"I know it's hard to accept the Facts, but the Truth is that there is no god."
The crumpled logo on his T-shirt moves as he waves his arms about. It tells a very funny joke if you happen to watch the tv shows he watches and believe the things he believes and studied Science as much as he has.
He has a beautiful face; pale but intense, with articulate, sensitive eyes. It's too bad that he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He doesn't believe in Beauty. Secretly, he wishes he were a knight in 12th century Europe with a sword in his hand and his eyes hardened behind the slit of his great helm as he faces off alone against a pillaging army of rapacious mercenaries. But he's born in the 21st century, and he's been taught to know better. The internet and some movie writers in Hollywood have explained to him that there were no righteous knights.
"You may not like it, but what the Bible is teaching is clearly my point of view, where God just made sinners to burn in Hell because they didn't cognitively assess their eternal options and pick the most beneficial and profitable choice like I did."
He tries to look serious, maybe a little grim but also passionate. It's hard to look grim or passionate in a pair of (ironed) khaki slacks, with a little white collar poking out of the top of your (monochrome, earth toned and expensive) woolen sweater.
He's leaning forward, which does help you look engaged, if you are leaning forward to thump your fist on a battle map and affix your generals with a zealous eye. We're all awkwardly leaning forward to see each other's faces because we've placed our folding chairs in a loose circle, with large gaps in between us to fit our purses, coffee cups, and sense of security because we don't actually know each other that well.
How boring it must be to fit the entire universe into a cramped white-walled office-space lit by a florescent light. To be able to collar God with a necktie and use it as a leash, ask Him to show some respect and keep quiet while you review your church's financial quarter.
How tiring too, to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, only to discover that Rebellion means living a virgin in a basement somewhere watching videos of fake women pretend to love men with more muscles than you, unless by some lucky chance you manage to enter a 3-month marriage to some girl with daddy issues who's willing to exchange (safe) sex for emotional support. (The exchange rate is typically about 8-12 hours of listening for 1 3-second rush of Dopamine. Endorphines and depression reduction varies on how much self-worth you put on your genitals.)
Aren't we tired of this yet? Aren't we all sick, ready to vomit all over our leather-bound study bibles we open once a week?
We're all marching in step to the booming loudspeakers that tell us which side we're on and which side to hate, two identical armies bleeding red human blood for control of a world as colorless and claustrophobic as a tomb.
But stop listening to the loudspeaker for a minute. For one second, stop taking this war seriously. Because its purpose was never to motivate you, but to block out the music we've been hearing since we were born.
Do you hear it now? The winds of heaven, blowing down off the slopes of the mountains of God? Those roaring, buffeting winds that strike a frequency in our hearts, causing them to sing?
Can you hear it now? the pattering and thundering of God's rain on the roofs we've constructed to keep it out, the slashing monsoons to this thirsty world?
Can you taste it yet? The brine from that crashing, endless sea? The grey, aching horizon that calls you to leave all behind?
I'll be damned if God isn't actually bigger than the fortresses we've created to wall ourselves off from the world. Maybe the reason it's gotten so dull in sunday school is because we couldn't fit God in our newly purchased youth building.
And if the Facts point to a meaningless universe where we drift aimlessly to our deaths, then try and stop me from wandering to every corner of it, play-acting at being a hero for my invisible God.
Because if there's one thing I do know, is that this world we've constructed is one huge cattle-schute, to funnel us, heirs to the Infinite Kingdom, away from our destiny. And I choose to believe that our destinies will find us the day we stop being controlled by our fears and false desires.
I'm just one little boy-man with gossip issues who inspects his biceps in the mirror and finds them wanting. But from this day forward I don't want to keep accepting the role of a gagged wooden puppet, pretending to be perfect and have all the answers.
Since all men die, I'd rather die gripping my King's banner in the free air than lie embalmed in a flowery casket. If I'm going to live for God's love, than it's real love, all the way. The love that gives this world color and and breaks down our strongholds and chains and sets us free from the suffocating identities the devil tells us is our destiny.
The crumpled logo on his T-shirt moves as he waves his arms about. It tells a very funny joke if you happen to watch the tv shows he watches and believe the things he believes and studied Science as much as he has.
He has a beautiful face; pale but intense, with articulate, sensitive eyes. It's too bad that he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He doesn't believe in Beauty. Secretly, he wishes he were a knight in 12th century Europe with a sword in his hand and his eyes hardened behind the slit of his great helm as he faces off alone against a pillaging army of rapacious mercenaries. But he's born in the 21st century, and he's been taught to know better. The internet and some movie writers in Hollywood have explained to him that there were no righteous knights.
"You may not like it, but what the Bible is teaching is clearly my point of view, where God just made sinners to burn in Hell because they didn't cognitively assess their eternal options and pick the most beneficial and profitable choice like I did."
He tries to look serious, maybe a little grim but also passionate. It's hard to look grim or passionate in a pair of (ironed) khaki slacks, with a little white collar poking out of the top of your (monochrome, earth toned and expensive) woolen sweater.
He's leaning forward, which does help you look engaged, if you are leaning forward to thump your fist on a battle map and affix your generals with a zealous eye. We're all awkwardly leaning forward to see each other's faces because we've placed our folding chairs in a loose circle, with large gaps in between us to fit our purses, coffee cups, and sense of security because we don't actually know each other that well.
How boring it must be to fit the entire universe into a cramped white-walled office-space lit by a florescent light. To be able to collar God with a necktie and use it as a leash, ask Him to show some respect and keep quiet while you review your church's financial quarter.
How tiring too, to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, only to discover that Rebellion means living a virgin in a basement somewhere watching videos of fake women pretend to love men with more muscles than you, unless by some lucky chance you manage to enter a 3-month marriage to some girl with daddy issues who's willing to exchange (safe) sex for emotional support. (The exchange rate is typically about 8-12 hours of listening for 1 3-second rush of Dopamine. Endorphines and depression reduction varies on how much self-worth you put on your genitals.)
Aren't we tired of this yet? Aren't we all sick, ready to vomit all over our leather-bound study bibles we open once a week?
We're all marching in step to the booming loudspeakers that tell us which side we're on and which side to hate, two identical armies bleeding red human blood for control of a world as colorless and claustrophobic as a tomb.
But stop listening to the loudspeaker for a minute. For one second, stop taking this war seriously. Because its purpose was never to motivate you, but to block out the music we've been hearing since we were born.
Do you hear it now? The winds of heaven, blowing down off the slopes of the mountains of God? Those roaring, buffeting winds that strike a frequency in our hearts, causing them to sing?
Can you hear it now? the pattering and thundering of God's rain on the roofs we've constructed to keep it out, the slashing monsoons to this thirsty world?
Can you taste it yet? The brine from that crashing, endless sea? The grey, aching horizon that calls you to leave all behind?
I'll be damned if God isn't actually bigger than the fortresses we've created to wall ourselves off from the world. Maybe the reason it's gotten so dull in sunday school is because we couldn't fit God in our newly purchased youth building.
And if the Facts point to a meaningless universe where we drift aimlessly to our deaths, then try and stop me from wandering to every corner of it, play-acting at being a hero for my invisible God.
Because if there's one thing I do know, is that this world we've constructed is one huge cattle-schute, to funnel us, heirs to the Infinite Kingdom, away from our destiny. And I choose to believe that our destinies will find us the day we stop being controlled by our fears and false desires.
I'm just one little boy-man with gossip issues who inspects his biceps in the mirror and finds them wanting. But from this day forward I don't want to keep accepting the role of a gagged wooden puppet, pretending to be perfect and have all the answers.
Since all men die, I'd rather die gripping my King's banner in the free air than lie embalmed in a flowery casket. If I'm going to live for God's love, than it's real love, all the way. The love that gives this world color and and breaks down our strongholds and chains and sets us free from the suffocating identities the devil tells us is our destiny.
