Category: Personal

I watched The Most Hated Family in America by Louis Theroux. I like explorations of “extreme ideology”.

So The Most Hated Family is the family associated with Westboro Baptist Church led by Fred Phelps. Let’s be honest: it is a cult. The argument is simple: I am right and if you disagree with me you are wrong. I was shocked by how narcissistic it all is. And how the fear of hell is used to motivate.

There is something very attractive to being told what is right and wrong. No heavy lifting! Simply obey. The sovereignty of God was mentioned a number of times. I cannot recall the compassion of God being mentioned. I find it very sad to see what people do to other people in the name of God!

At one point one of the members asks Theroux if he believes in the bible. Can I say that question confuses me?! When I hear that question I feel like the bible is elevated to being an end in itself rather than a means to an end. The bible is not the relationship but only informs and strengthens the relationship.

So putting it simply: I do not believe in the bible (a book) but in Jesus (a person). That does not mean I do not take the bible seriously. But I cannot take it literally. (I still have both hands and both eyes!) I am aware that it is written by different people who have experienced God to the fullest. And people who have experienced their own separation from God. It is a story I enter to experience God.

I doubt Jesus would hold the signs that these people hold up. I doubt Jesus would condemn people like this church does. And I think my relationship with Jesus is much more than obeying. But, alas, I envy these people’s confidence in their message.

I heard some words yesterday that I have not heard applied to me before: Major Depressive Disorder. They were not directed to me – the doctor had to ring for permission for my medication and was asked for the diagnosis, “Major Depressive Disorder”.

Is it a little like giving a name to a monster? “But you look ok”.

To be honest, I feel like a fake. All of this is my choice and I am simply lazy. I am waiting for the moment that someone sees through it all and calls me out of it. I wondered if the doctor was going to do it yesterday.

So change in medication and see. That is my life now – change and wait and see.

Hope is a passion for the possible.

Fear and Trembling

While I think the above is from Fear and Trembling, I cannot actually find the quote. So, any help is welcome!

I remember once reading that the cruellest thing one human being can do to another is removing hope. To never see anything changing, to being stuck. Not stuck in the present as a good thing but rather being stuck in a deep dark hole without the possibility of ever escaping. Tomorrow – or the next moment – is simply more of the same.

At the moment I know what that feels like. I am acting and praying. But I know what it feels like to have all hope for tomorrow removed. The cruelty of it. All by the free choice of another, simply to hurt. I have taken my anti-anxiety tablets, tried to sit still and read, but the feeling is still there. I feel like I am falling into myself – into the black hole that is within me. And I cannot see it changing.

I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. To be honest, it is not the first time. Or, I suspect, the last. The whole “beam me up Scotty” gives me metaphysical anxiety – is it the same person? Other aspects make me cringe – the utopian ideas. And “The Crazyhorse” makes me giggle.

Yesterday I was thinking about the Borg and the Captain as I watched Descent. There is a way that the whole Borg thing is very Kierkegaardian – the anti-single-individual. Yet at the end of the episode, Picard talks about the common good and it made me think of Fear and Trembling.

Picard is the Tragic Hero who sacrifices the self for the universal. But I was thinking about Christians and the common good. It is like love: “God is love” (1 John 4:16) but love is not God. The common good is not God. Working for the common good is not always working for God. And sometimes the common good can be anti-God.

I think I often mistake an idea for a person. I can only relate to a person, I can only love a person, but I can know an idea. I like The Imitation of Christ on this: to know is to take in but to love is to give. An important idea to hold before me – I am called to love people! And that loving is not always the same as the common good because it calls me to sacrifice.

Anyhow, that was much more involved than I had intended.

So I have been procrastinating today. I have created a playlist on Spotify with some music – random and eclectic.

I was thinking yesterday, while in church, I am waiting. I am waiting to get better, to find some balance in life. I am waiting for people to act and react, for life to progress beyond the stalemate of the moment. I am waiting for things to become clear in my life, where I am going and what it is God wants from me.

I am not a person blessed with patience. My tablets, which offered so much help and comfort, have become burdensome. Yes, I sometimes forget to take them and then remember at the most awkward moment. My doctor has suggested moving to a different type of medication but I am terrified of the transition. Counselling has been a great help – I may say, life-saving – but I feel like I am simply going round in circles. I feel a sense of not being able to move beyond the past. Maybe I am just a ghost that is ignored?

So I am really not sure where I am at the moment. Writing this blog without aim? Grand schemes that never amount to anything? (That Pink Floyd line, “Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines”.) I think if the Olympics included sleeping as a sport, I could win something.

I do not enjoy this “holding pattern” way of living. I know that I should live in the present, the now, but at the moment that is just a little too hard. I know people are using my stress and pain to their advantage. I know betrayal. But knowing and living are two different things.

So, anyway, life goes on.

I have been enjoying Bridgerton. It is a little what I imagine Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen would have looked like. The whole series is a little what I imagine Soren and Regina were like.

Anyway, the music in Bridgerton is so cool – especially the classical covers of modern hits. So enjoy this one!

So I have been trying to eat vegan. Ok, I live in a house which is European and so I eat what is set before me which often includes lots of meat. But when I get to choose for myself, when I pick the food or the drink, I take the vegan or vegetarian option.

Nothing life-changing about that! I am no better or worse for making a choice of my food intact. But I have noticed that I think a lot more about the food I eat. I do not snack as much as I used to and I do not eat mindlessly to pass the time. And I think that is the spiritual side to it – I reflect before I eat rather than after. I think the “water and bread” diet of Medieval anchorites is a little too ascetic for me. And I do not live alone as yet so I still fit into the household.

I reflect and I notice the emotion before I eat. Yes, I am an emotional eater. I have a long list of comfort food – none of which is any good for me. Maybe this is all part of a change of life for me? More aware of who I am and what I do? I gave up alcohol more than a year ago. It reacts badly with my medicine. But, I admit, I sometimes still think about it with a hint of regret. I do not miss trying to hide the hangovers!

Yes, it is all about emotions for me. I would like to have a balance but I feel like it is just beyond reach at the moment. Yet naming it and facing it without the help of food (or alcohol) is part of maturing. And part of truly being me before God.

As long as I can still have tea!