A Collection of Thoughts: Christianity

I’m so tired mentally, it’s been hard keeping up with the regular blog posts lately. I just don’t have the drive to write anything that makes me think. It’s the most inconvenient time to feel that way, as I’m being confronted with several issues that are calling for my attention: Christianity, responsibility, self control with alcohol, my views on sex, and generativity.

Concerning my Christianity, a lot of my concern has been sparked by my recent inconsistency with going to church. I just feel so guilty, whether it’s for rational or irrational reasons. Why am I feeling so guilty? I’ve been putting it off because with nursing school and personal time and my philosophy group and home errands all vying for a slot in my weekend schedule, Church gets put on raincheck. A lot of the guilt comes from my mother telling me how I would go to hell for not attending Church. Attending Church seemed to be the way she gauged how good of a Christian somebody was. Bleh, I hate that feeling, but it’s ingrained in me pretty deep. An extra kick in the balls came when I drove by a mob right off of Dixie St. near South Patio of Tennessee Tech, where I go. Sticking out of the mob was a huge banner saying “Turn to Jesus or Burn in Hell”. A head-turner, but what piqued my interest was the fact that some of my militant atheist friends were in the rabble. I parked nearby and walked over to see what the hell was going on.

Turned out there was an evangelist by the name of John making some pretty condemning statements and there were people gathering around, some yelling back at him. Initially, I was rather disgusted with what he had to say. He was spouting nothing but hate and damnation in the effort of scaring people into Christianity. Where was that going to get someone? What is the quality of faith of a Christian guided by fear? John was playing on their fear of death, on their fear of hell and damnation. Sometimes, I wish heaven and hell had never been mentioned to humans because I think it skews the true motives of a Christian. The ultimate goal of Christianity shouldn’t be a reward/punishment complex.

So there he was, shouting the Gospel as he saw fit, ignoring “foolish questions” and speaking over them. The opposing side wasn’t squeaky clean either. Students were spitting at his feet, blowing smoke at him, flashing porn, exercising their poor understanding and recognition of logical fallacies (quick note: pointing out a contradiction that has no relevance to the argument has not made anybody look smart since the sixth grade). There was even a point near the end when some of the students came back with posters saying “Honk if you love beer”, “Honk if you love porn”. I didn’t know what to think other than both sides were being idiots. Other than that, I felt pretty conflicted on how respond to it, if at all.

What I saw was a lot of fear and hate. Hate in John’s words, fear in his avoidance from certain confrontations. Hate from the spiteful students, and fear from those who continued to spite him. Fear from the Christian students who had felt that same way I had felt to some degree. They tried to confront him, tried to tell him that there were those who believed, to which he replied “I’m not here for you, I’m here for the unsaved. If you believe, then go and tell them the Truth,” to which they retreated a few feet and prayed. I chose to abstain from the prayer because I wouldn’t have been praying for the right reasons. It wouldn’t have been for John, it wouldn’t have been for the “unsaved”, it wouldn’t have been for God. Rather, it would have been at God asking for him to forgive me, to wash my hands of all that toxic feeling. That wasn’t the time to be thinking about myself, I thought. Instead, I kept on listening to John and to the few sincere questions that were asked and he would respond to amidst all the jeering and honking.

I don’t know about anybody else who was there, but I felt the love that had come from him. Beneath his vanity and his hate and his fear, there was a lot of love in what he had to say. If any of you remember my blog a while back about hypocrisy, this is a shining example of that post. Most of what John said may have been skewed or out of context, but it wasn’t entirely untrue. There was a teaching value to his words. To the best of his abilities and understanding, he was trying to help others, although not entirely for their sakes. In his eyes, by spending his money on a banner, by driving out two whole hours, by standing up to the heathens, the smokers, the prostitutes, the Sodomites he was a warrior on behalf of God. That was how he showed God his love.

And don’t think he wasn’t listening to those jeers. Don’t think he didn’t notice the spit at his feet. He was fighting back the look of defeat near the end and the only way he could hide it was by being more resolute. By making more accusations. He had to keep that warrior spirit in the face of evil. He wasn’t going to concede forfeiture. Down to the minute he left he was preaching, as flawed as everyone thought it was. In some ways it was noble, despite the foolishness of it.

Three days later I’m still trying to figure out what to think about it all. He might not have won over any Christians, but he kept me thinking in a time when I was staggering in my Christianity so I hope he didn’t leave feeling that he had failed in his mission.

Vent: Hitting the Critical Point of Sociability

I think I’ve hit my threshold for people at the moment.I feel like I’m a balloon that’s been filled too full of air and all of a sudden I’ve popped from all that built up pressure. As soon as I got home, I just flopped over into bed and felt like rolling up into a ball and dying. I wouldn’t have minded if a plane fell from the sky and crash-landed on my house, crushing me underneath. I feel mentally and physically drained, tense all up and down my back. My heart is trying to beat out of my chest and my stomach is thrashing all about inside of me right now. 

Standing back and looking at why I have only so much tolerance for large groups of people, I’m starting to see into why that threshold is there in a first place. After spending so much time around so many people, ironically, I start to feel more alone than ever. I’m a “one-on-one” type of person. I connect best with people when it’s just one person at a time. Really, since the New Year started, I haven’t had the chance to build a personal connection with anybody. Lately, it’s been more of a cocktail party kind of mentality. I wander around, spend a few minutes with this person then a few minutes with that person. I’m constantly moving from one person to the next. In a way, that’s really overwhelming for me. There’s all these people, but I’m not really getting deep with anybody. I’m just uncovering a bit of what’s on the surface across a broad expanse of people. I’m not taking time to sit down with anybody in particular. After so much of that, it just feels like I’m in a room full of cardboard cutout people. I feel alone.

I forgot what it was like to have a truly deep conversation. To truly connect with someone. To just share the carpet with somebody, lying on my back, and stare at the ceiling as I talk about nothing in particular. To just float along with nothing to anchor me to the earth but the voice of the other person, something cardboard cutouts can’t do. 

I used to spend time like that with Amanda all the time, back when I wasn’t bogged down with nursing school. She’d call me up around 2 in the morning and we’d walk down to the Bryan Fine Arts and lie on the benches in the lobby and ramble about life. To me, that’s what life is all about. Bethany coming over this weekend reminded me of that; what it was like to take time and sit down and appreciate life. Truthfully, I was a little sour from the philosophy meeting I was at tonight. I was spending time with her at my house, but I left a little early so that I could prepare for leading a discussion on Siddartha, since I had committed myself to it. The discussion never happened and Bethany left for home before I got out of the meeting.

I’m over it now. I spent plenty of quality time with her as it was, so I can’t really complain. Just a few minutes lost isn’t going to kill me. If she hadn’t decided to randomly pop up this weekend, I probably would have gone insane from nursing school. I think I’ll finish off this post with some of the things this week that have helped me to appreciate life in this stressful time: Mary Ellen’s MAGIC cookies, cooking chili with Justin, protecting Bethany from the zombies at the deserted Cookeville Mall, sitting out on the deck in the morning and sipping tea, miscellaneous hugs.

Ok, time to sleep. Night.