Browsing the internet today, I stumbled upon a site called “Letters from Leavers”. Historically, people who leave churches tend to want to destroy them. Their migration (or deportation) is frought with pain and bridge-burning, and they see it as something to fight against, as a slave-master for millions of unknowing captives. But today I found a gem of a “testimony” if it can be called that from a lady named Lily. It’s called boxless, and there were two quotes that I really enjoyed:

I have yet to find any one church that allows the freedom my faith needs to breathe. In order to know God, I need to be able say I don’t really know all that much about Him at all; I need to be able to ask questions.

and

The church is like a box; God is like wind. Containing Him might be just a little tough. Unfortunately, most every church I have been to seems to believe they have contained God. Sometimes they even believe that anyone whose container doesn’t look like theirs is condemned.

There’s something encouraging about finding someone echoing your own thoughts, especially when they don’t come directly from someone else. A lot of times people tend to instantly have that sort of community when what they are thinking is a product of who they listen to or what they read, and it’s easy to forget what a novelty it is to not be the only one with a specific thought in mind.

I finished George “Really-named-Eric-Blair” Orwell’s 1984 today between 12:34 AM and 10:32 PM. I wasn’t reading the entire time, of course, but I slept little. An amazing and disgusting book at the same time. Great and horrible. A pleasure to read, but hell to think about. There was a random sentence in there about how people like books that reiterate what they already think. I had a quote in my history book a long while back about some politicians words being “not for purveyors of words and adjectives, but for the common men and women who saw in []‘s words their own thoughts.” I’d delve into that, but I have whining to do.

“There are divisions among you to show which of you have God’s approval.” says Corinthians Eleven. The answer has been very hard for me to find. I mean, how do we know? Divisions seem nothing more than confusing to me. But alas, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The results are in, the votes have been tallied, and the answer… Who has God’s approval today?

–No One–

Today I went to class in Heldenfels, and fortunately for me, there were two people in identical shirts holding both doors open. Their faces were decorated with the war-paint of bored, disinterested service, a half-smile as people walked by followed by some expression of extreme exhaustion. The general impression arising from small emblems around their neck and symbolism on their shirts was that they were a Christian organization, I really have no idea, but it was very apparent that this was some sort of service project. Holding doors. I think that holding the doors open continually, even when people weren’t coming out defeats the purpose of doors. If they wanted such a state, they’d have made empty holes in the wall that everyone could walk through freely. I said “thank you” as some sort of reflex and got a very excited “you’re welcome! have a great day!” It really just brightened up my day. I think the greatest sins of this generation are misdirected efforts at helping people. Either we are too scared, too clean, too proud, or too comfortable to do the easy stuff that is so hard. Like holding doors. Or rescuing sex slaves. I wrote a poem, just now, because I couldn’t sleep. It’s better sung, because it lacks rhythm. People could easily read this and wonder how I could possibly say such things and not peer back at my own life only to see how terribly empty it really is. And the truth is, I have. And you’re right, it is a very empty life. That will not keep me from whining at the people who “have it together.” Slap me if I ever pretend I do.

Oh Christianity, where is your love?
Your money and time are chasing God-highs,
Your selfish desires refuse to say bye,
The unbelieving world is left asking why?,
Oh Christianity, where is your love?

Oh Christianity, where is your love?
Your humility and patience are merely formality,
Your reject the world yet embrace normality,
The suffering and lost are simply fatality,
Oh Christianity, where is your love?

Oh Christianity, where is your love?
You learn Greek and Hebrew to study your book,
You know some trivia, but won’t you just look,
You’ve taken the bait, you’ve swallowed the hook.
Oh Christianity, where is your love?

You’ve fallen for this world like a junior high boy,
You’ve abandoned the prize to fall for a ploy,
You distinguish yourself with words and phrase,
But the similiarites always amaze,
You dress like everyone with a pious twist,
You’re a Christian girl, you’ve never been kissed,
But in the end does it all matter…

When all I see is abuse and suffering,
depression, and hunger, and pain,
Things too hard to see clearly and remain sane,
But what do I know, we’re helping the poor…
students who need help with that big, heavy door.

I’m struggling for which is worse, my blatant and unrelenting cynicism, horrible poetry, or ridiculous hypocrisy. Email me (naf.blog@[this site].com) or comment.  Apparently, by unchecking “allow people to comment on articles”, comments are actually allowed.  Programmers…

It hasn’t been long, and I’m reconsidering an idea that has long seemed appealing to me. I had the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam a while ago when the family flew through there to get to Turkey, and there is something strangely fascinating about the place. I’m not entirely sure I can accurately convey the feelings, but phrases like “cold yet organic” and “human but impersonal” come to mind. Something deep within me longs to run away from all I have, all I’ve made, all I am, and all I’ve become and retreat to a certain anonymity beneath the invisible fog of a city that speaks two languages and has a train system. Taking a nameless job and wandering the streets has a certain draw for me; being the invisible man to lend a small favor and then disappear into the ocean of people sits like a small ember within me. Where most of my dreams are so idealistic as to seem unreal (or at very least improbable), this one has a particular tenacity in my mind as it isn’t totally unrealistic. Could I pull it off? probably not. If I really wanted to? absolutely.

I think the ultimate advantage is that somehow I perceive this new life to be free from the mental strife that seems to consume me when I’m alone. I envision a future where I am somehow at peace with the things that cannot be nailed down to the interior of my mind, and I see this escape as somehow accomplishing that all at once. Realistically, this seems to be almost contradictory. How could leading a life of solitude possibly settle this little war that’s been waged for so long in my brain? I see the problems of being alone with my thoughts and envision a solution that requires that I live almost entirely with myself. At times, I think it’s an inner denial of the fact that I do think too much, probably because I can’t stop. It’s far easier to accept something when you can see a way out. The refusal of the cocaine addict to admit he has a problem must be at least partially due to some natural function of the mind that will not admit something problematic until there has been deemed a suitable solution. At one point I decided that true hopelessness stems not from an inability to see possible good that might arise from a particular set of circumstances, but instead from doubts as to the existence of good.

CNN was running some special on a New York Times reporter who had investigated Cambodian sex slaves. Obviously, one of the least pleasant topics, the man detailed the life of a young woman who he rescued (bought or otherwise, I didn’t hear) from her captive brothel only to return days later due to a meth addiction probably instigated by her captives. The future prediction for her life was abysmal: she will remain there due to her chemical dependency on the drug and die in her early twenties of AIDS. It disappointed me that the special was not longer, that more information was not given, that more people weren’t emotionally activated in their ethical duties to at least attempt the relief of human suffering in this world. A piece of me dies every time I hear another story, and I am forced into a position to reevaluate the dreams I live in. Isn’t this idea of changing the world just a pipe dream? If so, is there any solution? The foundation of my dreams, and hence my world, is this thin ideal that somehow things might change, that there is a solution. And this foundation, the denial of the presence of all this wrong, is continually chipped away as my eyes open and my experience increases. With the capacity to deny being torn from me, and the dreamy eyes that see a new world slowly closing as I grow older, I’m left in an undefined state that I am at a total loss to describe. A state that seems to be enveloping other aspects of my life aside from questions of evil and hardship. To simply forget these issues, while a potential solution, seems like a shallow victory in terms of a life well-lived.

Amsterdam grows in appeal daily.