Here's What I Am

Since the begining of this crazy spiritual change, I thought the closest thing to what I believed was Agnosticism, but I always thought that meast that there was no was of knowing, which isn't something I agree with. It may be possible to answer these questions with religious of philosophical beliefs, but I just don't know, and until I find some reason to believe, whether it be through intellectual discussions, or something spiritual happening or something else entirely that I can't think if right now, I won't claim alliegence to any belief system but my own opinions on right and wrong. So what am I? According to Wikipedia, I'm a mild Agnostic. Whoever wrote the section on mild Agnosticism wrote my beliefs beautifully. Here's the section:

"Mild agnosticism (also called weak agnosticism, soft agnosticism, open agnosticism, empirical agnosticism, temporal agnosticism)—the view that the existence or nonexistence of God or gods is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if more evidence is available."

That's what I am!

Obviously, coming from a very objective Christian backround and then leaving it, relativism has swung around and presented itself like a sledgehammer in the face for me to consider. I don't know on that one, but I've been listening to Jack Johnson's "It's all understood". Interesting song and there's a good video someone made for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IpxsSj-NY&feature=related

Alright, peace!

A Short Story

I wanted to discribe something, but I couldn't do it plainly or poeticly, so I wrote a short story. Enjoy!

We were there in a crowded room.
Everyone talking, in conversation about politics or love or the latest gossip. When a young woman walked in, she couldn't have been older than 18. She was quiet, but even the least attent of us could have seen that she was anxious about something. Her eyes darted between people, as if she was looking for someone.  She wasn't too tall, so I offer to help find her friend, but she replied with "Thanks, I'm fine" and continued her search in another direction. Only a bit after this, her search took on what seemed to be a hightened sense of urgency, like she had looked at every face in the room and didn't find who she was looking for. At about this time, she started getting noticed by the crowd People that saw her became distracted from their conversations, and more than one conversation had to be restarted with "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Noticing this, and apparently not wanting to be noticed, she found a chair at one side of the room and sat down. She continued to anxiously search the room and didn't talk to anyone Now that I had be quietly watching her for about 10 minutes, I wanted to find out what was wrong, to get to the bottom of this. A plan started forming in my mind of how I'd approach her and ask what was wrong or who she was searching for, but a friend started talking to me, and I was distracted for several minutes. A door opened into the cold air outside, and I could swear I got a glimpse of her walk out. When you just barely see things, you don't remember specifics, you just remember emotion. The picture I remember is that she was defeated, her mission for coming that night was a failure.

For some reason, for several days I couldn't keep my ming off of her. Who was this girl who came to our party for such a short time? She said nothing more than an obligatory greeting and an occational "Excuse me" as she pushed through the crowd, but there was something about her... Something I can't quite put my finger on. She was different, and did not come for the same reasons the rest of us did, but because I hesitated to talk to her, I may never find out what she was thinking.

Later that week, as I was talking to several friends who were there, I found it strange that every one of them had noticed her. Some didn't care, some quickly dismissed her as someone they had no business with, and some thought as I did, and wanted to talk to her, but for whatever reason, did not.

A couple weeks later, when she was mostly out of my head, I wound up talking to a friend about this person and he replied that he knew who she was. It ends up she went to the same high school he did, and that she lived an ordinary life, and was planning on going into nursing or something like that. He had bumped into her after the incident, and just gave her an informal greeting; a smile and a "How are you doing" or something like that. She respond in kind and the meeting was over. Nothing seemed wrong.

So I wonder. What was it that night? What was it...
I, as a writer of fiction already know;
and you, as the reader, may never find out.
But I'll leave you with one line, the reason for all the others.
It was the first line I typed when I wrote this, but it's the last line in this story.

"But we just stood there, everyone afraid to move"

A Bit Afraid

This new thing is a bit frightening, I'm unsure of everything and have a knee-jerk reaction to a lot of stuff. I have to remind myself, "You don't have to believe that. What do you think?" I have an ugly feeling I'm making a  huge mistake, but is that God or habit cause I've lived as a Christian all my life? Obviously I can't answer that. I'll give it at least a month.

Listening to Meghan's Song by Matthew Perryman Jones

Part 2 of "This is New!"

Hey! What's up my faithful lack of readers! Last time I posted I said something like "I'm not a Christian" and not much else. Here's the else. This is part of a message I sent to a friend of mine who's been in the same spot; I was asking for advice.

It really started when I was 17, when I started making my faith my own, I quickly got out of the Christian church scene as much as possible, started to listen to music cause I liked it rather than "Christian" value, believed radical stuff about God and didn't care if I was different, but I guess one's spiritually can only change so much at one time and I needed a couple years to adjust. I still held the basic Christian doctrine.

I've had struggles with my faith since I was 17, but recently I looked back on my struggles and realized that I was going in circles with my questions and I couldn't answer them with my faith, even though it was supposed to give me meaning in life. I went to church and was hoping to find that something that was missing, but only realized once again that I was lightyears beyond the canned messages given by the church. It was like the message was an empty shell, with nothing beyond the fancy words.

So I realized it, I was in this faith for the wrong reasons. Either I was hanging onto this faith because of habit or I was too scared to leave. That's not how I'm willing to live, so I've abandoned what I had before and am a little unsure of what to believe at all; believe in a God or not, believe in something like Christianity or something else entirely. I know I'm a strong believer in spirituallity, but I'm really not too sure with much beyond that.

Alright, peace out guys!

Now listening to World Spins Madly On by The Weepies (Terrible band name, good band) 

So this is new!

I'm not a Christian anymore. I'm a... a... I don't know what I am, or quite what I believe, but I'll get back to you on that later. Just thought I should put that in here, since it's kinda a big deal. I'm really scared and uncomfortable and excited about this, but it is what it is.

Listening to Plankeye's "Goodbye" as a farewell to what my faith was.

I'll give you more details later.

Shut up!!!

Stupid thinking too deep. I can't get it out of my head. I've been trying for the past couple days to leave it behind, but I can't do it. It torments me still. To say it in a poetic way: I wish these demons and angels would leave me the hell alone.

I guess this spiritualism is something I'll have to live with, but how the hell I'm supposed to do that I don't know. It goes on and on and on, in the terribly predictable patterns. I see the black and white fade to a grey of no-one-knows-what's-right, and see my efforts to be the light fade as my energy to fight the hate dies. Do I give a fuck anyway? Or is it conditioning of my mind that causes positive action out of habit rather than something like true compassion or love.

I don't know, but fatigue, loud music and this thing in my head, my heart, my soul is getting this rant out of me. Maybe the hardest thing is that this keyboard is my only way of venting right now; I don't have a person I can talk to, or a guitar to say what I mean. Just me and this keyboard.

Maybe being on my own is showing me how artificial it all is; how people treat each other, and I don't see the love anymore. I dunno.

Ok, I'm done ranting.
Task for today: Talk honestly, into what we feel, beyond the politics of what we read.

Should I Give it Up?

I was thinking tonight how much I've thought and how the same questions seem to circle in my mind: What's this life meant to be? Is there a God? Is there a reason beyond what we see? Is the whole of human experience nothing more than a bit of joy, a bit of pain that will blow away lilke smoke as soon as the life ends? Should I be trying to make this world a better place, or is better just something I defined in my own mind? Is there an ultimate truth of right and wrong or is the important thing that I believe something? Is the belief in a right and wrong good, or is bad like John Mayer would suggest in the song Belief? Should I ask these questions or quit? I don't know the answer and I'm not sure what my next step should or will be. Right now it feels like what Peter Bradley Adams says "The longer I run, the less that I find, selling my heart for a nickel and dime, breaking my heart to keep singing these rhymes, I'm losing again"

http://www.myspace.com/peterbradleyadams

That's what's up with me
I don't really think I'll find the answers to any of these questions

Baghdad ER

I watched Baghdad ER tonight. I had seen it before but it's been a long time. War sucks. I see the reason for it, but it's terrible what we as humans do to each other. This is a video of a hospital, where people are being treated for these terrible injuries, where (thank God) 90% of them survive; this isn't even the field. It's madness.

Thinking about this is a strange thing. It's a mix of emotions that are very complex, and nothing seems to make sense. On one hand there's anger for the people that hurt our soldiers, on the other hand I have to ask the question "Are they really so different than us?"; they get killed too. Our soldiers are just Americans, like us, all they really want is to live a good life with their families, but so do many of our enemies. On one hand we would love to see the people who lead this violence die, but on the other hand, to kill them would continue the violence. We'd like to leave places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but who would pay with their lives if we did? So what's the right answer? Maybe a better question would be "Is there a right answer?" I simply can't answer that.

Well... there they are, my thoughts on war.

Baghdad ER can be seen here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-348783717621633926 I must warn you that it is VERY graphic at times.

I've been listening to Tamacun by Rodrigo y Gabriela http://www.myspace.com/rodrigoygabriela It sounds like what war feels like to me. A frenzied pace, a bit of grief that isn't dwelled upon, and tightly organized. An organized chaos if you will.

Say a prayer for those overseas before you sleep tonight.

Goodnight

Hey! Someone else is thinkin' the same thing

I just wanted to point out a blog post that feels like mine, that I can relate to. I'm gonna leave a nice little comment there. It's by Discover America, one of my all time favorite underground bands.

Here's the post: http://discoveramericamusic.blogspot.com/2008/05/52008.html

And here's the song I'm listening to right now: Sawdust in my Clothes by Discover America http://www.myspace.com/discoveramerica

I'm not sure what this song is talking about (I have a couple ideas), but the mood is great. It's also talking about "Paint fumes in my nose" which is something I relate to, cause I worked as a painter for a while.

One final side note, I have the beginnings to a song/poem going around in my head, I won't say what it's about yet, it's way to incomplete for that.

That's about it.
Later guys