Recently, in my Harry Potter book, Harry talks about looking up in a house and seeing a bewitched ceiling that looked like a beautiful night sky, shooting stars and all. Would its beauty be belittled simply because he knew it wasn't real? What if we were to realize that this reality isn't real? Would it belittle the beauty of what surrounds us knowing that it isn't the true reality?
I feel like seeking enlightenment is very selfish. Sure, one can meditate for their entire lives and perhaps glimpse the reality of life, but would your life have been better served moving to Africa and helping orphans of AIDS virus?
I feel like so much of life is what we make it to be. If we're looking for racism in our everyday life, we'll find racism. If we're looking for God's voice in life, we'll hear God's voice. Your mentality towards the situations you encounter has so much to do with how you encounter your situations. Oh goodness. I sound so post modern it scares me.
I've been struggling with the character of Jesus Christ lately. Christianity is the only faith, to my knowledge, that claims to have an absolute grip on the afterlife ("no one comes to the father except through me"). So, logically it would make sense to be a Christian. If you're wrong, you get another chance. If you're right, you go to Heaven. Is there another religion that stakes its entire claim on a man that walked around on this planet as God? It just seems interesting to me.
Here at home I'm an echo chamber. I have lots of things that I think about and nobody to rebound my thoughts on and have conversation. I'm isolated. Often times before I have time to put my thoughts onto my blog, I forget about them or dismiss them as childish and stupid.
Yesterday I was on my daily bike ride. When I was looking around at the houses in my new town (I recently moved into the deep ozarks of MO), I realized how poverty stricken my town is. Here I am riding a $1k bike with my iPod strapped to my arm through this poor community, and I feel like I don't appreciate, or even deserve, anything that I have. This makes me appreciate everything even more, knowing that I don't deserve it. I stood up on my bike and rode it up a grueling hill harder than I thought I could just to prove myself worthy of this equipment I own. It all sounds kinda stupid, but I felt terrible. It's really late, so I'm probably not making any sense.
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I know what you mean about being an echo chamber. Most of the things I've been reading in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are things I just want to debate about with someone, but most of the people I encounter here in Bolivar aren't interested in philosophical discussion. I also noticed a couple days ago that a lot of my friends are dealing with questions of life and faith that I tackled a few years ago, which makes me feel sort of lonely. Only six more days, man!
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