Monakhos

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:6-9 (English Standard Version)

It’s interesting how often these verse are misused to convey a point totally different from what the author intended. With cursory reading of this passage, it apparent that Paul is speaking out against false teachers. What exactly were these teachers saying that was so wrong? What was the context? What was Paul’s version?

The false teachers weren’t denying Jesus’ divinity, his death or resurrection, the Trinity (heck the Trinity wasn’t even mentioned until much later in history.) The false teachers were saying that in order to be saved, one must follow the old law. They were preaching salvation by works not by faith. In this book, Paul rebukes them and even includes a story about a time he had to confront Peter on the same topic!

The heresy was about the good news Christ taught. The heresy was saying that Christ was not enough. It said Jesus saved us, but we still had to follow the law to be saved. This goes against the core of Christianity. Jesus saved us. We are free. Free from sin, free from the law and from judgement. We are transformed into new creations. The old is dead. We are alive. God is here. Jesus is in me. I am alive. I am free. From here on out there is no right and wrong, there is me, there is the universe, there is God, there is One.

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.

I just upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. While I was doing that I decided to add a caching plugin that should allow pages to load faster and not put as much load on the system. It doesn’t look like there are any bugs, but if you happen to find one, let me know!

Thanks!

It’s funny recently how many times I’ve taken a step back from life and realized how meaningless it all is. I mean what’s the point? Enlightenment? Salvation? Sanctification? Theosis? Realization? Martyrdom? No!

How should I be spending my time? What’s the point of being ‘good’? What’s the point of striving for anything? It’s all fleeting. Nothing is here to stay. The only time you have is now so you better not waste it.

There is no point. Life is about living. Living as best you can. If you die young, you should count yourself lucky you didn’t have to endure a full bout.

Then I look around, slip back into my life and realize it’s not really so bad. This body is not me. This life is not me. When my body dies, that’ll just be its ending, not my ending.

… and after all that, I get another shot to screw it all up again.

The focus of the past few posts has been rather technical and complex. Let’s back away for a minute and look at the big picture. What is an individual’s place in existence? What is the big picture?

Well, you cannot really describe it. One could speak millions of words on the subject and not understand or explain one bit of it. At the same time, one could not say a word and bring the whole universe into understanding.

It’s time to take a break from all the heavy thinking. It can be nice to contemplate such things and really work out a reasonable explanation for the way things work, but it’s always important to remember to take a step back occasionally and just relax in being.

Om shanti shanti shanti