The Curse of Emotion

I am deeply distressed in my heart as I cry out for answers I know I shall never attain and as I seek to ascribe meaning to situations for which there is none.  I am afflicted by my strong emotions by which I have been plagued from the very start, and also by recurring memories of my senseless actions that led to the pain now pervasive in my life.  Naught can cure this easily and although I do not doubt that the sadness brought on by these instances, which were in turn brought on by my grievous lack of discretion, which also in its turn stemmed from the very forceful, extreme emotions I earlier spoke ill of, will indeed fade at last on some day which will in my eyes be highly esteemed, it is blatantly apparent, indeed extremely perspicuous, that my sorrow shall not be brief nor shall it be easily alleviated.  I shall suffer for a time, and perhaps I deserve to, for there is none other to whom I might rightfully assign this blame.  It is despite extreme obviousness that I find it necessary to admit and confess to having abandoned my perspicacity, a trait which had served me well in years past.  For where my emotions become involved, or more accurately, entangled, as they seem to all the more often in every affair as time progresses, I sway to their powerful wishes and strive to assuage their always increasing desires.  What if I were to live by reason alone?  What if logic ruled my life and I forsook all emotion?  Would not my spirit be less afflicted and my heart find less pain?  Indeed, such would be so, but I could not completely rid myself of emotion, even if such a deed were in fact possible.  For by my emotions I find also pleasure and happiness, though at this precise moment neither is overtly present.  This sorrow is overwhelming and denies joy access into my heart, for these memories still overtake me at intervals too frequent for me to handle, plunging me into the sadness of what I have lost, though if I ever had anything from the start is still being debated in my mind, and leaving me in bitter tears.

Making Sense

Sometimes you realize that you have been trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense.  At times situations don’t seem to make sense, but you can figure them out in the end.  But sometimes things simply don’t make sense.  But because we have a tendency to try to figure things out (or at least those of us who are curious do), we search and search for the meaning of things, even when it doesn’t exist.  There are things in life that don’t make sense – sometimes people don’t make sense and sometimes the situations we find ourselves in don’t make any sense at all.  Yet we desperately want them to make sense and so we come up with different explanations and excuses that in the end just don’t cut it.  We try so hard to make sense out of stuff when there is no way that it can make sense.  We want it to make sense, because then we could feel better about it.  But sometimes it just can’t happen, and you can only go on so long fooling yourself into thinking that it’s not just the confusing, nonsensical mess that it looked like from the beginning.  Because in reality, that’s all it is.  There are times that we need to simply except the fact that we cannot understand everything; and we need to except the fact that other people, as well as ourselves, will not always make sense, and there is no way to figure it out and give it meaning.  Sometimes you get hurt and there is nothing you can do about it.  It doesn’t make sense and it never will. That’s just the way it is sometimes.

Rain

   The sky grew continuously darker and large clouds formed in the sky.  The world began to dim – the light that had been present that morning forsaking the sky and earth as though it feared the approaching storm.  And just as quickly as the light had faded, so did the rain begin.  It did not come in torrents as the imposing clouds had implied, but instead a slow drizzle met the earth as it bid the sky farewell.  The strong scent of rain was present in the air, as it had been earlier, even as the clouds came into view.  As the clouds rolled by, the sky where they had once been was left clear once more and a small portion of the former brightness returned.  The callous winds blew the rain in multiple directions as the speed and amount of rain increased.  Even a nearby flag seemed indecisive about which way to wave, and within the course of a minute had changed from one direction to its complete opposite and back again.  At times it would go limp, hanging still, until the wind, with all its oddities, forced it to begin once more its conflicted waving.  For a moment, lightning split the sky, and although the bolt itself was not visible, its light stretched in a line across the entire horizon in the west and thunder rumbled in the distance.

4-4-11

Incomplete

When every page I write is stained with tears,

When each moment that passes is filled with fears,

I miss You more, why aren’t You here?

Will You ever again fill my life?

Will I ever be rid of all this strife?

I want You to remove from my heart this knife.

I placed it there when I walked away.

Oh, my God, why didn’t I stay?

No matter what, I always stray.

You were my all, my life, my hope,

So tie me to You with the strongest rope –

For I no longer have the ability to cope.

Am I too far beyond Your reach?

I beg You, please, take away this breach!

How many times must You I beseech?

But whose fault is this, after all?

Who is it who built up these many walls?

When I realize the answer, to my knees I fall.

I recognize that I’m to blame,

For playing a very dangerous game

And abandoning Your precious name.

When will I realize You’re waiting for me?

You never left; oh, when will I see

That You’re waiting here to make me free?

Letter of Despair

 I don't know what this is, aside from a letter left by someone who lost all - or rather had all taken from him.  Not literally, of course, because I was the one who wrote it. But I feel like it would be a sort of prologue or introduction to a journaling of the dark events of his torturous life, were it actually real.

    "Indeed this is a tale of dark happenings, of evil occurrences and curses not even imagined.  My strength is gone from my body; I am no longer the man I once was.  I regret the direction my life took those many years ago; though I must confess to you now, this guilt should not be my own.  I ponder for lonesome hours what deeds I could have performed to prevent this fate, what actions I could have taken to avoid the travesties that have since befallen me.  But in all honesty, no action or deed on my part could have saved me from the torment that overtook me.  As mentioned afore, my strength is not present, and my emotions have long ago frayed – to the point I wonder if someday they should cease to exist entirely.  All that remains intact is my mind.  This was no accident that my sanity remains, but was the most planned and most devious of all their intentions.  Without my mind how should I suffer?  Their deceitful intelligence has not yet failed them, and especially not concerning this.  So I suffer alone with memories best forgotten but that never will be while life remains and death has not taken me.  These are memories of all I once had and memories of how all was lost through no fault of my own.  I lay in misery with no strength and I remember the dark days that have passed already and I think of the dark days I know are yet to come.  And yet this is not the worst of it.  The greatest tragedy is that we love no longer.  I  mourn most for the love I once possessed, but alas, is now no more."

(He is not regretting so much that the person he loves is not with him, but the fact that all that has been done to him has left him incapable of love - he is not missing this person and loving her from afar, but rather missing that he once loved her for he can no longer love anyone).

Ecclesiastes Part 4

Definitely didn't post one a day... But here's another!

Ecclesiastes Chapter Four

Verses 1-3

Because of all the evil and oppression in the world Solomon is saying that the ones who are no longer living here are better off than those still alive, and the ones who have it best are the ones who have not yet lived and therefore have not seen all the evils of the world.

Verses 4-8

He is talking about selfishness here – whether it is someone coveting what someone else has, or constantly laboring just to gain more for oneself.  He says that both are worthless pursuits – “grasping for the wind.”

Verses 9-12

This stresses the importance of human companionship.  Although God truly is all we need, He gave us other people for a reason – because it was “not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).  God wants us to have friends, to have people who will hold us up and who we can do the same for.  They can help us in practical matters and in spiritual matters.

Verses 13

Age and status and wealth are not important – wisdom matters more.  As my professor says often, “You can have a wise young person, and you can have an old fool.”

Ecclesiastes Part 3

This one is pretty short...


Ecclesiastes Chapter Three

Verses 1-8

Everything has a time and a purpose on earth – even things that have bad connotations, such as death, mourning, killing, and hatred.  Although this was not God’s original plan, these things are now present in His creation.  But God is telling us that even these things can be used by Him – even these things have a time and a purpose.  In giving a positive and its corresponding negative, we are reminded that when we are in bad times, there is a purpose for them, and that there will be a time for good times again in the future.  This also serves as a reminder in the good times that there will be bad times – we shouldn’t waste our time in meaningless pleasures (though there is nothing wrong with enjoying life), and instead enjoy and treasure those times and use them to distress.

Verse 11

God puts eternity in our hearts – He lets us know that this life is not the only one, but that there is life after death, and He causes us to naturally have a desire for that.  Also, He makes everything beautiful in its time – He can make things beautiful that we do not think of as beautiful.  And even the things we think of as beautiful, if we try to do them out of context and not in their time, they will not be beautiful.

“A Time for Hate”

God tells us through Solomon that there is a time for hate, and yet years later, Jesus tells us that we are not to hate anyone, and that we are to love even our enemies.  I think that maybe he is talking about a hatred for things, not people.  We are allowed to hate, but we are not allowed to hate people.  Exempli gratia, we can hate a person’s sin, but not the actual person.