insipid decay of affluence
Submitted by F.O.D. on June 26 1999 at 10:05:21
In reply to Re: Don't we all know about pain? Submitted by Chris on June 25 1999 at 22:46:47
|
I had fun inventing that subject line. After school I was able to leave home, leave my home town, and I've never been back yet for longer than six months. I remember quite deliberately making that decision at the beginning, and I'll tell you what was on my mind at the time. I remember feeling that I could have followed the majority of my classmates, gotten a university education, maybe gotten married, in short, found a comfortable and convenient life. But I felt danger alarms going off throughout my whole being - "Danger! Danger! Imminent expiration approaching!", meaning I feared that by walking this the standard path, my life, my faith, the meaning of God to me, all would have slowly suffocated and been extinguished by the overwhelming sleep of normal, middle class life. I would have become no one, would have done nothing. And I suppose it is still an everpresent danger. So I strive to be ever conscious of the things you were saying, Chris, to so follow Jesus' path, his radical path, that the contemporary religious establishment will never understand me, will even hate me. But can I do it? Will I succeed? I doubt it. I don't think I can do anything, I think what I have to do is just allow myself to be, be a person who reaches out his hand with the love and compassion of Christ. Now I'm rambling, hehe. A funny thing happened there, actually. The bartender at the café was the first person I talked to there. He was more or less nice, if rather flirty. We arranged to meet up on his day off. I was sitting there, waiting for him in another café, but he never did turn up. The next day back at his cafe I caught up with him, he said he had got busy somewhere else, and of course was not able to phone me to tell me. Pretty lame excuse really. But anyway, it made me wonder if I couldn't see here the hand of God protecting me from a promiscuous man (I mentioned that he was a flirt). The other guy, the copy of my YF#2 (what a dreadful way to describe him), he didn't want sex, so in that case it was "safe" to spend the evening with him. Well, what can I say but that the adventure (with God) continues... Thanks for your thoughts, Chris. I'm glad I've got you and the others to share about what's happening. Love, Fod |