“Living As Best You Can”
That line in the last post stuck with me. “Living as best you can.” What’s the best I can do? How good will that be? How bad will that be? What is good and what is bad? And who is making all these definitions?
A pastor in Ukraine told my friend and I this story/joke once. I just thought of it now, and thought it would be fitting before going on.
A pastor was talking to a group of children in Sunday school. They were playing a game where the object was to name what the pastor was describing. The pastor stated that the thing had a bushy tail and ate nuts. He paused a moment, but no hands were raised. He gave a few more details, and still no hands.
After a while, a little boy raises his hand and says “I know the answers Jesus, but it sure does sound like a squirrel.”
(If you don’t get the moral of the story, you’ll understand when your older… Maybe!)
It’s easy to give “Sunday school” answers to these questions, and if I cared for them at all, I wouldn’t be asking them. After years in Christian school and Sunday school and church, I know every single one of them, and not one of them interests me anymore.
I wrote nearly two months ago on truth and since then my thoughts on the topic haven’t changed much. Truth is individual. No universal truth is true for all people. What is good for one person, might be bad for another. What might furthur one person may detriment another. Universality is nonexistent.
I have really been everywhere in this post, so let me try to narrow down the point I was trying to make in the beginning. Live. Screw up. Fail miserably. Live your own definitions. There is no truth outside of yourself. It is all inside of you. You just have to find it and live life as best you can.
… Wow, this is a sign I think that I should write what’s on my mind. When I do it comes out like this… five posts mangled into one with glaring omissions from each. Oh well, I hope you enjoy my insanity. I might be more normal tomorrow… We’ll see.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:29
I enjoy very much your insanity. Or is it MY insanity in Zach’s body-mind?
I love that verse in the Aitereya Upanishad “Then the Lord said, “let me be many!”
August 16th, 2006 at 8:56
Galatians 1:6-9–”I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! ”
Zach, I love you, man, and my wife and I are in constant prayer for you every night now.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:57
Thanks for the verse Ted. I was going to comment, but it turned out being too long. I think my next post will be regarding this.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:33
I came to the same conclusion but don’t really like sounding like a moral relativist… is this moral relativism, or is the universal rule just a big YMMV? If there is a rule, it must be a very, very simple one, with infinite and complex permutations and iterations. Which, of course, begs the question - what’s the rule?
Zach, your blog entries of late have been really enjoyable. I think it’s okay if they are messy or not quite right. (Darn. Didn’t I just write about that? Sigh. Chuckle.) Just write.
In your more recent entry, I’m delighted to find your description of what the Gospel really means, because I’ve found the same thing, myself. Romans 8:38-39… Meet you in the field.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:53
How about instead of moral relativist being a ‘God-centric moral relativist.’ Thanks for the encouraging words, I’ve really been enjoying the past week myself too!