Low points

It is going on 4 months since I last posted to this blog. I suppose there are a number of reasons, but paramount is a lack of desire to share what has been going on in my life and an inability to gather my thoughts in an organized way to put them down on paper. I really haven’t been able to assemble my thoughts for a while now, and I really can’t say why. Work has taken its toll on me for sure. In fact, I am at a low point in my interest in work right now.  I realize what I do is mostly un-notable. It has little to no impact on those around me, and it really isn’t even a blip on the radar of notable activity. Never in my life have I felt like my work is so useless than I do now. I hate retail. I am sorry I ever chose to be a part of it

I am at a low point in my self esteem, a low point in my relationships with others, and at a low point in my expectations of my waning years’ prospects. I do not understand how to estimate my assets, how to estimate my retirement, and certainly am as uncertain of the future as anyone in this country.

I am sure my mental situation is due in large part to the stroke I had 6 years ago. I know I am very fortunate to have come through that experience as intact as I did, but there certainly were changes in my mental and physical abilities. I also believe, although I haven’t researched it enough to know for sure, that the medications I am on is having a large effect on my ability to think clearly, to respond to and to be rational in all situations.

I feel life coming unraveled and I see the little remaining time I have lift as bleak and dark. I thought for a while that I had found a way to bring happiness back, but as time creeps on I see it slipping from my grasp.

In spite of being surrounded by friends and family I feel alone. I realize that the isolation is a product of my own actions. I have slowly become more reclusive and guarded with my feelings and desires. I have pulled myself into a shell in order to protect myself and now that shell is suffocating me. I don’t want to end my life. I can’t imagine someone getting to a point where they want to end their life, but I also am afraid of the future. I have always experienced by best moments when I have been giving to others. That took a real blow a few months ago when I got burned by a scammer. Not on my computer, but in real life. I stopped to help someone and got taken. I know it happens all the time, but it hurt me.

I have no idea if anyone reads this anymore, but if someone does, and is a Bible scholar they will remember the apostle Paul was brought before Porcius Festus the procurator of Judea and King Marcus Julius Agrippa I in his last final hearing after being arrested for preaching about Jesus as the Christ. Acts 25 & 26 records the exchange between this most famous of all apostles and these sympathetic but bound by law authorities. After listening to Paul speak about his conversion and his belief in Christ Festus responded with “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.”

I feel I have reached that point. Paul denied being “mad” but I am not so bold. Paul had a more secure faith in what he knew. I realize that because of the knowledge so available some 2000 years later I know a lot more about the world than Paul did, but I may know a lot less about God than Paul knew. In Paul’s day little was known about the world in which he lived, and greater faith was placed in the just recent life of this man called the Christ. While I have not lost my faith in Christ, I know a lot more about the world and some of the things thought and written some 2000 to 3000 years ago have been found to be incomplete. It isn’t that they were wrong, but the descriptions they used do not fit with our knowledge today. So my faith in Christ is different than Paul’s by 2000 years of accumulated knowledge.

My life long pursuit has been to reconcile scripture to science. While it has become very clear to me, I see the Christian world around me gnashing their teeth at science and holding up 2000 year old documents as truth. And that hurts me because I believe it hurts God. In this country more than anywhere else in the world, the Christian believers are divided into camps that draw lines around their doctrines and beliefs and call to all to come join them, but then press them to conform to their own doctrines and beliefs. Most of those groups hold to a very literal interpretation of canon scripture.

I am weary of Protestantism, sadden by Judaism, and afraid of Islam. Hinduism, Baha’i, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto, and all the rest are aberrations that I do not see as viable. Their gods are not on the same level as the God portrayed in the big three.

But of all the religions, Protestantism is the most divided and convoluted of all. I am weary of that. Too many self proclaimed theological experts that do not have understanding of things around them proclaiming truth.

I think I’ll have a latte with my theology. And a sticky bun would be nice as well. Thank you.

I will post about my two trips to Metro Ministries in Brooklyn NY soon. Great trips. Loved them.