What does God want with this mind of mine? Through books and plays, music and rain this mind serves as a hub to everything, the world that each of us has as our own. It is all that we know. From our innumerable senses to our reason and mental states. But trying to understand how our mind works is a philosophy as complicated as trying to look at our eye without reflection. We cannot see our mind from an outside perspective. Instead we rely on the fact that we must have eyes because we see. My question is, what if we could not see?

The common misconception is that there is a God and then there are us. This dualistic notion of a physical versus ethereal reality can - and has - thrown many people off course. It is my belief that both the physical and spiritual realms are logically the same, the physical of course having merely a different property than the spiritual. I would be a fool to say I understood the spiritual world as no man but Christ has ever has such experience. Instead I have twenty years experience in the physical world, and it is that by which I will proceed.

Some of the ancients believed that physicality was understanding put into action. In such a case a throne would be a representation of the idea of throneness. Even saying that word - throne - we automatically can picture a throne in our mind, even many thrones. Likely every one of these thrones is a picture from a movie or book, a throne we have seen before. But try to create the image of a new throne, something entirely original. This would be the idea of throne. None of these new objects in our head exist, but we build them from an idea. Some would even say that the adverse of the physical is a world entirely made up of forms (ideas) of things.

I would not agree entirely with such reasoning, but it nevertheless gets me to thinking about our use, or more particularly my use in life, in reality. I ask again, what does God want with this person of mine? Not to be self-pitying, but to be realistic I am a pathetic being. Even comparing myself to the likes of those only a few hundred years ago, I see drastic changes, not so much for the better. Not to digress, but to impress my understanding, this is how I see it: Take the keyboard I am typing on. Whenever I type on this keyboard it soothes my nerves. I can take away the worries of the day so quickly when I am able to let myself type away complete nonsense. But even as I type I think about how much technology has butchered mankind. I feel a twinge of guilt every time I sit down to type out a paper or IM because I realize just how easy I have it compared to those who had to use typewriters. I can't imagine having to pound on the lever-keys of an old typewriter. Thinking about things like that make me feel so much less of what I'm doing here at college. I think about the harder work put in by students before us. When we hear about the years of hard work and the time spent by past students, it makes us realize how easy we have it. But then I think about what those students must have felt back then. They probably thought much the same as I, that they had it so much easier than the scribes before them. I wonder if they punished themselves the same as I do today. This does not track back that far however. Before the time of typewriters there was the ballpoint pen and before that changes in paper production. Going back any further and not much will change. Technology of this sort is fairly recent. This goes for many of the decadencies we have today, at least in America. All that I want is to have these luxuries taken away from me. I think this has been pulling on my mind recently. I chose just the other day to shower in full darkness just to be able to feel and not see. In those few minutes I asked God to blind me, to take away the luxury of sight.

I asked this not because I detest this wonderful ability of sight, but because of how corrupt such beautiful things become when put in the hands of detestable man. From a human perspective I understand why God would want to create the physical universe, mankind included. There is so much love involved that I would venture to say that only love was involved. But the first men turned on God and we have become the living proof of their fallacy. What does God want with me? I fall asleep each night muttering the horrible things I have done. Who am I miserable man that I am? I think being American and in the twenty-first century makes it worse. I do not think I have ever really worked a day in my life. Even the job I currently hold a monkey could easily accomplish. I envy the men of the past who labored tirelessly in the fields that barely sustained their family. Real work, the work that even sinners can be satisfied with. Warriors without weapons, these men were. God looks with favor upon men who fight through daily battles every day until they die, men who do not give up. Not boys who sit at their computer screens typing away pitifully incomplete thoughts.

Despite all our incompetencies, God sees us subjectively. I truly believe that men, good and evil, will someday be molded by God into beings that can completely reciprocate the love He is. Until that time I wonder why this plague of men continues. Men can't stand themselves, how can God stand us? He must feel like an engineer whose plans are botched in front of his eyes. God could hardly have such a simple thought, but regardless he does feel pain because of us. If not pain, then some sort of ethereal hurt. Some days I am driven to madness wishing to be rid of my natures. hardly for myself, but so that I do not injure the sight of God's beautiful creation. On days when my wits are about me I see people walking the street and I think of how beautiful they are, not just in physical nature, but in the love by which they were created. But just as quickly I see that they must be so jaded by worldly things, just as I have become. I must want to be rid of certain physical attributes simply so that I can get rid of these desires. The desire to want what I do not need. I often think about what Paul said to the Romans, that this law [is] at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. He went so far as to say it was a law! Still his close companion wrote the God-given words that we are worth more than many sparrows. Through Matthew God puts the words so kindly as if he were holding us tenderly in His Hand. What does He see in us that even we can't?

Wow! It is almost four o'clock in the morning and I have digressed greatly from my original point. I don't feel like sorting it out, so I am going to bed. Goodnight to all you sinners!

Posted in: on Thursday, August 09, 2007 at at 3:57 AM