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: PS : How can I say this? I remember it vividly; it meant something to me and still does. This is an act both of compassion and power. This is living authentically. I don't know how to explain it any better, except maybe to say that I can hear Jesus saying, "This do, and you will live." : JONVON : ok, rereading. btw just the little you and john posted is also too much to respond to. arg. : um. ok, living authentically. i can see what you are saying here. i am not sure i know how to explain what i mean by living authentically. perhaps you are right here. i almost see this as, in certain shining moments we live authentically in a way that has eternal merit. : what i am saying is, how do i live authentically in every moment, not just the ones we might earn little gold stars for. i know it is deeper than that, what you are getting at, infinitely so, but bear with me. : i am talking about my life every day. my art. my work, my vocation, how all of this impacts the way i live day in and day out. it may be as simple for me as, escaping the emotional traps laid for me in my upbringing. i sought the answer for that in christianity, but the answer was limited to the kind of thing that you mention. compassion is of course the key stone, without it nothing else matters much. but what about the rest of it? no one hands you a manual at the start and says, just follow these guidelines and it will all come out ok. : everyone has to find that for themselves. : so that is largely what i have been up to. also, i have been, i now realize, piecing together some kind of intricate machine that has been laying in wait in my mind for a long time. perhaps to someone else the workings of that machine are quite simple, but i have had to spend a lot of time figuring it out. : i remember some years back someone came up to me and said, "i have a word for you." and then they proceeded to tell me that my intellectual activity wasn't going to get me any closer to god. something like that. and then a week or two later someone else said the same thing to me, almost word for word. ok, two witnesses or whatever. maybe there was something to it. but ya know, it just didn't matter. and maybe they were right, i don't know. even if they were right, i still had to do what i had to do. : and now i think i am seeing the fruit of that expedition. in this novel i am working on. i am existing in such magic right now. i wish i could explain what it feels like. god, it is beautiful. : but i find myself trying to reconcile myself to myself in some ways. the whole christian thing is hard. i am not quite sure how to piece that part of the machine back together. i am not sure that i am a man who is or ever was constructed in such a way as to be structurally sound. my "structural integrity" to borrow the star trek phrase has never been 100%. never ever. so what can i say? : this is part of what i hate about this whole thing. the expectations are too f*ing high. no one can live up to that. and so then we have the cross reconciling us and so forth. here, let me pull the rug out from under you. and now, come over here, i'll give you this nice new wooden floor. see how nice it is? never mind the bloody nails. also, in case i didn't mention, to live on this floor, you have to obey these rules. : i don't mean to be harsh or whatever. somewhere in this equation i start to break down. especially in the context of a social fabric. what i always liked about the whole refuge thing was the lack of that big pointing finger in my face. what we first studied, way back when, in those prayer meetings you mentioned. love acceptance and forgiveness. i've got three thousand mirrors telling me how screwed up i am. i don't need the finger. : and please understand i know you aren't pointing it. about as close as i can get now, it seems, to the christian thing, is once in a while getting blasted by that Power, and hoping i live through it. or something like that. : well mostly all this beats hell (which i don't believe in) right out of me. : so this isn't um, theologically correct or sound or whatever, just honest.

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