Sometimes I wonder why I’m searching so hard. What if there really isn’t anything to be found? What if after all this reading and thinking and debating it turns out that I’ve just been chasing the wind? A really good friend of mind made a very interesting point to me this week. I can’t remember the exact words, but they were in the vein of to much studying takes away the beauty of the message and that it’s better to just believe. How does one “just believe” though? While I would love to have the gift of a child-like faith, unfortunately I appear to have been cursed with a contemplative and speculative mind. To those that say “turn to the Bible”, well I can’t even count the number of times I’ve read it. The Bible is a book I rarely miss a day reading. As much as I love it though, I find myself digging into texts with less obtuse messaging and even a touch more on the mystical side (since mysticism tends to soften the tone).
We live in a pretty scary world. People are greedy and self absorbed with very little interest or desire to think about things that matter to anyone other than themselves. How else can you explain a society that is so lost that it celebrates the death of an enemy and fights ways to care for their less fortunate neighbors? Children are physically and sexually abused, people eat each other, and the religious institutions just keep racking in the tithes. Praise the Lord!
God, if you are out there, do you even care anymore??
Do you care that little children are born with collapsed lungs and a young couple has to endure the stresses of the condition only to cope with the loss?
Do you care when your representatives here on earth rape children?
Do you care when an elderly lady can’t even walk from a store to her home without a thug knocking her over to steal her purse?
Do you care that millions of children will go to bed hungry tonight and tomorrow night too?
God, if you are out there, did you ever care?
If your chosen people are the stock of Abraham, why are your chosen people always fighting each other?
If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, why do I have to lock my doors at night and arm an alarm system?
If we are to do unto others what we would want done to us, why do I need insurance to protect my own identity?
God, where are you? Have you given up on us?
With all the violence and hate, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that sometime I question whether nature is just random. To my friends who say all of these natural disasters and the obvious moral collapse of our society are prophecies that are being fulfilled: I not subscribe to an ending times apocalyptic view requiring me to resign myself to believing that the very Creator that fashioned the cosmos in their unknowable and infinite majesty, did so just to destroy it. Nor do I believe that a blood sacrifice was needed as a condition for anything.
To understand a holy unity, examine the flame rising from a candle. We see at first two kinds of light, one glistening white and one blue or black. The white light is above and rises in a straight line, the blue or black light is beneath and appears to be the source of the white; yet the two lights are so closely united they form one single flame. But the source formed by the blue or black light is, in turn, attached to the wick under it. The white light never changes, it always remains white; but several shades are distinguishable in the lower light. Moreover, the lower light moves in two opposite directions; above, it is connected to the white light, and below, it is attached to the burning matter; this matter continually consumes itself and rises toward the upper light. It is thus that all that is, reunites with the one unity. — Zohar
Perhaps the Divine Essence is within all of us as a thread to weave us together with a sense of oneness. The more the focus is on me instead of we, the weaker that thread becomes. Perhaps what I’ve been looking for in this Quest has been within me and those around me all along, bottled up and waiting to be let out.
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One. — Zohar
The Quest for Light 
A most poignant post Nelson. Has the whole thing been set up like this or does our perception create what we see in front of us. Many deep questions that ultimately find meaning in the still small Voice.
Keep up with the honesty and integrity – not much of it flying around the 21st century metaphysical world.
Blessings
Dylan
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Well that’s a good question Dylan, one that I think both of us continue to try to figure out. The unanswerable question always appears to be “Why?”
Thank you very much for the compliment.
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This is a fine post, Nelson.
What I think you need to remember is that sometimes we need to remember that if you simply keep your eyes open, the destination might not be where you wanted to go, but it can be more fascinating than you ever imagined.
Columbus was trying to find a faster trade route to India, yet found something that made everyone (almost…) far richer.
The man who spends his life searching for pots of gold has only wasted it if he never took the time to appreciate the rainbow…..
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Thanks George. The destination on this one does appear as though it is completely different than I thought it would be, keeping in mind that the destination is not yet in sight. The search to me is the rainbow and I enjoy every minute of it 🙂
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Nelson, In a word, SIN. The answer to all of your questions is sin. We want to blame God for all the ills in the world and yet want God to stay out of our business. We want to do things our way, ignore the plan God has outlined for us in His word and then complain when everything goes bad.
Man makes his own choices and then wants no responsibility for the outcome. Here’s an idea, let’s all try to live the way Christ would have us to and see how the world turns out. Instead we continue to do it our way and then complain about it. Man is born into sin, none of us are perfect and therefore WILL sin and WILL need forgiveness. Christ is the blood sacrifice once and for all. We have to confess our sin, and accept the free gift of salvation and live our life’s accordingly. I say free gift which it is but it does cost one thing, our pride. The problem is it just sounds too simple so we try to make it more complicated than it is.
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Jim, Interesting comment. If you haven’t figured it out, you are the person I referred to in the second sentence of this post. So glad you dropped in and read (I thought you’d given up on my blog).
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Thought so 🙂 Not given up just need to find time to respond to the posts. More to come…
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