Saturday 29 July 2006

Pic of the day: All other parts deleted for emphasis.

Spirit: 5.4 ???

I took a rate my life quiz again. I did this a year or two ago too, I seem to remember. It had not changed noticeably. Then again neither have I, I guess. And I still think the rating was slightly crazy for the most part. Perhaps it is true that my life only deserves an average score (5.6 out of 10), but the sub-scores were kinda disturbing. So if I comment on them individually, I should be able to wring out several short entries to amuse you, inform my future self (if any) and catch up a bit. I'll start with the one that leaped out at me both times.

Spirit: 5.4
What? Well, I'm not St Paul, though I have been accused in my younger years of emulating his style. Nor am I Elijah the prophet, although as a boy my career wish was to be a prophet like him (he could make fire fall down from on high and burn to death 50 people at a time!). But as far as I am concerned, my spirituality is what defines me. If I write more about The Sims and City of Heroes than about my inner life, it is largely because it is quick and easy and people like it. Religion is not quick and easy, certainly not mine, and people find it either stupid or creepy depending on whether they take it seriously or not.

I guess that is also why it turned out like this. It seems that in the quiz, the spiritual side of life was rated purely on its ability to give comfort and inner peace. I am sure religions and other strong faiths often do this. But not mine. Nor would I want it to, if I could simply decide.

***

Let me be honest: If I just wanted peace of mind, and if I could simply choose, I would rather believe that life ended with death. That there was no afterlife, no eternal spirit. If necessary even no God. That the universe really happened by an explosion in an ink bottle, as one comic writer put it. But I cannot possibly believe this, because I experience the opposite day by day. To me it is as real as the food I eat and the hot sizzling love I don't have. At the very least it is as real as my own thoughts and emotions, which no one else can see but which I could not possibly deny.

I don't fear death, although I hate and detest it with white hot intensity, for I love this life and wish it would go on forever. But what I fear is not death, but what comes after death. I fear that in the end I will, after all, be called to account for my life. I fear that after this life, I will get what I deserve. If that happens, I'm in deep trouble. Of this I am sure.

This is not because I have lived a life of crime. I certainly have not. Nor do I seduce women (or men) and leave them heartbroken. I don't hang out looking for trouble and fights to get into. I don't steal (except by being lazy at work, which I still try to only do when it doesn't hurt anyone). I try to not mock people unless they go out of their way to brag and puff themselves up. I listen with friendly attention to whoever feels like talking to me. I pay my own bills and buy books and occasionally other stuff for younger friends who are strapped for cash. I praise more than I criticize, I encourage more than I discourage, or at least this is what I think and intend to, and I volunteer helpful advice to those who ask. By all accounts I'm pretty good for a white man born in the last half of the 20th century. It is just that God's standards are far higher, and unlike most people I am aware of those standards.

It seems that most people automatically compare themselves to those who act worse than them, and honestly think they are pretty good. It seems that most people compare themselves to the rich and decide that they have no more money than they need. (Although in all fairness there are some who give regularly to charity or to their church.) For the most part, it seems that they are honestly convinced that God is pleased by them singing Him songs of praise while the poor starve and the sick and lonely live in forgotten despair. But it is not so with me. As I said once before, it may be that I am a child of God, since I have his eyes... but I don't have his heart. I see what I should do but I cannot possibly make myself do it. From day to day my life is a compromise between the divine and the ego, between the spirit and the flesh. And while it tears me apart, I would rather have it so than to forget. Rather this than who I was.

***

When I was a boy, I thought very highly of myself. I was sure that my righteousness and my strength of will far exceeded those of the average man, and that I was well within my right to correct sinners and tell them to mend their ways. The first time I spoke the word of God among fellow Christians, it was to correct someone who had missed a theological point. And I honestly believed that if everyone was like me, the world would be much improved. (Actually I still think this applies for many people, but then again they don't know better.)

I sometimes think of a personal testimony by Johan Oscar Smith (founder of The Christian Church commonly known as "Smith's Friends"): "I thought that God's Spirit would show me the truth about the various Beasts in Daniel and the Revelation. But the Spirit showed me the beast in myself." This also happened to me. For each passing year I saw more of what I ought to do and ought to be, and how far short I fell of it, and how powerless I was to change it. This continued until I could stand no more, and it has never gone away. Whenever there has been some improvement in my life, the light has run ahead of me like the headlights of a car in the night, revealing more of the darkness.

And the change has, in truth, been slow and pitiful. It is true that compared to the sneering, utterly selfish and demanding boy I was, I have changed a lot. But compared to what I see, to the life I know I should live, I am a failure day by day. Somehow this does not happen in saints (including the afore mentioned Smith): They change their life radically to give God the place he deserves, without compromise. Neither are common people doing this: They don't really see a need to change. Only I see it and fail to live it. And still don't despair enough to go crazy or become suicidal. I guess I see it from both angles: I see the progress that I have made, and the progress that I still may make if I live, and I don't despair. But I also see how slowly it goes, how many times I fail or backslide, and I don't rejoice.

My religion does not exist to bring me comfort and peace. It is the closest I can come to truth about the invisible. I would much rather have even half an eye open than feel comfortable with the darkness.

Ironically, given my attitude to Nietzsche, I guess he sums it up uncannily well in his cry of despair: "If there was a God, how could I bear not to be one?" I always thought he meant in power, but if he meant in morality, then I feel much the same. To be able to see spirit and still be so very much flesh, it is not a comfort. It is scary. But then again, if you are in a burning house, sleep may not be what you need the most.

As it is, I rely on God's love and forgiveness. But being forgiven does not mean I have not failed. I guess 5.4 may be pretty good after all. Middle of the road... just another sinner, only more angsty about it.