What if I end up with nothing? What if, after I’ve scraped through all the layers of religious bullshit I discover that the whole thing we call God is made up of layers and layers of collective longings that something greater than ourselves exist?
See the trouble I am in for letting God out?
While God is in your pocket, doubt is easy to handle, ‘cause every odd now and then you can feel God moves (probably trying to get out...), or make God move, it’s your decision.
But the moment you let God be God, the mystery kicks in, faith steps up and doubt changes into a whole different ball game.
Or maybe that's the real discovery. Underneath the layers there is indeed nothing. God is not waiting behind the curtains of religion.
Like Elvis, God has left the building, for good.
God moved on a long time ago.
The early followers of Jesus believed that the Big Curtain ripped in half the day Jesus died. A sign that religion could not keep God in. God does not live in houses and temples made by man.
Why then did we feel the need for more curtains between us and God if God is not going to wait behind them?
I’m starting to think that the journey is not taking out the junk. That’s just the preparation for a bigger adventure. After the trash is taken out, the real search begins.
7 comments:
I totally agree. We must live with a open window and let GOD out of the old fashion building visited on Sundays and look for him in our modern life. He is there we must just find him!
For me, one of the biggest wonders in the world is the Mandelbrot Fractal. It is governed by simple equation in complex space. In the simplest language, if you take the equation Zn+1 = Zn.Zn + c and iterate n with some value of c, you’ll either find that the sequence is unbounded (it goes up and up and up) or remains below some value (I’ll have to add that Z and c are complex numbers though). If you’re feeling particularly artistically you can count the number if iterations and assign some colour to it as you plot the result. What you end with can only be described as utterly mind boggling (google Mandelbrot Fractal and look for yourself). That simple equation produces an image so complex it simply cannot be explained in words. What really gets me is the fact that you can zoom into it infinitely without end, finding similar patterns over and over and over again.
Before you think I’ve lost it and I’m responding to the "Help me search for my mind"-blog..., I really do have a point. You could look at the fractal and think that we can never understand its complexity – where do you even begin to describe it, the colours, the curves, the infinite self-recursive properties. On the other hand, you can simply state that it is merely the set of points that remains bounded for some equation. It is that simple.
There is probably no equation for God to "simplify" Him for us – but maybe we don’t have to... Maybe God is a Being that created us – loved us immensely – and then came to reclaim us after we wondered off on our own. Maybe God isn’t a set of complex theological arguments and dogma. Maybe it isn’t a set of rules that needs to be obeyed to the letter, but simply a carpenter’s son that loves us more than we can ever possibly know. Maybe it’s that simple.
Dr Seuss said: "Oh the places you'll go." That is just such a special post to me. It really highlighted why we are on the journey. I have to be honest, I went back to read some of the other comments on the previous days blogs. I go pretty upset at how many people play the man not the ball. Instead of giving their opinions they seems to find the need to attack Fourie for what he believes. That's kinda unfair. We aren't all flawless and thats the point of this blog. Sharing our doubts with people and learning from each other. I don't want to start a debate on who is right or wrong. Who is the "bigger" christen. That doesn't matter. How you chose to live and have a relationship with God is your business. I am naively optimistic about heaven. While I lived overseas I met so many people of countries all with different faiths. I phoned home and my biggest concern was just to make sure all of them have an equal chance of going to heaven. I don't live selfishly trying to secure my own spot there. I live in the hope that God is omnipotent and His grace is so boundless that no matter what kind of Christian you are He is going to let everybody go to heaven. He isn't an avengeful evil dude that tries to trick us and scare us into believing in Him. If that was the case I'd much rather be a Muslim, become a marter and die in the name of Allah. I want to draw closer to God and when I approach other Christian (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, 3 susters kerke, anyone actually) people who maybe approach their religious lives differently I believe that they have an equal chance to go to heaven. But that isn't for me to decide. I just know my search for the real makoya has led me to this. My faith is in His power and Grace. My motto is, Everybody is equal, treat them with dignity, have patience and live in the Grace of God.
Amen to that, AlexSteyn.
After I wrote today's post, I thought: Tomorrow I'll write something better! But then I read Pierre, Sparky and Alex's comments. I am without words.It is conversations like these why I keep on blogging.
boxes...
i dont think god was ever in the box.
we are born in the box.
we paint the insides a little day by day until one day we turn 360 degrees and realise/declare all the walls are now painted. blindly we see something is wrong with this picture. we start to tear down the paint again trying to find where we painted god in this picture. this box is now our reality and every day frantically and with obsession we repaint, tear down. Repaint. Tear. Down R.E.P.A.I.N.T....t....e....a.....r down
then we declare: we packed god into the wrong box.
What we are not seeing is god in great obsessive love ripping the box open from the outside screaming my name. But all we do is stare at the duct tape in our hands and wonder why there are tears in our armour
then
we scream at the silence
and it answers back
Harold, I love your metaphor.It is spot-on. Imagine a short comic strip, or video clip illustrating it. I can just picture the expression on the character's face while looking down at the ducktape in his hands.
"Screaming at silence", sounds like our modern day culture's alternative to ancient meditative prayer. Somewhere we lost the plot.
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