I think I sometimes take for granted that my boyfriend will just agree with me on certain issues, which is something I should know better than considering how vastly different our world views are. I consider myself a little bit left of center, with some libertarian ideas; he is essentially center-right with libertarian leanings. I love him, but we see the world through completely different eyes. Sometimes I wonder if this is what the Bible means by finding someone with whom you are equally yoked. How much do we need to agree on to be equally yoked?

We often have hypothetical discussions on how we would raise children. Generally we can reach some sort of consensus, and sometimes I realize one day we are going to have to revisit these topics. Often times they are issues I’m not absolutely set on such as whether or not our children will write thank you notes for gifts they receive. I am of the opinion that this is pretty much an antiquated tradition and only warranted in certain circumstances. A phone call seems more considerate to me anyhow. He argues that just because some traditions have fallen out of use doesn’t mean that our children shouldn’t do them just to be good people.

Faith is an issue that I think will be a bigger issue someday. For him, our children should be forced to follow our religious practices within reason until they turn 18, but I have lived that world and have no desire to force it upon a child. I suppose this is where what he refers to as my frou-frou liberal ideals are centered. I believe in allowing children, within reason to decide for themselves. Well informed, educated decision makers is the hallmark of what I aspire to raise my children to be. The only censorship I believe in is because of appropriateness for age. If my child wants to read to Koran, my child can read the Koran. Heck, I’ll read it with them and we can discuss it. Children who are discouraged from engaging in intellectual discourse became ignorant adults.

All of these are issues I am sure we can work out in a way that makes both of us happy. I suppose what is troubling me is the way he reacts when I declare a belief contrary to his. For example, today he asked me about a facebook poll that wanted to know who I thought should have the most say in schools curriculums, the federal government, states, teachers, or parents. I believe that teachers and the government, both state and federal, should have more say in educational requirements than parents. After all, part of education is exposing children to different points of view and teaching them to be critical thinkers. If some parents had their way, children wouldn’t learn science or a number of other topics that will leave their children at a disadvantage when they go out in the real world. The more say parents have in education, the more it gets dumbed down to the least common denominator and leaves educators afraid to do their job. This helps no one. When I told him this, he was incredulous. How could not believe that parents have the right to decide what their children should learn? It wasn’t as if I was saying the state should teach children to become Satanists, but I do believe that the state/country should require a well balance curriculum be taught to all children so that they have every advantage when they become part of society If parents don’t agree with what their children are being taught on certain issues they should be able to opt out, like they all ready can, but they should realize that opting out of certain things like sex education puts their children at risk.

It’s funny because often he gets upset with things I say, telling me that “it is not what you say it is how you say it,” and I agree. It doesn’t bother me that he doesn’t agree with me, it is how he tells me he doesn’t agree. He uses this tone of voice like my opinion is somehow inferior to his. The tone indicates to me (and he would argue that I am just putting words into his mouth, and that he didn’t say that so I can’t read this into it) that his belief system is somehow superior to my own. It is frustrating because he wants me to be more declarative in my ideas and beliefs, but then he speaks to me like I am somehow inferior because I disagree. I suppose I really need to discuss this with him sometime soon.

mood: curious

It is a little strange that I’m leaving to see Metallica in a little over 8 hours, and that is not the topic of this blog. Over the years, my faith has been all over the board, and anything but solid, but that is how I always viewed faith, as a journey, something that was malleable and changed as you learned a little bit more about the world. My boyfriend does not view faith in the same manner. In his world, faith is absolute. He knows what he believes, he knows he is right, and if you don’t agree with him then you’re wrong. Then again, he is a bit nicer about it when I don’t agree with him, but that is probably more about the fact that he loves me, and less about my faith. That being said, we had an interesting conversation tonight that I thought was worth sharing, if anything so I look back on this one day, and perhaps relive the revelation that I don’t always know what I think I know.

My boyfriend and I had just finished a long and arduous discussion that basically boiled down to, I do not clearly explain my feelings as well as he would like and it causes misunderstandings (that and when I feel attacked I make mean personally attacks that I really need to work on). I suppose the real argument was that I don’t assert myself very often and I’m not particularly selfish, which he doesn’t see as he makings of a partnership because I usually give him his way and if we continue on this path, he is going to one day just expect to get what he wants, and if I complain it is going to erupt into an argument. He has a point, I should probably be a bit more assertive, especially about things that matter. Ultimately, we don’t want to find out fifteen years down the road that we disagree on something fundamental and detrimental to our relationship. Something like faith.

We avoid talking about our faith, not because we don’t think that faith is important, but rather because we believe that our faith is so vastly different it could lead to conflict, and considering neither one of us is likely to change our minds in the course of a conversation, why bother? Leave it to me to have to seize onto this idea, in part because I know that before we met his faith was important to him. One of the first things we ever did together was go to church. Surprisingly, this was a productive conversation that led me to realize just how wonderful he really is, and how I should continue to thank God everyday for bringing him into my life.

You see sometimes I am guilty of seeing things that aren’t there. Sadly at times I am a negative person and assume the worst, even when I know I have some really wonderful people in my life. Honestly when we began discussing whether or not we take the Bible literally, I wanted to hide. It isn’t that I haven’t become comfortable with talking to him about most anything, it is that I knew we viewed this topic so differently, and the last thing I wanted to find out was that he took the Bible literally to the point where it mean that he thought I should be subservient. I am just not that girl. I love him, more than I have ever loved anyone or anything, but I could not do that. I would be miserable, and while I often give in on less important issues, one of the reasons I abandoned Christianity in the first place was my inability to deal with what I perceive as misogyny in the writings of Paul. The interesting thing is that while he takes the Bible as the literal word of God, and I take it as something that was inspired by God, our interpretations of what that means are similar.

I believe that certain parts of the Bible are meant to be literal, such as not murdering, and Jesus dying for our sins, but some of the Bible is not literal, in some cases, as in Genesis, it is God’s way of explaining very difficult concepts to people who had no frame of reference to understand. The stunning part is that because we both believe that the Bible is to be taken in context, we don’t really have the conflict I first expected us to have. Ultimately, only God knows how things really are, and we both except this point and choose to not condemn the other for such beliefs. He still can’t really understand how I can live without the Bible as an absolute and I don’t really understand how he can actually believe it is literal, but ultimately these aren’t important issues to the core issues of faith. We both love God and we both love each other, and for right now, that is all we need.

location: United States, Idaho, Moscow mood: surprised

Life throws you strange curve balls. A few months ago I prayed that I would find someone who I could be comfortable in their presence and them in mine. That we would be content and happy with one another. Of course I meant this in the realm of a romantic relationship, but that is not what I got. Instead, I met my best friend. Someone who I am wholly in love with in a way I cannot really comprehend myself because we are so different, but he is not in love with me. At least if he is, he isn’t saying anything.

I have spent the past few months doing everything I could think of to try and make him fall in love with me. Obviously, that is not a technique I am very well in practice with, and nothing that I was successful with in any case. We have been talking about applying to law school together, but instead have decided to stay put for the next year, working and then applying to law school later. This would be good, except that I am having major second thoughts about law school in general.

My whole life I have believed I would grow up to be a professor. I mean I never really made the connection that the kind of research scientist I wanted to be as a child would be a professor, but ultimately that is what it would have looked like, had the chemistry labs not made me sick. Becoming a law professor is certainly an option, but my passion has always been for social revolution. I read the works of Lenin and Marx before I was old enough to understand the meaning of socialism, except that it made my parents nervous.

So the question I am posing to myself right now is whether I stay here for the next year, find a job and follow my beloved wherever he may go to law school, whether it turns out he loves me romantically or just as his best friend, or do I enjoy his presence while it fits within my plans, and if I stay here for another year then so be it, but if the opportunity arises to go somewhere else, say working for the Vancouver Olympics or something else, take it. If God intends for us to be together we will ultimately find each other again, and while we won’t see each other every moment, we can stay in touch.

It terrifies me to give up the comfort of the friendship that I have prayed for my entire life, but if he doesn’t love me back in the romantic way that my soul craves, I will never be wholly satisfied with my life. That isn’t what I want either, but part of me fears that this is the best relationally my life will ever get, that God doesn’t want me to feel the love my soul craves so desperately, and if I leave, I will never be as happy and content as I have been most of the time I have known him. Then again, it seems like if I were truly happy I wouldn’t cry myself to sleep once or twice a month with the realization that he doesn’t love me and probably never will.

I think we go through life trying so hard to figure out what we are supposed to do next. We often forget to live in the now, but more importantly, when we spend so much time concerned with our own mission in life, we fail to see all the pain and suffering around us. Even worse, by failing to help those around us who are suffering, we actually contribute to the suffering around us.

I do not believe that we are called to suffer, which some people would consider blasphemy, after all, we are born into sin. Secretly these people see the suffering around them and absolve themselves from responsibility convincing themselves that those who are suffering deserve much more than they are getting, forgetting that for our evil acts, we all deserve much more than we are getting (at least in their Christian belief system).

Is it really so hard to go up to a person that we see is in pain, or are we afraid that their pain is contagious? Giving a hug to a stranger in pain is not going to give you bad luck; in fact, it may be the thing that shows that person that the world is not always such a terrible place. Sometimes just knowing that someone cares about you is enough.

One afternoon when I was in high school, I was at Denny’s with a friend. We were both having pretty bad days. I cannot remember the details, but what happened next was truly the highlight of that day. And older gentleman came up to us, with little wrapped boxes probably about the size of a ring box, and said “You look like you could use these.” He left them and walked away. There was a tag that said something along the lines of, “inside this box is love, the love of God and the love of humanity, take it with you and pass it on.” Something about that moment just changed my whole outlook for days.

I am not asking you to help every single person in the entire world. It is impossible. I am asking you to care. Care about those around you. Realize that you never truly know the whole essence of someone. Usually, you are only going to get to know the face that person puts on every morning, but that does not absolve you from an obligation to care. In just five minutes a day, you can make the world a better place by chatting up a stranger at the grocery store, showing genuine interest in the young child sitting in front of you on the bus, talking to the guy no one ever talks to at the lunch table, or even picking up the tab for a stranger at a restaurant.

Spreading love is not the impossible task that some make it out to be. It is not about eliminating the suffering of others, it is about showing them that they are not alone in this cruel world. Someone out there cares for them and is not judging them or their suffering. After all, much of the suffering people endure is put on them by others. Do not condemn them because of their suffering; love them because you would want to be loved if you were in their shoes.

When I created this journal, I really had no idea how much of a journey faith really was, and that even at the highest point of faith, I would constantly be questioning, and this would be a good thing. No matter what others might tell me, in my experience I have learned that true faith is something that can remain even when challenges to it our presented. At this point in my life, I do not have that kind of faith, and that is all right.
This concerns some of my friends, and while I accept and appreciate their concern, I have experienced some things in my life that they never will, believe some truths that they never will, and know certain things that they never will fully understand, and this is all right. You see an individual’s path to finding truth is an individual thing. There will always be people in life that I share my journey with, but they will never get the final say in anything I believe. If this is the only thing I have learned thus far in my life, I have learned a great truth. You cannot live trying to be something someone else wants you to be, you will always fail.
I am very comfortable with who I am. I am at peace with the fact that I have questions, and two seemingly conflicting worlds that I am very much a part of. On occasion I feel like a hypocrite, but deep down I believe that I have to fully let go an experience them both before I find what it is I seek. I know that some see that as a very risky proposition, but I have also learned that one cannot be afraid to take risks. Failure to take risks means that you fail to grow as a person.
I have learned that listening to voices can get you in trouble. Especially if you assume you know what the purpose behind what they tell you is, and instead it is colored with personal desire. Helping someone find their ezer, does not mean that the ezer is you, just that you are supposed to help them find it. Knowing this makes other things make much more sense and again I am at peace with myself on this issue, knowing that one day this searching will not be in vain.
I believe that true friendships are not at risk when you question your faith. People who really love you are going to support you, even when they do not agree with your decisions. Love may be the only universal truth, and it manifests itself in so many different ways, it is almost like it reinvents itself every time you experience. Family love, friend love, romantic love. Love is inherently good. Real love cannot be tarnished by negative forces. Real love endures, though external forces can cause it to only manifest temporarily and then people can close themselves off to the possibility of this love as it changes form.
Thus far in my journey to find truth, I have made many friends, experienced much love, and learned much. I expect this to continue as I continue to seek truth, and realize that no matter what I do, no one is going to agree with my beliefs 100%, and it is part of the nature of spiritual journeys being impacted externally but ultimately internal. This is part of nature and not a risk to any true friendship, but a challenge that can be overcome. No matter where my journey takes me next, I am at peace with whatever that next step might be, whether it be canceling a trip to California, or moving far away from young women I adore.

It has been a week since I last heard from a friend of mine, she is wonderful and certainly inspired in her faith, but some of the things she says to me strikes a nerve, and not in a good way. She suggested that one of my friends who has mostly female friends and not male friends despite being male, meant that there was something wrong with him. She also seems to have issues with men and women being close friends in general, and this bothers me deeply.
I think that her opinion is a demonstration of something deeper that is wrong with our world, a general belief that men and women are somehow so fundamentally different that they are not qualified to give each other advice. I have found with certain friendships that I grow more as a person, and more in my faith, by having close male friends who are willing to give me advice and call me out when I do something that is wrong or legitimately out of line. I find that this male input carries with it some insights that my female friends do not have, and for that I feel that it is a blessing to have this input.
Some things she said were things I needed to hear, despite the fact that I did not want to hear it. I often try to help people with their problems, but sometimes there is truly nothing I can do. She suggests it is because of the gender difference, while I would argue that it is more because some issues are things we have to go through alone, just us and God.
I have been struggling a lot with relationships lately, and what it means to be committed to God and yet have relationships with people. In fact, to have friendships and relationships with others is what God calls us to do. We are supposed to love one another and take care of one another. We were not created to be alone.

Back when I was having a lot of trouble with my faith and the issue of grace and God’s forgiveness for all people, I had a dream. For a long time I did not share it with anyone because I thought that sharing it would diminish the value it had to me personally. Tonight I shared it with a trusted friend, in part because I thought he needed to hear it, and in part, I think because I needed to hear it again. This is my favorite dream I have ever had, and usually I do not ask for this, but if you are going to judge or comment negatively, please do not comment at all.

In my dream, there were millions of people of all shapes, sizes, races and creeds all of them standing before God. I could not see God, but I knew it was God, and he was talking to a teenage boy in a black hooded sweatshirt. He was confiding in God that he wanted to believe in him when he was in high school, but after he did something stupid, one of the “good kids” told him that he was going to go to Hell. He could not deal with the idea that God was vengeful like that and he turned his back on God. Overtime this rejection built into a sort of hatred of God and he lived his life hating God.

God spoke to him in this voice that conveyed so much love and pain, like nothing I have ever heard before saying, “People often do terrible things in my name, failing to understand that my true nature is to love. I love you, and it pains me so much to see how much destruction is caused in my name. The people that caused you to turn away from me thought they were doing my will, when in fact they were doing the exact opposite. People’s belief in their own righteousness causes them to ignore my message of loving their neighbor, and instead they pass judgment on them. Throwing stones they have no right to throw. My nature is that of love, which is why you have this opportunity with me now, to get to know me and my love.”

God’s grace is such an amazing thing, I will never fully be able to understand the full capacity of God’s love, but if it is anything like it was in my dream, God is so infinite and amazing I cannot help but nearly well up at the thought of his boundless love, even if I still have my own personal struggles of faith.

This may be the last time I ever post to this blog. Alas, not because I found enlightenment, the truth I have spent my life so earnestly seeking, but rather because I realize that I have spent so much time trying to attain spiritual fulfillment that I forgot that my life was actually happening. I have been going through the motions of living, and as far as I can tell, Christianity, Paganism, Hinduism, whatever it is that holds the truth I seek would frown upon this practice.
Someone once told me, “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow. You might get hit by a bus today.” A bit morbid, but he was right about one thing, nobody ever gets out of life alive. So instead of planning eternally, I think I am going to take it day by day for a while. Enjoy the beautiful white fluffy snow that is coating my world. Visit a friend who is probably a bit lonely right now. Savor the experience of living. Take risks, after all, what is life without risks.
Thank you all for joining me on this journey. The journey is never ending, and the destination unknown but by golly, I am going to delight in it.

I often find myself thinking I am crazy. I mean I suppose I probably am. When you think about it, some of my more questionable “gifts” are sketchy and not so fun to deal with. In the end I suppose the issue is that I always feel drawn in two directions spiritually. Part of me feels very drawn to a Christian view of divinity and spirituality believing in a creator God who yearns to be close to me and who I should seek to love. The other part of me believes in a divinity that allows me to control my own destiny, who has imbued the world with such amazing and beautiful possibilities for anyone who seeks them.

No matter which divinity belief I am clinging to, I believe that our world is sick. The planet itself is reacting to damage we have done, not simply a natural phenomena as some have argued, but something we have inflicted upon it. It is not just our planet we have been hurting either, we have been hurting ourselves. We are so consumed with being right that we have failed to realize that we should love one another, trust one another, and have faith in one another. I admit, I have more faith in humanity than some, but feel that overall we are sick with fear.

When I was a first year in college, I went to Seattle on a school trip. My group ditched me at the Seattle Art Museum and told me that they would meet me at the IMAX later on that day. I had no idea how to get around Seattle, but being the independent person I am, I set off on my own, and got completely turned around. I had given up hope when I saw these guys in blue bandanas standing on the street corner. I could have been afraid. I could have thought about how dangerous these people could have been to me, but instead I saw people who could help me, and they did. They went above and beyond the call of duty, walking me where I needed to go.

I use this story, not to demonstrate personal bravery, but instead to show that there is reason to trust people, even people that you have been taught to believe are frightening. After all, it is by overcoming our fear of each other that we can start to heal the illness that afflicts humanity. I am not suggesting that you go out and find some gang members and see if they will help you. You should be smart, but also know that you can trust your brothers and sisters of humanity when you are lost. We have all been lost at some point in time or another, and had someone help us. So many times we have been hurt by others and we want so much to protect ourselves and we close ourselves off from the world, but we fail to see how much we hurt ourselves when we try to protect ourselves. We need to learn to let go of the pain and realize that no man is an island; people are meant to be social creatures, thus together we are stronger than apart.

To trust God and his plan is a terrifying prospect in what would seem to be a time when God is dead. I myself am a sign of this societal phenomena, as I have every reason to believe that there is a God, and yet the concept of this terrifies me and what it might me for me. You see will live in a time where everything in life seems to be about the individual. For example, I have been talking to people about matters of love lately, and it appears that most just want to know what this means for them. What is their role? Why is their partner so opposed to communicating? What are they doing wrong? Why does he/she do x when it is obvious that I do not like it? We live in a time when everyone has pretty serious problems affecting their life day to day, and often no matter how much you care about the person, you are so caught up in your own life to see that person you love is slowly fading away. Is real love dead?

Someone suggested to me this weekend that love is in fact dead. Why would people try so hard to find someoneto date when it is obvious that this will end badly? Why get married when essentially the misery of dating will just continue, only instead of getting many people involved it is just the two of you? Only it is unlikely that it will just be the two of you that will suffer. After all single parent households are common place in our world. Essentially, our failure as a society to be selflessly in love has led to a serious tragedy. Selfishness is leading to our demise, leaving us unfulfilled and desperate. Love is not dead, just our ability to see it as a commitment seems to be. How many people do you know that are in a truly happy marriage? It does not have to be perfect, as that is an unreasonable expectation, but overall are the people happy? My parents have been married going on 45 years now, and like all relationships, they have their ups and downs. There were times growing up when I wondered if they even liked each other, but essentially what has kept them together for so long is an ability to try at least to be selfless. They struggle with this of course, and sometimes things had to be given up without the thoughts of what those things really meant to the person, but overall something works that has kept them together.

To be honest, I rarely imagined what life after college would be like. I figured I would meet someone I loved and follow them to the ends of the earth, whatever that means. I don't even really see myself having that bright of a future, as far as I can tell my generation is completely incompetent in the love category and I am just as incompetent. Several people have watched my struggle with God as of late and asked why God would try so hard to get me. I would like to answer that it was love, but honestly I think he is just concerned about what might happen if I go the other way. If love is not dead though, then I imagine that in God's case it could not possibly be an act of selfishness, but an act of love. Submitting to whatever crazy plan he has though, seems a bit stressful, but hopefully it has something to do with driving fast and if I am truly lucky, a passionate love that transcends time and space (sometimes I am such a girl). I am slowly coming to realize how unprepared I am for any kind of love. I adore my freedom, and am seeking love on my own terms. True love is not love on my terms, but love that is selfless and true. Devotion that knows no boundaries. Even as I say this, I am uncertain that I have it within me to be so selfless. Certainly, I can be selfless at times for my friends, but I always have a way out. Somehow with friends it is permissible to occasionally be selfish.

I want so much to find happiness in the world. I, like everyone else, want my hopes and dreams to be realized. I just don't know how this fits in with what I am supposed to b e doing. There is often a disparity between what a person needs and wants. I just hope that I am not too stubborn to seize the opportunities to do what I need to when they present themselves.

Last night at youth group my girls and I had an interesting discussion about how often they are swept up into other peoples arguments because of the pull of the popular kids at their schools. They desired nothing more than to be able to deal solely with their own problems without having to experience the outside forces of the "popular girls", yet when we dug deeper, we realized that in some ways they do like being involved in this drama, as people we love to have drama. As much as I prefer the serenity that comes with no drama, there is something appealing about having something to say. My life is a lot like that. It seems like living in Idaho should leave me in a situation where I have very little drama to deal with, but instead I find myself with drama that I claim I don't want, and in some ways I really don't and in some ways I really like having the opportunity to have something to talk about that doesn't force me to just focus on every one else. I get to focus on my own little dramas for a bit, but that is stupid. I should be focusing on the people around me, and shortly I may not have a choice, but life is becoming overwhelming and I just want to run away, and I would if I could only figure out how.

Focusing on my spiritual dilemmas has begun to get me in trouble in the rest of my life. I really wish that all I had to worry about was either school or faith, but not both. After this semester that will be the case, but right now I am just struggling to figure out who I am, where I stand, and what I stand for while pretending that I have everything together and I don't. This weekend at the retreat I helped lead, we talked about the masks we put on. This is my mask, the girl who doesn't really have to try at anything to be good at it, the illusion of being able to do things without trying while trying to be everything to everyone. It is exhausting and in some ways debilitating. I just want to be able to put the mask down, and yet I can't.

A lot has happened since last time I posted. In fact I have been doing somethings I never imagined I would be doing, but it has nonetheless been a rewarding experience. I went back to the church I grew up in, probably a little over a month ago. I felt drawn to this place one Sunday morning while I was drinking coffee in a nearby coffee shop reading Joe Gibbs' autobiography. I got far enough for Bobby Labonte to win his first championship and Tony Stewart win the race and I suddenly felt like it was time to go. I had somewhere to be.

That day, I got introduced to the youth pastor (they never had one when I was younger, so it was a bit of a shock that they had such things). I was introduced under the pretenses that they thought he wanted to start a college Bible study, and Kathy, who had been my Sunday School teacher when I was younger, so I was apparently her first choice. Instead, Robert (the youth pastor) has me working with Junior highers. We spent the weekend working with Junior High students at a retreat and now we are both quite sick. Someday I will learn how to turn down these opportunities, but for now, I pretty much say yes to every opportunity afforded to me.

These were some of the most amazing young women I have encountered. Many of them have faith that I know is going to be tested, some of them are going to collapse under the pressure, but I believe that each and every one of them will have the abilities at their disposal to find their way back. Anyway I have to be off now, but I will update later.

My journey has taken a weird and unexpected turn (at least for me). It seems I am going to be doing some youth group volunteering this week...

I have not updated in a while, but I have had a strange faith day, so it felt right. I have a friend who is extremely conservative sometimes, and today he ended up telling me that I was going to go to Hell because of the problems I have with God. He sometimes gets overly emotional during our conversations about God because he sees them as personal attacks on him, though that was not really what it was meant to be.

I think the problem is that because he is a man, he would never think to have some of the problems that I have with Christianity. I still have an issue with all the instances in the Bible where it is either blatantly stated or implied that women are inferior to men and that men should rule over women. I informed him that I felt would never be able to accept Christian faith unless I could overcome the problem. I am really trying, and while this site http://www.gotquestions.org/God-Bible-sexist.html helped some, I imagine that this is something that I am going to be dealing with for a long time.

I actually did manage to get through college without a conversion moment so to speak. There were two times when I was really close, though according to my aforementioned friend he “has never seen God hit someone upside the head as many times as his has with me and failed to succeed”. I figure God is probably infinitely patient, and if this is something that I have to work through, then he will make it so I do.

The collective to a trip to a cute little pagany shop not far from campus today. It began like a normal trip to a pagany store, though initially I noticed that it felt better than any pagany store I had ever been to. A very positive thing for such a store. Something ended up going a bit awry and by the end I felt like I needed to leave. I do not think it was because I was not supposed to be there, but because of some sort of energy overload. I do not know if this is positive or negative. I assume for my Christian friends it is a bit negative because it means I am taking the pagany thing seriously.

There appears to be two possibilities to this for my pagany self. 1. It was an energy overload; all those supplies coupled with no less than 8 magickally inclined types makes for an intense space. Something about the runes I almost bought seemed to trigger it, with my premonition tendencies; divination tools could cause such a reaction also. 2. It was something negative, whether it was the man at the register or something in that place. I really do not know.

It actually felt a bit like after a ritual if you do not ground the energy. I was almost floating for the next two hours. I love that feeling, but something feels off. I actually had to lie down after I got back so that I could come back to some semblance of normalcy. Even then I felt a little bit off, and actually feel a little bit off even now. Where this leaves me, I am uncertain. I am enjoying being pagan at the moment, and I have little to draw me away from it, which is generally when problems of faith arise.

I have not figured out if my current plan is just a very sad attempt on my part to avoid destiny. Visions I have been having for more than a year no longer occupy my thoughts about the future. As much as signs seemed to be pointing to Indiana, I have thus far avoided applying to IU for language school. I know I must do it this weekend or I may not have a fallback plan, which is essential to my planning, but I am just afraid that applying there will mean that I don’t get to go to Middlebury, and I REALLY want to go more than I have wanted anything in a long time.

To be smart though I suppose I will do what I always do. I will likely get into both and have a choice. A choice that will be determined by finances. Sometimes I really hate money. Is it to smart such prolific visions? I do not know, but it seems equally foolish to let them rule my life.

mood: confused

A few months ago, I took a break from my faith journey because I was tired of dealing with it. Spirituality is such a part of who I am that I did not really so much take a break from my faith journey, as I took a break from sharing it with my anonymous readers. I gave some people glimpses of what I felt was pertinent to them. Occasionally, I wanted insight, so I asked, though I rarely did what could really be counted as following anyone’s advice, though I did start keeping a dream journal. I need so desperately to know what I am supposed to do with my life. Part of me wants to go study forensics, which end me up with about four undergraduate degrees and a graduate degree before I was done.

Yet, I keep being told (not by any person, by signs and dreams, and yes, I know this does not exactly sound sane) that I need to go to Indiana. All I know is that there is someone (if my dreams are right, I even know who and where) that I need to meet that is going to have a huge impact on my destiny. I could go there, and if it is all true, then I would at least have answers, but it is like I have many paths in front of me, and I sort of know where that path goes, and I am not really ready for that. Had you asked me a month ago, I was ready for everything that this means. Now, I have other options. I can do whatever I want to with my life. I do not have to heed these visions, that only seem to be right in their own time anyway. Perhaps I do not have to do anything for them to happen. Perhaps free will really does not exist and now matter what I do, I will end up in that diner in Indiana and I do not have a choice.

A friend recently told me that he could see why Satan tried to confuse me so much because I have very powerful gifts. Sweet sentiment, but the better I get to know myself the more I realize that I seem to have very little follow through, so it will not make that big of a difference. Combine that with the doubts I have about these so-called gifts, and in the grand scheme of the power struggle between good and evil, I am a very small threat to either side. The only thing I really have going for me is this misplaced belief somewhere deep down that I am pivotal to this struggle, which is insane. I could be committed for such beliefs. Everyone has their delusions about grandeur, some days, mine are about as big as they get.

What good is a gift that you cannot really use for anything? I rarely know that they are actually what they seem to be until something happens. Then it is just a serious case of déjà vu. It would be so much better if I had made all this up in some insane attempt for attention. Unfortunately, I would rather be able to use it for something or not have it at all.

I watched the Da Vinci Code tonight. It was all right. Pretty predictable, nothing I had not heard before. This could be because my mother seems unable to convince herself to watch the movie, but she was inclined to watch all those shows that tried to refute it. People it is meant to be fiction, and while I do not deny that some of the stranger secret societies might have big secrets, this movie and book were never meant to do anything more than entertain, and perhaps make you think.

On another note, I get to go visit my long lost twin Yulia next week. I am really excited. I haven’t seen her in four years. We have a ton in common, though our religious foundations are certainly different. Yulia loves CS Lewis and well… God, without a doubt she is one of the most amazing people I have ever met, but we could certainly have God problems, which I don’t think will come to fruition because in Yulia I see what I believe Christianity should be. So I suppose I will end this with one of Yulia’s notes, which I will ponder as I go to sleep at this late hour.

“Ooo… I just discovered something beautiful:

Objects of the Divine Love
When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some ‘disinterested’, because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know… We were made not primarily that we may love God (although we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest ‘well pleased’. To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities.”
--C.S. Lewis


Well, that’s interesting… the wheels in my head have shifted to double speed. Hmmm… To be made lovable by God, although He already loves us. What? I may need to think about this one for a bit… It’s a good thing that our worth or loveliness is not contingent on our actions (past nor present). We can’t make God love us any more than He already does. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Also, Romans chapter 8:37 and following – nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
But I suppose in response to His love, we can live lives that honor Him and love God in return.
--y”

For someone who has been ignoring their faith, tonight came as somewhat of a surprise. I had a prior commitment to my pagan group to be a major part in the biggest ritual of the year. When I made that commitment I was so excited because it was something I really wanted, and then in the weeks leading up to it... well if your reading this entry, you know what my spiritual journey has been encountered with these past few weeks.

Strange, possibly coincidental things happened that prompted me to call one of my Christian friends who I promised I would call if i decided to go through with the ritual. Basically, it boils down to this, I was 20 minutes late, and was still the first person from the group there, but one of my Christian friends was there to meet someone, and the whole story just clicked. The Christian group on campus had a guest speaker tonight that I had wanted to go see. I guess i missed that opportunity. It was a choice I made, even if I did not realize that I was making it at the time.

This ritual was the solidifying factor in my pagan spiritual journey last year. It was the one where I began to forge those bonds that were so important to my survival last year. Tonight was a lot like that only I had a far more pivotal part to play, only this year along with the spiritual high that always follows a ritual, i am also a bit confused. i cannot tell you if I believe there is a God or a goddess or what I actually believe about faith. Perhaps I want so desperately to have something to believe in that I ignore the signs that there really is not much to believe in.

I just have such a connection with many of these women that I do not want to sever by abandoning the group, I just wish that I could believe in something real. I mean this feels real enough, but I am so scared that I am going to wake up one morning and realize that I have wasted my life following a faith that is not real. I guess that is part of the reason I am so noncommittal. i want to have something to believe in, but I tend to live by the assumption that everyone(thing?) you ever love will one day let you down. This does not mean that I do not love, it just means that I realize that love always has the potential to have very negative consequences.

I just feel like somewhere in this faith journey I lost myself. I cannot honestly tell you who I am or what I believe right now, and it is not because it is 1 am and I am dizzy, it is because at some point I lost me, and I do not know what it would take to get me back, or if I even recognize the person I have become. I am not convinced that I like me, and i certainly do not know what it will take to get me back to being a me that I like being. Don’t get me wrong, being me could be a whole lot worse, I would just prefer it not be.

I wish I could give some sort of meaning to what all this means, but I do not really know what it means. Part of what it means is that I cannot flee from my spiritual journey because I am a very spiritually driven person, and if i am not in tune with what I am feeling on a spiritual level, the rest of my life seems to be off. My life needs a new approach, and while I do not really know what that means, Perhaps going home will give me some insight into what i am seeking.

The complete irrationality of what happened last night seems to overwhelm me today, to the point where part of me wants to recant it all, most of me wants to laugh at my occasional insanity, and some of me can explain away the whole experience with the idea that my room is drafty, because if it is not, whatever I keep thinking was in my room was gone less than 20 minutes.

I knew i was not ready to commit to anything and yet somehow in a desperate attempt to make the problem go away I tried it anyway, and even a sincere commitment at the time seems completely ridiculous, partially because it didn’t even succeed on a small level to do what it was supposed to and partially because i have commitments and people in my life who I refuse to say what they are doing is wrong, because I cannot convince myself that what I was doing was wrong.

Did you know in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 the Lord departs from Saul and sends upon him a distressing spirit; his servants see that he is disturbed by this spirit and they send David to him to play the harp whenever he is distressed by the spirit and it makes him better. i love music, it is so powerful and so connected to my entire being.

Here is my deal, and hopefully my friends can accept this and not freak out about my spiritual safety. This is what I think I realized from last night, which is something i think I’ve been trying to convey to my Christian friends for a while. God does not want me to come to him because of whatever is going on in my room. God wants me to come to him when I am ready to fully commit myself to him, and if I can never get to that point, he doesn’t want me. “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other.  So, because you are luke warm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Revelations 3:15

So even your own book tells you that the wishy washy attitude I seeem to ever presently have about God is bad. i don’t know what I really believe, I just want to be happy and right now I’m not happy. i feel upset with myself that I had this “conversion experience” last night that I knew full well that I wouldn’t be able to commit to today unless there was some miraculous change, and there wasn’t... I am working against some very atheistic tendencies right now. Right now my whole world seems to make me look crazy half the time. I’m a very spiritual person, and I’m very in tune with my own feelings and that is why paganism has always suited me a bit better, it grounds me when I am stressed in a way that no prayer ever did. Maybe that is my type A personality that cannot trust anyone to do it right.

I guess the point is this, I’m not going to be able to pretend that last night didn’t happen. I wish I could because I am embarrassed and don’t remember being that scared in a long time. If God is real, and he loses patience with me, then so be it. If I am to become Christian, I need to do it for me, and by me, and it will be despite everything.

location: My Room mood: uncomfortable

Wake up to another day
Mad at what i see
I'm a complicated man
But no one understand me
Don't you know what to do or think
In this lone reality
I'm just trying to make believe
Stories and apologies
~Hidell “I Wanna Know”

This week seems to work very well with my new Hidell CD. It seems to express my discontent with the world pretty well. Except when I look at the first lines of this song, I think to myself, well if you are so mad at what you see, why don’t you make a change. I know all too well what it feels like to think yourself too complicated to be understood. It is so strange how sometimes it happens that people understand you better than you ever thought they could. This week i have had this struggle with a presence in my room. I can’t really explain much about except that I am pretty confident that it was once here, and as far as I can tell, it isn’t here anymore.

I feel like I live so much inside my head that getting grips with the fact that reality may not be nearly as good as “the make believe stories and apologies” that I live out in my head. There is this Buddhist meditation practice where you are supposed to fill a glass of water and focus so intently on filling the glass that you think of nothing else but the water going into the glass. It is really quite difficult, sometimes I can do it, but usually my mind gets distracted and I start to think about other things, but because i am a perfectionist I force myself to do it over and over again, until I am satisfied that I am actually trying my hardest to succeed at this practice. Needless to say it is a rather depressing practice and not something I do much unless I really feel like I am losing touch with reality.

Well i wanna know the way you feel
And i wanna feel the way you feel
Well i won't let it show
I just wanna know the way you feel about me

I have these feelings regarding the rest of the world all the time. I see people who I would really like to feel just the way they feel in that moment, but I don’t want them to know that I want this, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be an enriching experience. The hardest thing though, is realizing that if people knew that I wanted to feel what they were feeling in that moment, I think they would be more than a little freaked out. I have learned in the last few days that a lot more people than I ever thought have a very supernatural view of the world, and I thought that if I mentioned my views people would be freaked out and think I was crazy, that doesn’t seem to be the case, but I think that it is the case if you knew that someone wanted to feel exactly what you were feeling, it seems almost creepy and beyond stalkerish in its implications, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t something I have desired.

Standing here with a god light
Hanging over me
Feeling trapped in the crown
Unaware of my destiny

I will not even try to pretend that I know exactly what the authors of these lyrics were going for, i can only take from them my own meaning. For me it is really interesting that they mention this “god light hanging over me” and yet it seems to cause them to “feel trapped in the crown, unaware of (their) destiny.” Yet, I would argue that I know this feeling, having this all seeing, all powerful god figure hanging over you, and he knows everything, but you are trapped by the very existence of this god because he knows your destiny and he is almost standing over you, mocking you with his knowledge that he knows what you are going to do before you do it. He could thwart you at every turn if he wanted to. I think maybe that was my problem with being Christian that keeps me away to this day. Perhaps it has less to do with my relationship with my mother and more to do with the relationship I had with god.

I think everyone starts seeking a higher being with the thought that somehow this is going to make their lives better and fuller. A higher all mighty begin that can help them with their problems, maybe bestow gifts upon them, maybe just give them something to have faith in. It seems like God always fails us eventually, whether it be the death of a loved one, a broken heart, or failed aspiration, life always seems to fail us, and when that happens we blame the most logical target for this, the one who is all seeing and all knowing. After all, is it not the one who is all seeing and all knowing, who could make your life better. You look around and think to yourself that people are so much better off than you, they probably aren’t , but it seems that way at the time.

**Edited for Content** 11:40am Friday 11.10.06

location: dorm mood: contemplative music: Hidell-She's Gone