Beliefs…

I am back and perhaps in some ways better, but it is another day lived and another promise kept. With each day I find these easier to write and post and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Today in my travels I found myself contemplating the tableaus of faith and more specifically the parable of the Garden of Eden. I have often considered the concept of the original sin and what it really was. It was certainly not eating an apple. This brings me to my questions about what is often believed about God and the Devil. At different times I have questioned the reality of God, the existence of God. I was at one time an atheist. However, more recently I have found myself questioning the Devil far more. As hesitant as I am to use the word God given how it has been used and abused, I know for certain there are higher powers than we. I’ll call it God for general recognition. However, I don’t know that I believe in the Devil anymore. I believe that the Devil has become the scapegoat for humans worst compulsions. I don’t know if there was any talking serpent in the Garden. I believe that questions about dominion and how much of it was for humans to roam amongst began to swell up. Adam and Eve had very clear instructions: take care of the Garden and the Garden to take care of you. I believe that we do not have dominion, but stewardship. We are animals, but we have been given the gift of mind to enable us to higher pursuits. What I believe humans have done is overstep our bounds in remaking the world for ourselves. We were to care for and cohabitate with the other living beings, not take ownership of the world. That is why I believe the original sin was humans deciding to prioritize our creations over God’s. We began to question what our function and purpose was and put ourselves in a place above us by trying to name and determine the use for ourselves and the world. While I do not believe faith means to do what you’re told, I do believe it means to fulfill your purpose in acknowledging our function in the grand scope of part of universe in which we inhabit. We should believe that we were created for a purpose and honor that creation by seeking a good purpose to fill. We are to look at what we are given and utilize it to the best of our ability to make good in the world. How do we know what our purpose is? I believe we find ourselves constantly back at the same things that nag at us no matter how much we try to let it go. I tried to get a 9 to 5 and live a more stable and “responsible” life, but writing remained with me either as a thing I did or a things I suffered for not doing.

It’s interesting that the Devil can make you do things when God can’t. Interesting that God does not impact our free will, but the Devil does. That’s very convenient. That when we look around us and turn our backs on the things we feel that we should do that it’s the Devil’s work and not our own. It just seems like an excuse. Like focusing so much on why you do terrible things that you’re not actively trying not to do them. Just find an adequate excuse for why people shouldn’t blame you for it. How many people go to therapy as a part of a greater investigation to determine who is responsible? It’s like Sherlock Holmes going to Watson. People are just going to therapy so that they can explain to the therapist why it’s all everybody else’s fault. Yet no matter whose fault it is, if it persists you’re still the one who will suffer it. So whether it’s the Devil or your abusive parents that hurt you, that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to be harmful. People in the pulpit who the Devil seems to have on speed dial. Lustful. Greedy. Driving people away from God. But people hold those who make no claims to being God’s people to higher standards than they do those who claim to be people of God. Every time they get caught, the Devil made them do it. So many people who frequent the church who step out of it straight towards the Devil. That’s why I feel like the Devil is a scapegoat for the worst of humanity.

As I continue to contemplate purpose in pursuit of my own, I keep circling back to the commonalities of lessons to be learned from history. Whether it takes a day or 1000 years, things don’t go unpunished. Age old crimes may find justice in a whole other life time. Through our creation myths and general attempts to explain life and the behaviors of humans, we seek an answer to why we’re here and what we’re meant to do. Some may rightfully surmise that is for each of us to decide. Others find faith in preconceived notions, predestination, destiny. Some do better believing that something perfect and great has designed them and their lives and they just have to live it. Soothing until you wrestle with which way is your destiny? The 9 to 5 or the yearning in your soul to sing a song? Paying taxes or the need to dance when you hear music? The newly won promotion at work or that show that you have been watching in your head for years, but still haven’t made? We know what we want to do and no, it’s not all about sex, the shortcut we’ve found to take to pleasure. This is about that nagging that so many of us spend our lives ignoring. How we can never really grow up because we dismiss our own development. We don’t take ourselves seriously. We continuously try to make ourselves somebody else’s responsibility. A parent. A spouse. A God. Somebody else is in charge of you because you cannot bear the weight of having your own destiny be for you to dictate. There has to be a real adult around somewhere. I’m just a part of someone else’s plan. I can’t make one. You know how far down I have to climb? I didn’t even get to start at the line. I had to run damn near 100 miles to get to the line and they didn’t start the race over when I got there. What is true is that I am destined for something and I have to figure out what that is. What am I basing that on? Usually what I’ve been shown. Either way, if I don’t do something, nothing will get done. Freedom is scary. It’s a hell of a responsibility. That’s why it’s so easy for other people to come and tell you what you ought to be doing. It alleviates the anguish of having to decide for ourselves. Even what to believe.

I’m still figuring out what to believe. But I can’t stop and consider for too long. My life started a long time ago. I don’t know when it will be over. Hopefully not for quite some time, but the older I get, the more quickly the years go by. I can see how you could get old before you decided. I can’t do that though. Those people don’t do much worth a living. I’d like to figure it out so I can make some good out of it. I’ll let you know some more about it tomorrow…