Too much wine brings out my argumentative side - according to Tim. Having said this, he shouldn't be surprised at my current mood given he came home with a sizeable bottle of bubbly. I forget the name now, but I remember him saying that it was a combination of two types of grapes - perhaps pinot gris and something else. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.
I'm having trouble trying to find a meaning to life at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I really like my life and the direction it is heading in. It's just that sometimes I feel a little hollow, as in what is the whole point in continuing. I feel as though what i lack is a faith of some kind. I believe in what I have with Tim, I believe in where I am going in terms of my career. I just feel as though I'm lacking something essentially, and I don't know what it is. I want my life to feel like it has more meaning, more than just living out another life and the day to day trudge of existence. In the famous (or perhaps not so famous) words of Jarvis Cocker 'Please can you tell me just why we're alive/cos all that we do seems such a waste of time'. Maybe there is no reason, no underlying cause as to why we are here. I guess my ego finds that concept hard to digest. I should probably stop posting blog entries when I'm drunk because I doubt they make much sense. Ah self-doubt.
What I am trying to say is that I feel the need for some type of community of faith to belong to. Somethign that would unite me with other people. At times like this, I really wish that I had something definite to believe in, instead of being like a rudderless ship sailing around in circles forever in some vast ocean that is life.
9 comments:
I feel the need for some type of community of faith to belong to.
Hmm so do I, so do I (or perhaps, for some of the bubbly). St muggles doesn't really cut it.
But I admire your candor in posting this here
Hi there,
really interesting blog entry Fi. Do you know of anyone not searching? I do know and believe in God, but apart from the very personal contact recently over Peter, I have not found a real community since we have been here, and had just started the quest again myself in earnest.
Before James asks no not a fleece, but a very deep gratitude that Jesus does love each and every one of us and care for us. sorry if this is too candid.
Thanks to both of you for your comments - and for taking the time to comment on something that is very personal. I don't feel so alone now in my search for something meaningful - and that's a good thing :D
"In the love of friends, you are building a new house"
a good thing indeed.
(and, in fact, we read this at St Muggles this morning)
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir :)
If there is one thing to believe in, it is yourself. Your goodness and loveliness comes from inside you - and you don't need a community of faith to tell you that!
The question you need to answer is do you want to look deep inside yourself, find the person who you are, and let them thrive doing things you love, or do you want someone to tell you what to do and what to believe. That choice is yours to make.
I believe that the best way to give life meaning is to create your own meaning. Life is so much more interesting when we create meaning rather than just consume mythology. I mean, if life is a voyage then we should enjoy the voyage not look forward (or fear) the destination. In fact, I don't think that life is a voyage. That's rather bland.
A better metaphor than sailing in a rudderless boat is to be sailing without a preset route. Once you've found the rudder you can go where ever you want life becomes an adventure. If we let someone else's mythology do the steering then life becomes a cruise on a large ship - quite fun but entirely boring and pointless.
Oh this is really interesting!
Okay in response to Tim:
Agreed goodness and lovelyness do come form inside, but the difference is that Christians who have acknowledged Jesus in their lives have invited him into themselves. Therefore part, possibly the major part, of the goodness that people see if God shining through.
So this means the choice I made was to invite God into me. As for meaning I truly believe that God
is expressed through his followers thereby giving meaning to the followers and ultimately to others. I do not think that Christians fear moving forwards, quite the reverse we are the ones with a surety of life.
As to sailing with or without a route/rudder, it is not true that Christians do not have free choice we like everyone else have free choice, hence the reason I can invite him into my life, but also I could have chosen not to. So not a cruise but an adventure. Especially for those Christians in places where religion and specifically Christian religion is banned. Persecution was not a 1st century thing, but is alive and happening in the 21st century in many countries. I am sure that none of them can judge their lives as a cruise.
As to Christians in this country and other western countries having an easy ride, not true either. Free choice provides so much to us these days and expectations are large on everyone, so like everyone else the temptations are rife and need to be balanced against the codex of our belief
Enough from Jo!
James, what to shoot me down?
Your goodness and loveliness comes from inside you - you don't need a community of faith to tell you that!
sure. but perhaps a community of faith could at least remind me of it occasionally? and do other things as well: taking oneself out of the everyday; or simply, as Fi wrote (in what is really a lovely post), "Something that would unite me with other people"
In any case, we all create our own meaning --- the questions are whether we do it alone; whether we choose intentionally to be part of a community of other people doing something similar; whether (to what extent?) we are interested or committed to what other people have done before.
But then my relationship to my "community of faith", and heritage or whatever is ambivalent, to say the least.
James, whan to shoot me down?
no, no, Tim can do that...
I actually found what Jo wrote quite offensive. If Jo believes most of her goodness comes from God then, clearly, if follows that she must percieve people who have God as far less good than her.
Also, it follows in general that people who hold God in their hearts are far better than those that do not. This must imply that she thinks that the people who flew the planes into the twin towers are far more moral than the people who prefer rationality over myth (ie: me).
To me, it seems quite clear that a personal relationship with a mythical being does not make anyone moraly better or worse. The key problem with personal relationships with "god" is that the evidence that one person gives is exactly the same as another person yet the effects of that relationship can be vastly different. If that is the case then there can not be anything good or bad about that relationship.
Personally, I'll take reason and rationality over faith and irrationality any day.
Bugger. I made a typo in that first paragraph and as written it makes no sense. It was supposed to say:
If Jo believes most of her goodness comes from God then, clearly, if follows that she must percieve people who do not have God as being far less good than her.
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