song of the week: pearl jam, yellow bedletter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs8y3kneqrs
going through my old stuff, there were at least four things which weighed heavily with me. one was for love past. one was for a mistreated friend. i'll carry those a bit longer.
one was for an old photo of me, as a little boy. i knew it, but i hardly recognised it. i had no doubt that it was me, in fact, i was convinced that it was me. you could pull out any photo of me as a boy and i'd know it was me. but i didn't recognise the look in my eyes; a look of utter vulnerability. i felt like hugging the little boy there. but i'm old now. maybe my mum still sees me like that.
the other was my old journal stuff. some of it was angsty, some of it was about what the younger me thought were really cool dreams, or memorable encounters. but what made more of an impression on me was the idealist, purist christian stuff i wrote. and i didn't reject it, even though i know more clearly the kind of christian i am now, i.e. not so naively purist. i know that i am purist at one level, but i've come to be kinder to the world, for the most part.
and that's been at the back of my mind for awhile. what is the standard i hold myself to? i do think it's a Godly standard at one level, but it's more humanly now, to be precise, it's my standard. i hold myself to a standard which allows me to be fully who i am - an alive human being, trying to do something for this world.
and that contradicts the word. it says, if anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily. and the purist me believes in this denying. whoever seeks his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. i believe it, yes i do. but here's this: how can you deny that which you don't know?
and that's the whammy of it. the more fully i know what life is, the more fully i can choose what to believe in and what to do. and nevermind my inherent interest in freedom and self-fulfilment, i don't think that denying what i don't know is worth more than denying what i do know about life and what i love about it. and i do believe i can do it, that i can lead a Godly life in my own image. the sentence sounds awful, but accept it on the reasons i've given. i do believe i can be my own man, a Godly one at that.
the first and greatest commandment is this: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. nevermind the second commandment, i got that down pat. back to the first, observe this, only the soul is not of this realm. and that tells me - i must know what my heart and mind and strength is before i can love God with them. and now is the only chance i have. and for the record, only my soul fully loves God right now, i can't explain it besides saying that it's how my soul feels to me.
this is too confounded. let's just say that i believe in the good of many things right now.
