It has been a while since I last looked at myself in the mirror properly. While I can safely say I lost a bit of weight, I seem to have grown eye bags to make up for it. And I find that I have not been taking good care of myself. I tend to sleep at three in the morning, even if I’ve been in bed since ten or eleven. Ultimately, I lack rest. The reasons behind my lack of proper rest could be any number of things, though internal troubles tend to be the worst cause of it. I would rather face a thousand real dangers unafraid than to facing matters of the heart and spirit.

    We often think that the end of the year is a time to tell ourselves, “this past year was okay, but I promise to do this-and-that next year.” We call those New Year’s Resolutions. And most of us will forget our resolutions by the 3rd of January. Why? Because people are people. People claim that change is the only constant thing, but really, people do not necessarily change. People will still inflict pain and hurt on other people. People will still make promises and break them. People will still make other people more cynical by the way they act.

    The denial of reality is dangerous. And, yet, this is what this strangely bizarre world is trying to do. The denial of reality, coupled with the declaration of 'what I feel is legitimate', detracts from those who recognise reality and say to themselves 'what I feel is legitimate.' It would be safe to assume that the world is indeed far stranger than fiction. What ought to be simple becomes utterly complicated, and what ought to be complicated is simplified to the point of being utterly ridiculous.

    It comes as no surprise that people lose their minds. The world is sick. It has been inoculated with the mindset of ‘this is what I want, and I want it now’, our predecessors have managed to raise up a generation of adult children who never learned to grow up. Many have been given to have all that their hearts could possibly wish, and yet not to have what their heart does wish. They have everything except contentment. And they believe the lie that they know what they are doing, when they have no idea whatsoever. And this endless search for pleasure destroys them.

     Humans are very concerned about being considered “weird” or “creepy”. This is true. Look at yourself, you try and keep up appearances that all is normal and well as is defined by the popular culture around you. You drink to the point of inebriety, you swap people left and right, you bicker and argue over the most inane things. Because this is “normal”. This world has “normalness” defined the same way a cup can mould the shape of water: remove the cup, the water spills all over.

    Modern Christians are the same way. We, as a whole, are so concerned with being considered weird. We keep passing ourselves off as socially relevant. Of course, we’re not the extreme kind of Christian. Some of us are probably just going through the motions anyway, we don’t even know who Jesus is. That’s because Christians are “weird”, according to the standards of the world. Even Pharaoh had a thing or two in mind when he told Moses, “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but you must not go very far. ...”

    Everyone, myself included, would have to admit that worry is a common temptation in life. Somehow, living in this broke world makes us want to worry even if we don’t really want to. And, worry is a sin. Jesus prohibited worry during His Sermon on the Mount, and three times did He command us to not worry! He understands that worrying is a common practice, and that we should stop being so worrisome. Instead of worrying, we ought to be thankful for what we have and lift up our concerns to the Lord.

    I’m not fond of writing things full of “I”, “I”, “I’s”, but I find that I can account for hours upon end of time spent worrying. Those are hours I will never regain. If I worry, what sort of faith do I manifest? It is embarrassing to admit, but it is probably little faith. Think about it this way: a Christian that worries believes the God can redeem him, break the control of the Enemy over his life, free him from sin, and give him eternal life in heaven; but God would be unable to help him resolve the little things, like a fight or a few money problems.

    In the past few days, I have seen, read, and heard all sorts of broken theology. Broken theology is all a bunch of lies. Some are told that you can follow Jesus without sacrifice. Some say that you sacrifice for things that are not worth it. Some say it’s okay to be selfish, especially if it makes you happy. Imagine if you spent all that time, money, or effort that you sacrifice for others for yourself, what kinds of fun could you be having or what new toys could you own by now? All a bunch of pretty, sugar-coated lies. And we love them.

    There is a ‘real’ right and wrong. If it were not so, how could we declare so many things to be wrong? For example: this whole idea of discretionary funding for politicians, governmental corruption, politically-motivated massacres, even something as simple as someone lying to you. If you managed to find someone who disagrees with this notion of right and wrong, and you will undoubtedly detect the hypocrisy. He may break a promise or two made to you, but once you do the same, you are mean and wrong. A nation may violate another nation’s sovereignty, but as soon as someone tries to violate theirs, they say that their sovereignty is being challenged. The list can go on forever.

    If there is no real difference between fairness and unfairness, how is one able to claim the idea that they are being treated unfairly? How would you differentiate between how one ought to be treated?

     A bit over a year ago, I promised to someone’s mother on her deathbed that I would do what I could to take care of their child. And I did my best to keep that promise. Due to unforeseen circumstances, a little less than a year after the mother died, I was stopped and was told that I ought to stop keeping that promise, because the mother is dead anyway and the dead will never know whether the promise was kept or not. Does the promise to someone who will not be around to check less binding of a promise to someone who will be?

    A promise is a promise, regardless of the circumstances. My yes is a yes, and my no is a no. I keep my promises, whether to the living or to the dead, to the best of my abilities, because promises have meaning that should not be redefined on a whim. Who we are as a person is defined by our words, actions, thoughts, what we believe in and every little thing about us. These mean nothing when they are separated and examined alone, and should be taken together. A man’s word is rarely sufficient today, as most people keep up some sort of façade to protect themselves. The man’s actions ought to match what the words are saying, otherwise his words will become meaningless.

    Everyone has gone through some form of schooling, be it grade school, high school, or college and beyond. One interesting thing about schooling is that we get little letters or numbers that we use to determine how well we did, such as A, B, C’s or 1, 2, 3’s. Not that they have any meaning, they are fiat symbols used mostly by teachers and professors to subjectively gauge how well you are learning. Any man who jumps through the minimum number of hoops can get good grades.

    Science. We hear the word tossed around today when people attempt to justify certain decisions that they themselves can only defend with weak explanations: ‘Science says it’s natural,’ or ‘Science says it’s possible,’ or ‘Science says it doesn’t exist’. Humans have this tendency to believe anything that they can sense with their traditional five senses; to claim that we have any more is basically saying that Aristotle, the guy who practically invented the science of ‘smartness’, was wrong. I am kidding, but do you see the point I am trying to make? Science, while a wonderful thing, has learned much since the days of the Greeks and their togas.

    While I am no physicist or chemist, most objective science has to do with the measurement, calculation and repetition of things to prove that something follows this or that law. And such things are often times considered to be real. If something cannot be measured, calculated, and subjected to repetition, should science still be used to gauge the reality of such a thing? Some may be familiar with the story of a young boy who questioned the existence of his teacher’s brain because it could neither be felt, seen, tasted, nor smelt. And yet, the teacher insists that the brain exists, despite the fact that it could not be handed over to the boy to be subjected to experimentation. How does this then relate to other things that occur inside our bodies?