I am almost 23 years old. I am single, I work in a fairly dead end job (in the sense that there is no room for ladder climbing, and I get paid just over minimum wage), I have a nearly useless degree, and I still live in student housing. There are movies and TV shows about girls like me and they almost always end up with the girl getting a fancy pants job and moving into a nice little place with some nice dude and presumably living happily ever after.
News flash: I am already happier than I have ever been.
I love my house and my house mates. I loved learning and do not regret getting my degree even a little bit. I am extremely excited about my job. I am genuinely excited for this year. It is going to be rad.
Do I wish I had a boyfriend, better job, nicer house, and a culturally acceptable way to justify my degree? YES. Of course, but not because I really want those things for them. I want them so I won't have to be ashamed of who I am and where I'm at.
Part of me likes the cultural prevalence of stories about women in their twenties and thirties who don't have their lives together because it makes me feel less alone. However, I can't stand their endings. It would be ok if SOME of the girls ended up happily ever after in the traditional sense and some of them didn't. That would be like real life, but in real life every messed up twenty something does not always figure things out and when they do figure things out their conclusions don't always match.
I will admit that I have watched friend after friend live through this narrative. They graduate jobless and confused. They move far away to get work. They fall in love. They buy a house. They have kids. I am happy for them.
HOWEVER, that is not the only narrative that my friends have lived through. I know people who still live happily with their parents working in the same town they were born into. I know people who have travelled around the globe. I know people with such a wonderful variety of interesting lives. Why is only one narrative being portrayed in the media?
Will I be upset if my life ends traditionally? NOPE. I would love to own a little house and have kids and as much as I realise that love is hard work if it were to happen in my life I would step up to the challenge.
However, that is not my current reality. I am currently at the beginning of the story where the girl has no idea what she is doing and this time it is not Hollywood so the ending is unpredictable. Here is the thing, why does the beginning of this story have to be sad? Now we all know I am against positivity. If you are sad be sad. I will give you a hug. Sometimes, though, I am happy even when things in my life do not emulate the end of a Hollywood movie. I am not talking about forcing yourself to be happy with something you aren't. I am talking about allowing yourself to be happy with something that might be culturally unacceptable to be happy with.
I have burnt myself out in work and school to impress people with my hard work and good grades trying really hard to push my socially awkward self into friend groups to impress people when all I really want out of life is nature, deep talks, and a chance to hang out with kids, oh and a mug of tea and something yummy to eat. These are the things that bring me happiness. I have these things in my life. I am happy. Dear Hollywood endings, the only reason I've ever wanted you is so that others will respect me. That is so silly. Peace out.
Thursday, 28 August 2014
Monday, 25 August 2014
Thoughts on community, beauty, forgiveness, and saddness.
I haven't written on here in a long time because I started feeling guilty about sharing my thoughts. Partly I felt like I was getting repetitive. I was also worried that people would think I was just venting to get attention.
Please know that is not my intention. I write to make sense of the thoughts in my own mind. I share my words with the hope that it will spark conversation because I love few things as much as I love dialogue.
Also I share my thoughts because I love reading other people's thoughts on the internet. I like it because it gives me something to think about and it is always so encouraging when I come across someone who thinks the same as I do, and so I shall continue to write. I apologize if it upsets you.
Anyways I have something to talk about.
Community.
I have been struggling with this concept.
When I am away from community I get seriously lonely.
However, only twice have I found a community that actually worked for me and both of those were years ago and have been over for a long time.
My problem with most communities is something I have attempted to express many times before but feel that I have failed to communicate properly and so I will attempt to explain it one more time.
At some point people always end up criticizing me and encouraging me to try harder to do better and then they turn around and say they are doing this out of love. In theory that actually makes sense. If you think a specific way of life is better then you will probably encourage the ones you love towards that life style.
Unfortunately it does not work in my experiential reality.
Constantly having my weaknesses pointed out makes me feel guilty. Guilt has discouraged me from change rather than working as a motivator. I have worked hard to forgive myself and encourage growth within myself, but participating in guilt ridden communities have destroyed a lot of the growth I have experienced.
Warning I'm about to get realish: I struggle with sadness. I've decided it is probably NOT depression because the only days I've ever been unable to get out of bed were ones when I didn't really have to get out of bed. It has never gotten too much in the way of work or school and although I sometimes have issues with seriously bad dark thoughts my family is such a support that I know I am not in risk of any self harm or anything that serious. However, I have a lot of fairly dark days. They may not be as dark as someone else's dark days, but they are dark and they are fairly frequent.
I have found that what helps most is noticing, appreciating, enjoying, encouraging, and creating beauty and then forgiving myself for being sad and a hug from someone else. What hurts is feeling required to be happy. A lot of people have harmed when they meant to help by encouraging happiness in a way that makes me feel guilty for my sadness and it has made community almost impossible for me.
I am doing pretty well using beauty and forgiveness to overcome my darkness but I'm struggling with choosing between loneliness or painful community. So that's where I'm at. Sorry if my thoughts bothered you.
Please know that is not my intention. I write to make sense of the thoughts in my own mind. I share my words with the hope that it will spark conversation because I love few things as much as I love dialogue.
Also I share my thoughts because I love reading other people's thoughts on the internet. I like it because it gives me something to think about and it is always so encouraging when I come across someone who thinks the same as I do, and so I shall continue to write. I apologize if it upsets you.
Anyways I have something to talk about.
Community.
I have been struggling with this concept.
When I am away from community I get seriously lonely.
However, only twice have I found a community that actually worked for me and both of those were years ago and have been over for a long time.
My problem with most communities is something I have attempted to express many times before but feel that I have failed to communicate properly and so I will attempt to explain it one more time.
At some point people always end up criticizing me and encouraging me to try harder to do better and then they turn around and say they are doing this out of love. In theory that actually makes sense. If you think a specific way of life is better then you will probably encourage the ones you love towards that life style.
Unfortunately it does not work in my experiential reality.
Constantly having my weaknesses pointed out makes me feel guilty. Guilt has discouraged me from change rather than working as a motivator. I have worked hard to forgive myself and encourage growth within myself, but participating in guilt ridden communities have destroyed a lot of the growth I have experienced.
Warning I'm about to get realish: I struggle with sadness. I've decided it is probably NOT depression because the only days I've ever been unable to get out of bed were ones when I didn't really have to get out of bed. It has never gotten too much in the way of work or school and although I sometimes have issues with seriously bad dark thoughts my family is such a support that I know I am not in risk of any self harm or anything that serious. However, I have a lot of fairly dark days. They may not be as dark as someone else's dark days, but they are dark and they are fairly frequent.
I have found that what helps most is noticing, appreciating, enjoying, encouraging, and creating beauty and then forgiving myself for being sad and a hug from someone else. What hurts is feeling required to be happy. A lot of people have harmed when they meant to help by encouraging happiness in a way that makes me feel guilty for my sadness and it has made community almost impossible for me.
I am doing pretty well using beauty and forgiveness to overcome my darkness but I'm struggling with choosing between loneliness or painful community. So that's where I'm at. Sorry if my thoughts bothered you.
Thursday, 29 May 2014
where I explore belonging, community, rootedness and stuff
I wary of saying that things are no longer what they were. One of my professors said that this kind of talk is usually misplaced. Yes, some things have changed, but a lot has stayed the same. However, I cannot help but feel that this generation is as another one of my professors used to say a people of scattered hearts. There was a time when people would have lived in the same place as where their great grandparents were born, but now it is slowly getting to almost be rare to even live where you were born.
Like many things there is a good side and a bad side to this phenomenon. Leaving behind the place where we were born can allow us to leave behind the perspectives we were born into and explore new ones.
However, as Marcel Proust said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Like many things there is a good side and a bad side to this phenomenon. Leaving behind the place where we were born can allow us to leave behind the perspectives we were born into and explore new ones.
However, as Marcel Proust said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
What we lose as travellers and seekers is a feeling of rootedness and belonging. We also lose the lesson of learning to love the people who have been placed in our lives rather than searching for loveable people.
Once again I need to posit a however. Learning to live with others is something we need to be very careful about. I don't think we should go out looking for like minded people. If that is what you believe, then good luck with that, but I think it is important for us to surround ourselves with varying perspectives. I think this because I believe that it will help everyone to really question what they believe and why and assist each other in a journey towards truth.
However, the type of a life that I am suggesting - the one where we dig roots down in a community of people we don't even agree with - brings with it a whole complex set of difficulties. Disagreements will happen and they will be confusing and even hurtful.
Something that has helped me is that once my friend said "if we expect people to see the truth in what we say and change their mind we are asking them to be open to the idea that they might be wrong. If that is what we expect from them, then we too must be open to the idea that we might be wrong." If we are open to this fact it helps us really listen to why the other person believes what they believe because we are wondering if they could be right and this brings us to wonder if we have good reason for believing what we believe.
What happens when two people have a conversation and say "I've listened to the other person's reasons but they don't seem like good reasons to me. They have listened to my reasons but don't understand them. We still disagree. We are at a stale mate but it is not about something little, it is about something huge. It is a belief that we both hold to be very important to us."
This is a very interesting question. One I haven't answered yet. Maybe you need to continue to be that person's friend while continuing to disagree. Maybe your friendship needs to end. Maybe your friendship simply changes a little. Maybe what happens will depend on all the details of each situation.
What I do believe is that you should not fight to become part of a friendship or community where you have to give up your beliefs to be part of the community. It is important that communities be open to discussion in order to come to a closer understanding of the truth, but if you straight up disagree you either learn how to continue to be part of the community while disagreeing with the others, or you get out of there.
What breaks my heart and what I think may be the cause of the restlessness and rootlessness in our society is communities that demand that people give up who they are in order to join.
What breaks my heart and what I think may be the cause of the restlessness and rootlessness in our society is communities that demand that people give up who they are in order to join.
I desperately want to belong somewhere, but I am a questioner and although there are things I am willing to give up and although I want to seek out people I disagree with, I want to belong somewhere that allows questions and allows me to be who I am and believe what I believe and struggle with what I struggle with.
Monday, 26 May 2014
Where I grapple with the possible selfishness of my degree and what I want to do with my life
I woke up this morning feeling (as I often feel) like I have no freaking clue as to what I think about anything. And also angry. Then I spent my day reading and watching videos of people talking about books and I calmed down and even felt happy.
I don't really know what it is about books that makes me so happy. I've tried to turn it into a list of reasons before (http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/02/why-should-you-read-fiction.html) and also to meditate on it more poetically (http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/05/how-books-help-me-see-beauty.html), but I feel it defies explanation.
I love literature the way some people seem to love each other: beyond reason.
This revelation makes me very aware of something: one way or another I need a career in literature. I don't know what that will look like and it is something that I have been at war with myself over ever since graduation started to loom.
I still feel a lot of guilt for having studied literature because it feels like I wasted my money selfishly. I went to school because I wanted to, that was my only reason. I did not go to get a helpful job or to gain skills that can aid me in making the world a better place. Although, in my defense, I also did not go to school to get rich, gain power, or because that is what was expected of me.
However, I do believe two things:
1. That it might makes sense to do what we are passionate about because the world may need more passionate people (although, despite not being a fan of apathy, I cannot prove this belief in an argument, I've tried.)
2. That books have power. NOT the power of inspiration. I have ALWAYS been wary of people who seek to inspire others. Why inspire others to do what you could just do? Plus I don't think that movies and books really inspire people to action all that much. It took me THREE YEARS after having watched Food Inc. to actually become a vegetarian. So what is their power? I have basically answered this in my other posts about books where I explain that they help us see beauty, improve imagination, empathy, and critical thinking. However, perhaps even more important is something I have never really touched on before which is that I think books are capable of assisting with healing. Books help us work through the shit in our lives. We try to understand why things are the way they are and what we make of the world. We can do this through both writing and reading. And it is a beautiful thing. Reading forces me to say "Do I agree with this character's life choices? What theoretical ideas come out of this story and what do I think about them? What would I do if I were in this character's shoes?"
This is why I am at a loss for where to take my passion. Although I think it is helpful to learn the tools of reading and interpreting literature, I am not that interested in those tools. I want to go beyond a study of how words work to create meaning to a study of how readers use books in their daily life to contemplate the universe and to figure out how to exist. And after all is not the whole business of life the figuring out of how to be alive? As far as I am aware there is no place where I can do this, yet, because most schools study the text alone and not its relation to the readers.
I don't really know what it is about books that makes me so happy. I've tried to turn it into a list of reasons before (http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/02/why-should-you-read-fiction.html) and also to meditate on it more poetically (http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/05/how-books-help-me-see-beauty.html), but I feel it defies explanation.
I love literature the way some people seem to love each other: beyond reason.
This revelation makes me very aware of something: one way or another I need a career in literature. I don't know what that will look like and it is something that I have been at war with myself over ever since graduation started to loom.
I still feel a lot of guilt for having studied literature because it feels like I wasted my money selfishly. I went to school because I wanted to, that was my only reason. I did not go to get a helpful job or to gain skills that can aid me in making the world a better place. Although, in my defense, I also did not go to school to get rich, gain power, or because that is what was expected of me.
However, I do believe two things:
1. That it might makes sense to do what we are passionate about because the world may need more passionate people (although, despite not being a fan of apathy, I cannot prove this belief in an argument, I've tried.)
2. That books have power. NOT the power of inspiration. I have ALWAYS been wary of people who seek to inspire others. Why inspire others to do what you could just do? Plus I don't think that movies and books really inspire people to action all that much. It took me THREE YEARS after having watched Food Inc. to actually become a vegetarian. So what is their power? I have basically answered this in my other posts about books where I explain that they help us see beauty, improve imagination, empathy, and critical thinking. However, perhaps even more important is something I have never really touched on before which is that I think books are capable of assisting with healing. Books help us work through the shit in our lives. We try to understand why things are the way they are and what we make of the world. We can do this through both writing and reading. And it is a beautiful thing. Reading forces me to say "Do I agree with this character's life choices? What theoretical ideas come out of this story and what do I think about them? What would I do if I were in this character's shoes?"
This is why I am at a loss for where to take my passion. Although I think it is helpful to learn the tools of reading and interpreting literature, I am not that interested in those tools. I want to go beyond a study of how words work to create meaning to a study of how readers use books in their daily life to contemplate the universe and to figure out how to exist. And after all is not the whole business of life the figuring out of how to be alive? As far as I am aware there is no place where I can do this, yet, because most schools study the text alone and not its relation to the readers.
Sunday, 4 May 2014
How Books Help Me See Beauty
Today, I watched the movie Julie & Julia. I don't know if you have ever watched that and whether or not you liked it, but it got me thinking. I'm not really sure how this particular movie evoked the following thoughts, but somehow it did. Why do I spend so much more time thinking about all of the things that make me mad than thinking about all of the things that make me happy? Don't get me wrong, I still think it is important to be true to both your sadness and your anger, but I also think I don't spend enough time focusing on the things I love.
Books. I love books more than most other things in all the world.
Of course, there are logical reasons to love books: http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/02/why-should-you-read-fiction.html
But there is something more. One of the reasons I love books is because they show me the poetry of our world.
Now, first let me explain what I mean by poetry.
Some things (including poetry) make me feel something that I cannot put into words or comprehend with my mind. I love this feeling. There is something nice about having something that I don't need to comprehend.
Books make me feel this way. They give me a beauty I don't have to question or understand and they help me see it in the rest of the world.
Books make sad stories beautiful.
Books make me believe that bad things can get better and good things can be enjoyed.
Books make things that seem boring to me (like math or science) seem beautiful to me because they are told by other people who love these things and can share this love with me.
They ignite a passion within me that allows me to resist apathy. When I say I wish all the world could learn to love reading, what I really mean is I wish they could become passionate about the world because that is what reading does for me.
Books. I love books more than most other things in all the world.
Of course, there are logical reasons to love books: http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2014/02/why-should-you-read-fiction.html
But there is something more. One of the reasons I love books is because they show me the poetry of our world.
Now, first let me explain what I mean by poetry.
Some things (including poetry) make me feel something that I cannot put into words or comprehend with my mind. I love this feeling. There is something nice about having something that I don't need to comprehend.
Books make me feel this way. They give me a beauty I don't have to question or understand and they help me see it in the rest of the world.
Books make sad stories beautiful.
Books make me believe that bad things can get better and good things can be enjoyed.
Books make things that seem boring to me (like math or science) seem beautiful to me because they are told by other people who love these things and can share this love with me.
They ignite a passion within me that allows me to resist apathy. When I say I wish all the world could learn to love reading, what I really mean is I wish they could become passionate about the world because that is what reading does for me.
Wednesday, 30 April 2014
An angry letter to christians about pain
To all my fellow Christians, there is something I wish you would stop doing. Please stop being "preachy" to sad people. I heard a story today that BROKE my heart. I don't want to get into the specifics but there was this woman who was going through some intensely bad times and she said something to someone about deserving a break to which they responded by saying she wouldn't want to get what she deserves because that is Hell and the whole point of Christianity is getting what you don't deserve. TECHNICALLY if you are a Christian then I guess you believe that is true, but there is NO WAY that it is an appropriate response.
What makes me extremely angry about Christianity is that so often Christians try to tie everything up way too neatly. If university taught me anything, it taught me that the world is complicated. Things are not simple and complicated questions need complicated answers. Some aspects of Christianity make some aspects of reality way too simple. In a way, it is what I like about it. I like that it provides some meaning and logic to the way things are. There is something comforting about being able to say that things suck because evil exists, but that good is stronger and will one day win out over bad.
What makes me mad is when people refuse to acknowledge the messed up in between time. IF we say, for arguments sake, that Christianity is true, THEN Christians are ok in an eternal sort of way, but they are not necessarily ok for NOW because for now we are all stuck on a messed up earth full of messed up people and natural disasters where we ourselves are still not perfect. Life sucks. You don't need to tell me that. I have friends who are straight up orphans, who battle addictions of all sorts, who live with anxiety, depression, mental illness, anorexia, or cancer. I know that life is not always wonderful. I also believe that there is big picture hope, but - though my big picture hope gives me strength to persevere THROUGH shitty reality - this hope does not make me happy.
I cannot STAND people who do not acknowledge the shitty reality. I have either experienced or heard of way too many instances of Christians saying things like "this is what we deserve" or "it could be worse" or "everything happens for a reason" or "don't be self centered, other people have it worse" of "count your blessings" of "you don't have a real reason to be sad" or "God works in mysterious ways"
You have no idea how badly I want to scream "FUCK OFF" I restrain myself because soooo often these people mean well. They cling to a belief system to make sense of a messed up universe. I do that too, but I acknowledge that my belief system can only explain so much, and that just because something makes sense does not mean it is beautiful. There is evil. You can explain it by saying we brought it upon ourselves and deserve more evil and do not deserve the beautiful ending we could get where evil is vanquished and good reigns, but even all this does not make the evil that is here and now go away.
Another thing I hate is when people say "You're not God and you can't or don't deserve to understand all he does." That may be true but I don't know anyone who has been through real shit who is just going to sit back and not be sad or mad when bad crap happens. Did you know that the bible also says that you should mourn with those who mourn? So the next time you try to cheer someone up by saying something that basically amounts to "you should shut up because you don't have a right to be sad" remember that no matter how much you can explain the way things are all your theoretical ideas do not take away the reality of their pain. Pain does not need reason. Pain needs kindness.
What makes me extremely angry about Christianity is that so often Christians try to tie everything up way too neatly. If university taught me anything, it taught me that the world is complicated. Things are not simple and complicated questions need complicated answers. Some aspects of Christianity make some aspects of reality way too simple. In a way, it is what I like about it. I like that it provides some meaning and logic to the way things are. There is something comforting about being able to say that things suck because evil exists, but that good is stronger and will one day win out over bad.
What makes me mad is when people refuse to acknowledge the messed up in between time. IF we say, for arguments sake, that Christianity is true, THEN Christians are ok in an eternal sort of way, but they are not necessarily ok for NOW because for now we are all stuck on a messed up earth full of messed up people and natural disasters where we ourselves are still not perfect. Life sucks. You don't need to tell me that. I have friends who are straight up orphans, who battle addictions of all sorts, who live with anxiety, depression, mental illness, anorexia, or cancer. I know that life is not always wonderful. I also believe that there is big picture hope, but - though my big picture hope gives me strength to persevere THROUGH shitty reality - this hope does not make me happy.
I cannot STAND people who do not acknowledge the shitty reality. I have either experienced or heard of way too many instances of Christians saying things like "this is what we deserve" or "it could be worse" or "everything happens for a reason" or "don't be self centered, other people have it worse" of "count your blessings" of "you don't have a real reason to be sad" or "God works in mysterious ways"
You have no idea how badly I want to scream "FUCK OFF" I restrain myself because soooo often these people mean well. They cling to a belief system to make sense of a messed up universe. I do that too, but I acknowledge that my belief system can only explain so much, and that just because something makes sense does not mean it is beautiful. There is evil. You can explain it by saying we brought it upon ourselves and deserve more evil and do not deserve the beautiful ending we could get where evil is vanquished and good reigns, but even all this does not make the evil that is here and now go away.
Another thing I hate is when people say "You're not God and you can't or don't deserve to understand all he does." That may be true but I don't know anyone who has been through real shit who is just going to sit back and not be sad or mad when bad crap happens. Did you know that the bible also says that you should mourn with those who mourn? So the next time you try to cheer someone up by saying something that basically amounts to "you should shut up because you don't have a right to be sad" remember that no matter how much you can explain the way things are all your theoretical ideas do not take away the reality of their pain. Pain does not need reason. Pain needs kindness.
Monday, 14 April 2014
Why I think Christianity is a Beautiful Story
I realised yesterday when I was talking about how Christianity is the better story that I never really talk about why I love Jesus. There was this one time that I wrote about how Christianity gives me hope.(http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2012/11/i-shall-hope.html) Hope is definitely a huge reason why I love Jesus. However, other than that, I mostly only write about why I dislike church, the questions I have, and the new ways of thinking about it all that I experiment with. This is not because I don't love Jesus. I spend so much time grappling with my confusions surrounding my faith BECAUSE I am so emotionally invested in it, if I didn't love something about it I would have given up on it all a long time ago. I decided to talk today about what I love about my beliefs. I should note, though, that since this is coming from me it is not a theologically correct statement of what Christians believe and why, its just the awkward ranting of one messed up believer who wants to remember all the reasons that she loves what she believes.
One of the things that I have come to absolutely love about my faith is the complexity of it. I used to hate that. I wanted something super simple and easy to understand, but that was way back in the day before I came to university. I have since learned that reality is super complicated. Sometimes I wonder if Christianity was just constructed by humans so we would have answers to the tough questions. If it was, I applaud the humans who invented it because it is complicated and I love that because I feel we need complicated answers to respond to complicated questions and realities. I mean, Christianity can be simplified, and there are aspects to it that are beautiful in their simplicity, but I love that it is also something you can keep contemplating and (hopefully) constantly be coming to a better understanding of it on into forever.
The complexity is something I love about The Bible as well as the faith in general. I also love the literary diversity of The Bible. There are poems, letters, and stories. There is love, war, and adventure. It really is a great book. It is very literary with tons of foreshadowing and symbolism and passages that truly come alive if you read them closely. I love how all of these different stories, styles, books, and chapters come together to tell one great story. There was a God who made a people who He loved dearly. They left Him, and brought evil to all He had so lovingly created and they needed to be punished, but He never stopped loving them and in one great climactic ending the great God came down as a mere human and took their punishment upon Himself leaving them with a helper to aid them as they tried to figure out how to stumble along in His footsteps and tell others about this great mysterious one after He had left and while they await His return. From a purely emotional and/ or literary view point is that not a fantastic story?
I love that Christianity helps things to make sense. Evil is here because of sin, but there is justice in punishment for those who follow the path of evil. That is pretty much every old medieval story. To make sense of the world we have good and evil and to keep up hope we have evil punished. What makes Christianity even more beautiful is that it goes beyond that by saying that we can also have evil RENEWED! That is probably my favourite thing about Christianity. I know that I have a bad side, most people I know do, after all, none of us are perfect. I love the idea that we can be both forgiven, and renewed. It is the most beautiful thing to me and that is why I think Christianity is the better story.
One of the things that I have come to absolutely love about my faith is the complexity of it. I used to hate that. I wanted something super simple and easy to understand, but that was way back in the day before I came to university. I have since learned that reality is super complicated. Sometimes I wonder if Christianity was just constructed by humans so we would have answers to the tough questions. If it was, I applaud the humans who invented it because it is complicated and I love that because I feel we need complicated answers to respond to complicated questions and realities. I mean, Christianity can be simplified, and there are aspects to it that are beautiful in their simplicity, but I love that it is also something you can keep contemplating and (hopefully) constantly be coming to a better understanding of it on into forever.
The complexity is something I love about The Bible as well as the faith in general. I also love the literary diversity of The Bible. There are poems, letters, and stories. There is love, war, and adventure. It really is a great book. It is very literary with tons of foreshadowing and symbolism and passages that truly come alive if you read them closely. I love how all of these different stories, styles, books, and chapters come together to tell one great story. There was a God who made a people who He loved dearly. They left Him, and brought evil to all He had so lovingly created and they needed to be punished, but He never stopped loving them and in one great climactic ending the great God came down as a mere human and took their punishment upon Himself leaving them with a helper to aid them as they tried to figure out how to stumble along in His footsteps and tell others about this great mysterious one after He had left and while they await His return. From a purely emotional and/ or literary view point is that not a fantastic story?
I love that Christianity helps things to make sense. Evil is here because of sin, but there is justice in punishment for those who follow the path of evil. That is pretty much every old medieval story. To make sense of the world we have good and evil and to keep up hope we have evil punished. What makes Christianity even more beautiful is that it goes beyond that by saying that we can also have evil RENEWED! That is probably my favourite thing about Christianity. I know that I have a bad side, most people I know do, after all, none of us are perfect. I love the idea that we can be both forgiven, and renewed. It is the most beautiful thing to me and that is why I think Christianity is the better story.
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