as well. But as soon as our forefather and mother no longer wished to be under His dominion, nature changed as we did. We could not both get rid of God and have God's protection. We cannot be imperfect and have a perfect world. The habitat must match the species.

Furthermore, pain can be good for us. Just take a look at my story. There's even a piece of it I have not told: my mother passed away when I was 16 - she is not better off living here on Earth than she is in heaven, and I know for me I have gained a great deal of emotional and spiritual maturity as a result of greiving her death.

C.S. Lewis has a much longer and clearer explanation of this "problem" contained within his book The Problem of Pain.

8.

Q. What about other religions? Are they just all wrong? Is God sending them to Hell for not being Catholic?

A. Haha, nawwww they won't go to Hell, at least not just for not being Catholic. This is another one that puzzles me - I don't understand how having lots of religions proves there is no God, or even how it makes it more troubling to believe in Him. I think the pervasiveness of it throughout the world's cultures is further proof of His existence. Surely an all-good, all-powerful, all-loving being would be so mysterious that many religions would crop up around trying to figure Him out?

Many saints of the Catholic Church have surmised that God is so mysterious that God is "that which no higher thing can be thought." It does seem like a cop-out, doesn't it? Yet, if you think about it, an omnipotent, omnipresent, all good, all loving being, with perfect justice and perfect mercy is...well, a bit incomprehensible. We need to have enough humility to admit that.

Also, no. The Catholic Church doesn't believe people of other religions go to Hell simply because they believed in another religion. Jesus gave two commandments that were the most important - Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. Essentially, if you had never heard the gospel, but were genuinely striving to love God in your own way and loving others, you have loved God and thus would likely go to heaven. Let me make it even more simple. Everyone is born with a compass to Jesus - so long as you have been following it to the best of your ability, you would probably go to heaven. See this for more information.

9.

Q. What the heck is with prayer? Don't you find it the same as doing nothing? What's supposed to happen?

A. Prayer is the thing I always most misunderstood. I think my reconciliation with the important practice of prayer happened when I realized what communing with God really meant. It's not usually a voice in your head, nor is it really some kind of supernatural feeling. It is emptying yourself to God so that He can fill you. Prayer does nothing to change God, it changes us. We ask God things because it makes us ready to receive what God wants to give. I can say very little more without ceasing to make sense. All I know is, that when I go to pray, I return slightly different, even better, than before. What else can I ask for? I suppose you have to experience it yourself.

It would be a gross simplification of the above to say that prayer is an "exercise in making yourself feel good" as I have heard from at least one person who has read it. Prayer often doesn't feel good, and often I don't want to pray. But I do it any way because it's good for me. Giving my time and energy to speak to God empties me of my own desire to go do something else. That's what the emptying part is all about.

Further Philosophical Proofs of God's Existence I Find Compelling

First mover, first causer:

Since every action has a cause and an effect, everything that exists has something else that moved it. Why do we exist? We can talk about how we came from a father and mother, and they came from their father and mother...back into time, when we split off from primates, back into the primordial soup from whence we came...and still not really explain why we exist. Going back farther, to the creation of the earth in just the right place in the Universe at just the right time to provide an environment for life...but why? We still don't have the first cause, the reason for our existence. So we can go back further, to the birth of the Sun, and further back to the death of other stars that allowed the creation of our sun, and back farther to the explosion of our Universe into being with the Big Bang. But what caused the Big Bang? Even if we explained that, we still have not explained why we exist. We can keep explaining causes forever and so on, ad infinitum, which in the end explains nothing. There must be a being whose nature is simply to be being itself, whose nature is simply to be eternally creating. This is the only way to solve the infinite regression. God is being itself, the great "TO BE." He says this himself to Moses, when Moses asked Him the very reasonable question of "what god He was"...after all, there were many "gods" in his time. God answered, "I AM WHO AM." Being itself.

Argument from intelligibility:

Something interesting about the Universe is that it can be explained in a language we can understand. Science has always been able to unravel the mechanics of the Universe, our brains always being able to comprehend the language the Universe is written in. It is odd that if the Universe is all the product of some happy chance, that we are there to unravel it in an intelligible manner. Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) has a more complete and clear formulation of this argument in his book, Introduction to Christianity.

The odds:

The odds of intelligent life (us) being created by accident is "low."

Argument from desire:
"In my life, and I assume my experience is pretty consistent with most human beings, I have desires. I desire food, I desire sex--and even more than sex, I desire intimacy with another, I desire comfort and to be liked and to be safe. Some desires are passing and can easily be satisfied (I want that cookie. I ate that cookie.) or even dismissed (I want that cookie. No, it is not worth the calories). But some touch at the very root of who I am as a human being—and most especially the desire for love. I want to be loved. I need to be loved, and I need (even though this does not always come “naturally”) to give love. Every person that I have ever met, from people in jail to people on death beds to high schoolers who just seem to care about parties and Jersey Shore, all want love. And we want to experience a love that is selfless, that does not end, that keeps on going deeper and deeper. Unlike all of the surface desires that I could ever experience, this desire for a love that does not end cannot be satiated. That is why we are so struck, confounded and saddened by the death of someone we love deeply, because we don’t want this love to end, and even though we should be “used” to it by now (you’d think that evolution would have weeded out this irrational desire, no?), our world is shattered when we encounter death. I am hungry, and there is food. I hold my breath for 20 seconds, desire oxygen, oxygen thankfully exists, and I take in a great big inhalation of life giving air. I desire love that doesn’t end, and it makes sense that there is the possibility of that desire being fulfilled." - An anonymous Catholic priest

The argument against empiricism:

I said earlier in this post that I would provide no empirical proof for God's existence. Many people claim that this is unacceptable. But why? Suppose I say I love someone. What kind of evidence would constitute enough proof of that? Can one even prove such a thing? Would one say "I will not believe you until I have absolute conclusive evidence that this is true!"? I think not. There are many, many things that we take without empirical proof. I think the most important one for the atheist to consider is whether his reason is even grounded in objective reality...please provide evidence. :-)

Argument from morality:

What are our moral principles grounded in? The atheistic worldview holds that what exists in the material world is all there is. There is no empirical proof of God in the world, but there is no empirical proof of right or wrong either. I can't prove good, nor can I prove bad. If I ground my moral principles in God, however, I can know. If I don't, well...I suppose I still have my own reason, right? I can think about what the reasonable thing to do is in a situation. Mentioning the whole "moral compass instilled by God thing" aside, if there is no God, why would I do that? Why should I be bound to reason alone? Why not some other value, like progress? Or narcissism? Stalin, as an atheist, knew this when he said "The idea of a concentration camp is excellent" in response to the idea of eradicating "counter-revolutionaries and traitors" in Estonia. "Might makes Right" is the only logical conclusion to atheism. After all, if there is no God, there is no way that I can even say with any conviction that it is "good" that I exist - and so in the name of "progress", one may be entirely justified in removing me.

Further reading:

Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis

The Rage Against God, by Peter Hitchens

The Godless Delusion, by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley

Catholic Article on the Existence of God

Wikipedia summary of many of St. Thomas Aquinas' thoughts on God

Catholic Article on God

For viewing:
Catholicism, by Fr. Robert Barron

Much love in Christ,

"Dream"

Gloria patris, in saecula saeculorum!

____________________________________________________________
"There's no way of telling people that they're all walking around shining like the sun."
-Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

The good choice.

What is the greatest thing to be achieved in this life?

Often times, putting the needs of others over your own can be difficult. I cannot say it is the easiest thing to do to sit on your hands and do nothing so that others may live in comfort - because by acting on your own desires, you may impede theirs...either for their own hopes, or their own comforts. And that is often what I must do.

How can I call myself a friend if I don't act like a friend should? My friendship doesn't end as soon as I want more. No, I can only choose to be a good friend, and nothing more. Everything else will follow, and it will either be what I want or it will be something better:

"...We do not always have to foresee every possibility. We have only to judge whether the act is right, just, and accords with the truth and love here and now, because we "believe in the good" and are therefore convinced that, whatever consequences may follow, they will certainly be good ones, beneficial to ourselves and to society." - Thomas Merton

...And so as Merton says, I go on, doing whatever good I believe I can in my friendships. Even if it means not being as close of a friend as I would like. Even if it kinda hurts to say nothing where I would really like to.

This is why I dislike when menboys go after girls who have only recently broken off a relationship. They need time, and they're so selfish they won't give them any. I believe they call it "catching her on the rebound" and it's little more than emotional manipulation. It's disgusting.

What is the greatest thing to be achieved in this life? It is to be a virtuous person, I think. Truly virtuous...and to have that quality is worth everything. I would go as far as to say that it is better to die a good man than to live as a cheater, liar, thief, or murderer. It's to never give in to the easy path, even over the smallest thing...it's to say "never!" when evil comes and calls.

I'll never join you!

That's what that choice is. Selfish, and therefore evil. Even if it seems trivial to some people, you can never be a virtuous person if you make exceptions for even the smallest evils.

So, never. I say never.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to do good always.

Catharsis marathon.

I'm really tired, but I need to write this before I forget again.

Catharsis...The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. I've been having a lot of that. Closure type stuff. Over and over and over. My life is bipolar.

Really there is a downfall to knowing lots of people. Your life becomes a little unpredictable especially where love is involved. Mostly I have learned that reciprocated feelings are rarer than unreciprocated, and there is a lot of that going on around here.

A recent rash of honesty with people lately has gotten me into trouble more than once, but at least on one occasion recently it did me a lot of good. Case in point: Something I've been touching on a bit here and there in my last few posts...what I was doing that I knew might in the end really hurt me. And I was right. I finally confessed my full intentions in a certain friendship. And in the end, it was met with an honest rejection. It was good. I handled it really well, I believe, and I'm a wiser person.

I also know that years ago, I never could have handled that situation as I did...and be able to say confidently as I type this that I am doing really well. Just trying to do the right thing and letting go of my desires in this situation helped a lot. That trust has taken a long time to build...the act of surrendering my future to the Lord, as it belongs to Him alone anyway. I know that this doesn't own me.

Catharsis.

Still, I'm tired now and I'm ready for life to be a little more boring for a while...A little less emotional, a little less tense. But that's for God to decide.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for eternal catharsis.

The Aftermath.

Much has changed emotionally since my last post.

The pleasantness of slowness and my patience in general has dwindled. I'm not sure what happened, but loneliness, it seems, has finallyeasily caught up to me. I'm disappointed in myself, to be sure, as I thought that I had finally escaped many of my old tendencies. I thought I'd finally gotten emotional independence.

In one respect, at least, I am better in that I still have avoided indulging my old desires to draw attention to myself for the sake of simply feeling better. I know better now.

Still, it seems like writing this blog is really the only outlet for attention-seeking I allow anymore. That's what it must be, isn't it? I don't see any other reason to write it other than to put my thoughts were others can see it, otherwise, I would just write it in a journal and show no one. I'm not often sure who reads these blog posts, only the ones who reveal themselves, I suppose...but sometimes I post knowing I wish certain people would read it. That worries me. You see, I don't wish to allow any credence to desires that lead to me acting out again.

I've been looking over Facebook's timeline feature. It's nice in many ways, but that's not the reason I'm talking about it now. I had to go through my timeline and remember all of the times I was most lonely and depressed...and start hiding the worst of my old statuses before people could read them! It's embarrassing how obviously desperate for someone's - anyone's - attention I was...how I would target specific people sometimes...how I would "hint" at things related to love, loss...anger. Nothing I want to relive. But I did.

It's funny how you can get a sort of "link" to your past self in ways. Sometimes you can look at a certain photo and remember how you felt and what you were thinking when it was taken...or read an old journal entry, or something. That was what happened to me looking over these old writings of mine...so sad, so pathetic. I kinda lost grip on myself while I was reading/hiding those old statuses. It was too easy to remember and over-empathize. I had been wondering what it felt like to be my old 2009 self or something...well, suddenly my 2009 self possessed me for a short time! Ahhhh!

Well, once I snapped back to reality, it was so much easier to realize how imperative it is that I avoid using others to relieve my negative emotions. Especially women. It's easier when I'm tempted to, oh, text somebody something to try and initiate emotional contact to just look inside and shout "FOOL!" That's my only lifeline at this point.

Another thing I noticed about my old self is that a lot of the things I've noticed about the young folks (freshman) around here also applied to myself. I think I would totally become friends with my 2007 self - if the Facebook posts help me get an idea of what I was like, I'm pretty sure my old self was just in his own little world all of the time. I was so innocent and possessed by the geeky side of myself that I'm sure I would really enjoy meeting that person that was me - because he was so untouched by the world it's amusing. That's why I became so immature only two years later - once that mask was torn off, I looked around at my real world - and realized who I really was - and hated it. The momentary glimpses that I hid from in 2007 became ever present in 2009/2010, so since I couldn't hide from it anymore, I tried to rebuild myself...which manifested itself much of the time in depressing Facebook posts. Yikes.

Lest I say too much in this post and start getting tempted to disclose too much about what or who is on my mind, I will just say that I hope people will pray that I build more patience. Someone told me the other day that wisdom and patience go hand in hand - and I believe them! I wish to build up my relationship with God and ignore the rest of me that is demanding human companionship...it's a lot harder than I thought, even though rationally I have provided myself with many excellent reasons why I should be wholly desiring the single life for the moment.  For some reason the conflict doesn't want to go away that easily.

That's all for now.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for emotional peace.

Blissful serenity.

I find that much of the time I feel very happy to just be mellow.

Today was a slow day. I can't be happier that it was. I must be getting old, or something, because my personality has utterly changed in this regard - I no longer crave adventure and excitement in the same way as I once did.

Once upon a time, I would be very disappointed if a day passed where I did not experience some sort of excitement, or at least, some kind of tug at my emotions.  Now I find that people often tell me I look tired or upset - the reality is, I often feel very content. Peaceful, even.  And this is without any excitement necessary.

I take pleasure in finding that things are moving along at a leisurely pace. I find comfort in slowing down. Well, certain things anyway, I'm still impatient sometimes...but other things, like conversations, relationships, reading books, my thoughts...I like it slow now.

That's the new adventure and excitement. Watching the world move by slowly, rather than quickly. Wondering what will happen next passively rather than actively. No longer finding it necessary to anticipate the future. I'm not worried, I'm here, and I can only do what I can in the moment: the NOW.

I think perhaps part of this is that I have gained some measure of emotional independence. I more or less choose how I wish to feel, now. I don't need to confide in anyone, although I still enjoy doing so. Any outstanding emotions on my horizon I acknowledge, feel, but let them pass through me. It's really nice. I don't miss the frantic excitement and/or anxiety of always wondering and waiting - because now I can enjoy the moment more.

This is wonderful, you see. There are so many other people out there who always need someone. Now, I certainly don't. And this will set me free to love people more - and better.

I haven't made reference to God in this blog in a while, but I suppose this is a prime opportunity. I really don't know as I write this if I've grown in virtue or not, but I do know that my prayer has been much more productive than usual. Maybe this peace is from God, and maybe it is the change in my personality.

Either way, this is the most interesting development of my personality in over a year, and I must say it's a welcome change.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for blissful serenity.

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.