Absolutely Busy

I’ll tell you what’s my problem is with the Christian conviction in the absolute.

My dad was running a tape by a somewhat famous Christian apologist called Ravi Zacharias in the car on the way to church today, and in it he propounded the purity and the need to be found in the absolute. The chastisement for the lack of it is always the same; and that is nothing. My dad says I don’t understand what he’s getting at, this man whose read Dostoevsky , Tolstoy etc. etc. While I don’t even bother to crack open the bible in church. So? I’ve read a lot of other things that he hasn’t, and I don’t like to think they are all trash literature.

But I digress. The common case constantly placed forward against the lack of absolutes in the world today, is because there is a lack of absolutes, and we need to bring back principals and laws, and a moral code to live by. We think we can live without absolutes, but to do so would destroy us. The message in the world today is to do what you feel like, and no one sees the need for a moral code.

That’s what they all say. The tell you that the world lacks it, they say it in such a way that because of this lack, the world will go to hell, but they never, ever tell you why! But I’ll tell you why I don’t believe an absolute moral code is really just a fantasy. It is the biggest, most insane fantasy we ever come up with, and it will never be achievable.

Firstly, according to conventional Christian wisdom, Christ died so we can be saved. If we could save ourselves by through self-qualification, there was no need for his death. An absolute moral code is impossible for us to follow, therefore he had to die. Why so many Christians keep on propounding the need for it is beyond me. If we can never match up to it, we can never match up to it. It’s not a question of why bother. There’s a difference between giving up on something to which there is hope, and knowing the impossibility of something, and saying, screw it. It is a fantasy.

Then it’s the human nature. I am sure many of you have had that repetitive morning experience where you look at yourself in the mirror right after you wake up and think, wasn’t I just doing that yesterday. Look at the calendar, it’s November, isn’t it, and very soon you’ll be thinking that on Christmas morning; Has it been a year already?

What I am trying to get at is that we live form a day to day basis. Our nature is an existentialistic one. We might have utopianist ideals and traditionalist sentimentalities, but we live in the present. That’s why a whole lot of us don’t ever get things done till the last minute. Keep principals, because it’s good for you. Good for your future, and well, just good for you. I believe in having some sort of principal in life, it’s the law of doing what you feel is right, based on a fair bit of sensibility, that is more often then not crafted from experience and self-reflection (i.e., put yourself in the shoes of that other person/s). But to have absolutes of which I know not it’s outcome, except a denial of some of the most fantastic experiences I probably could do without, but now that I have had them, would not have liked to be without…?

The reality is in the present and what I feel, not in some vague nobility to be found in keeping discipline according to laws I cannot see the sense in anyway.

All these crazy proponents of the trade, they think they’ve got it. They think they know. I can say truthfully I’ve been through that. A state where I feverently attempted to keep every commandment. But I doubt they’ve placed themselves in that state where they don’t have to keep them, and see that there’s really nothing wrong with it. And see that it makes more sense, and is more natural to the human state.

They say the truth will set you free, that by doing what you feel, you will be under bondage. Then why, when I am not doing what I feel, I feel as if I’m under bondage, and when I am, I do not? Perhaps it is because of some higher meaning I cannot perceive now. What you feel does not account for anything. Fuck you, what I feel is ALL there is. Your senses are what pull together the experience of life, by the second, by the minute, all coalescing into a singular lifetime. I am living in feeling, and that is the only way I can see sensible to live by.

Doing what you feel is not a road to self-destruction, not if you don’t feel like destructing yourself. Besides, we’re all going to reach that point of death someday, preferably when we’re ready, but the thing is, as much as the media romanticizes death and all, will we ever be as ready as we like to be, or can we be ready anytime if we put ourselves to it.

And as a side note, I read something else by another Christian author that on the one hand preached sexual restraint, but extolled the virtues of Ray Croc –founder of McDonalds-. I’m not saying either one is right or wrong. You have too much wild sex with anyone (anytime, anyplace, but not just anyone is one of my principals) you get into shit, you eat too many Big Macs, you get into shit. Another bloody scary thing that freaked me was how he carried on with George Bush’s win. ‘It’s God’s blessing!’ But the guy is killing people through polices he pulled out of his ass. It’s people like these that make me truly believe God is completely impassioned. Because, as scary as this may sound, I do believe God has blessed George Bush. But because this world cannot accommodate victory for everyone and blessings for all, his victory has to be balanced with a fall, with failure and pain on someone else’s part.

The idea of blessing is completely selfish anyway. How would we know we are of a better lot unless there are people in a worse lot then we are?

There is such an insanely frustrating balance to things indeed.

Hey look, at least I’m not a starving African child in the middle of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Does it make a difference when I’m stuck in the middle of Hollywood image hell, and there are all these pink frosted donuts around me but I will be tormented if I take even one bite?

Bah.

Stressed. Much work to do.

FFFF