Treasures of Darkness

On monday, I had a really bad headache, that got progressively worse as the day went on.  At once point my boss saw me put pressure on my forehead and asked if he was “getting to me”.  I laughed and said “no, that would be life that’s getting to me.”

He came back with “well, you know what you need, don’t you?” 

I confess, I immediately knew where this was going.  I figure it’s my punishment, because for 4 years I considered it my sacred duty to make him into a good fundamentalist Christian.  But I decided to play dumb and responded “A sugar daddy?”

He kinda stuttered and said “well, no, I meant-” and then just stopped talking.  I looked at him and raised my eyebrows and said “yes?”, just daring him to say it.  Apparently he got a word of wisdom from on high, because he said “nevermind” and dropped it.

Which honestly, kind of disappointed me.  I was just waiting for him to tell me that I needed God in my life, so that I could give him a blistering response about how going to church does not equal having God, anymore than not going to church equals not having God.

The truth is, I am not so frustrated by the fact that he thinks that way, as I am frustrated with the knowledge that I used to think likewise.

I had a couple of interesting conversations in the past 24 hours, and I have been sitting here for the past 5 minutes and thinking of how they relate to each other.  The most recent conversation involved the degree of seperation that my former church taught us that we needed to have.  Between us and the world, between us and non-believers, between us and anything that didn’t have the Christian label. 

I pointed out that though they would give lip service to the concept  of being not of the world, but in it, nevertheless, it was not something they practiced.  This became obvious by my complete and total inability in my most pious phase to have a normal conversation with someone outside the church.  The truth was that I was so far removed from the culture around me, that I lost the ability to interact in it.

Which brings me to the other conversation I had with my husband last night.  We are in the process of finishing up Season 4 of the series Angel, having watched the entire 7 seasons of its Sister show, Buffy the Vampire slayer, several months ago.  Our conversation centered on the overlying theme of Redemption that is found in both shows.  The conversation was interesting in and of itself, but made more so by the fact that my husband is not usually one to engage in spiritual or philosophical discussions.

Today, I can’t help but think that several years ago, I would not have been able to get past the fact that the shows involve demons, witchcraft and the supernatural.  I would have simply labeled them as evil, and there would have been no more discussion.

At one forum, when trying to explain the spiritual insights, that I had gotten from Buffy, I was written off as someone who obtained her doctrine from a TV show.  It frustrated me, but I knew I had once been the same. 

It amazes me now to realize how much I limited God in the past.  For I truly believed that he could only act within our prescribed belief system.  And now I seem to find him in thousands of places I never even thought to look.

My Thanks to Nate for posting this for me, and being patient with my ignorance!

A few days back I made a list of reasons why I avoid God, with the intention of later going back and looking at them more indepth in some sort of desperate attempt to be my own psychotherapist.

#1 ~ I don’t understand His motives

 I was taught that God created the angels as his servants, and then later went on to create the earth and eventually mankind.  It was explained that the reason for mankind, was that he endued us with free will with the hope that we would choose to love and worship Him.  Because apparently angels were not given free will, and had no choice but to love and worship Him.  And who wants love by default?  Not God, he wants it by choice.

Ummm….excuse me?  I could maybe buy this, if in the very next breath I wasn’t told about the fall of Lucifier/Satan.  I don’t think we give that evil entity enough credit, I mean after all, he managed to rebel with absolutely no free will whatsoever.  How is that possible?

So however he managed to do it, he then set his sites on mankind, deceived Eve, yadda yadda yadda.  Then God sets up this massive plan of redemption whereby he can restore the relationship between himself and His creation.  Well, all except his original creation, those pesky angels, 1/3 of whom sided with Satan.  For them though there is no going back, no plan of salvation, no redemption, just a future reservation in a lake of fire.

Can I be honest here, and say I totally don’t get that?  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

I got a good laugh out of this article found here.

 ”First, let me say, it is normal to have a brain and to want to think intellectual thoughts. God gave us a brain. The danger is when we start thinking for ourselves and using that intellectual power to seriously consider big questions about life and God, or (worse) when we start applying that intellect to our study of the Bible.”

This is my first week on the new budget, since my husband’s temporary job ended.  Unfortunately for me, this occurred at the same time my second job ran  out of money.  So I immediately revamped the budget, only to discover that the income from my primary job, which nets me about $1450 a month, allows me enough to pay the necessarily bills, but leaves on $25/week for groceries and other misc. household items.

This would be so much easier, if I only had to feed myself on that, but I also need to feed a man who at 6′6″ and 310 pounds can eat a whole lot!  I honestly don’t think it would be possible to eat on such a low amount AND eat healthy if it were not for the fact that we have a nice substancial inventory of food already.  I am one of those uber-vigilant people who keeps a price-book, and so is therefore away when there is an excellent sale.  Then I buy as much at that special price as I possibly can, especially in the cases of meat, which can be frozen and non-perisible items.

This is why we started our new budget with 16 jars of spaghetti sauce, 6 jars of mayo, 9 pounds of lean ground beef and 32 chicken breasts, as well as a good variety of other items.  This week I was able to concentrate more on fresh produce to accentuate what we already had on hand.  But I ended up having to borrow $14 from next week, due to running out of dog food ($9) and deciding to get another 12-Pack (doublerolls) of TP, as it was such a good deal ($5). 

Which means next week, I will be left with $10.  I guess that means that I get to spend this weekend looking for loose change.

I came across this awesome quote last night. Angel to his son Connor, Season 4, Episode one, “Deep Down”:

“Nothing in the world is the way it oughta be. It’s harsh…and cruel…but that’s why there’s us…champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done, or suffered. Or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. You’re not a part of that yet. I hope you will be.”

I haven’t been talking to God lately.  For awhile actually.  I’m like a stalker.  I read about God, I talk to his friends, I spy on the places where I think he’ll show up, but I do what I can to avoid any actual interaction.

The question of course is why?  On the surface it is the same issues that has plagued my relationship with God from day 1; fear and mistrust.  It’s when I try and go beneath the surface that it becomes more complicated.  What am I afraid?  Why can’t I trust?  What do I think He is going to say, ask, or do?  So much of it is tied up in my past spiritual experiences, but alot of it goes back further to issues that I have from my youth.

I know I have to face this, and in order to face it, I have to acknowledge it, name it, explore it.  To be honest, it’s not something I really want to deal with, as I am much more fond of the “ignore it and it will go away” approach.  But lets say, I do open up and confess all my reasons for my fear of commitment, that won’t necessarily make me immediately understand why I feel the way I do.    I guess I’ll start with making a nice list, and worry about making sense of it later.

Reasons Why I Avoid God

1. I don’t understand His motives.

2. It often all seems too good to be true, and so I use the distance to protect myself, while I search for the catch.

3. Avoiding Him makes it easier to ignore the contradictions.

4. I don’t trust Him.

5. I’m afraid he’ll make me return to what I left behind.

6. I view him as capricious.

7. I get frustrated and bogged down by the concept of His sovereignty.

8. I fear that He IS as he is portrayed by Christians.

9. I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough for Him.

10. My own feelings of inadequacy

11. Abandonment Issues.

12. I’m afraid that he will take everything away, or make me suffer horribly “for my own good”

13. Fear of Hell.

14. Confusion. 

15. Inability to separate God from the Christianity that I’ve known (i.e. abuse of power, legalism, fundamentalism)

16. Inability to reconcile the many faces of God in the scriptures.

17. The underlying question that if God is so great, why do all his people suck?

18. I am tired of everyone telling me what to do (and that apparently includes God as well)

19. Because it’s easy to.  Because I still focus on some God-Related stuff, it’s easy to make myself forget that I tend to avoid him personally.

20. Because I have little to zero real life interaction with other believers that might encourage me and/or change my mind about some of my fears.

Once upon a time I didn’t care at all about the environment.  What did it matter if we used up all of our resources or we filled the earth with garbage?  After all, Jesus was going to return any minute and take us away from the consequences of our consumerism and waste.  Or so I thought.

Once I began to question the dispensationalist viewpoint I had been taught, and as I struggled with the concept of the “rapture”, I was suddenly forced to re-examine the way I interacted with the world around me. 

Suddenly I was forced to plan for the future, and not just my future, but the futures of those who will come after me.  This kind of mindset is not one that changes overnight, and if God had suddenly said to me “Thou shalt care about thy global impact”, I’m pretty sure I would have scoffed.  Instead he spoke to me through a channel I was already tuned into; my own innate frugality.

The first 2 R’s came somewhat naturally for me.  For already I was in a constant state of trying to find ways to reduce my spending.  I began to see a connection; how reducing my own personal consumption regardless of the reason have a larger impact then just my life.

One way that I incorporated both reducing and reusing is when I stopped buying paper towels and cleaning wipes, I chose instead to buy cotton cloths, that I can wash and disinfect.

However, the part where I have always struggled is when my desire to go “green” clashes with my innate frugality; whether it is buying organic or natural foods, reusable grocery bags, or environmentally safe cleaning products.  It is easy to judge and say that I choose money over principles, but it is not that clear cut.  When my husband is out of work (which is unforunately all too often), we have to makedo with $25-50 per week to cover groceries and household items (TP, Laundry Soap, Shampoo…etc.)  for 2 people.  It is nearly impossible to do buying the cheapest items that I can.

But rather than beat myself up for what I can not do, I would rather celebrate that which I can do.  I recently made the switch from bottled water, to a tap water filter.  Though this has improved the taste of our tap water immeasurably, I admit that I still find the bottled water better tasting (regardless of the assertion by mainly that bottled water is just glorified tap water anyway).

My next step, cannot be implemented until my husband is working again, but when I have the money I will be purchasing some reusable grocery bags.  After that, who knows?

I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately.  Well, that part is nothing new!  But I have been thinking a lot about how I relate to it, what it means to me and my life, and some things I really need to change.

Food has always been my drug of choice.  Though once upon a time it shared my heart with cigarettes.  I have heard it said that it is harder to quit smoking then it is to quit heroin.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, I do know that quitting smoking was difficult. (and I always did it cold turkey!)  But I would rather go through the pain and withdrawal, and nicotine fits 1000 times over than to have to struggle with food.

What so many people who don’t have food issues don’t realize is that in its own way it is so much harder to control than smoking, or drinking or drugs.  With those things it is simply giving up, forever, and each day that you go without it, it gets a little easier.  Not that I mean to minimize the struggle that many go through to get clean.  But how succesful would they be if they were told that they had to smoke 3 cigarettes a day, no more and no less.  Or they had to have one beer, or just shoot up once.  Isn’t that the whole thing about being an addict, that you can’t just have one?  That one tiny sip of alcohol is likely to push you over the edge into a 3 day binge?

And yet that is the type of control that is expected of those with food issues.  We need to eat a certain amount of food a day, no more and no less.  And this is what I have struggled with for as long as I can remember.  Dieting to me, is one of the hardest things possible.  I learned to make exercise a part of my lifestyle, but I still struggle with the food thing. I would much rather fast for a week then diet for a week, though a lot of people might not understand that.