Ever have the feeling...

...that your purpose is eluding you?

I've studied comparative religions for many years. Even have a degree to prove it. It seemed, at the time, that was my calling, to go off to grad school, to get a degree, and become a professor. But I wasn't some young pup with no commitments. At the time (as now) I had a family, a house and bills, bills, bills. Not exactly easy to pick up and head off to grad school. Didn't happen. Not happening now.

And yet the studies continue.

So what is my purpose? As my wife's father, a wise country minister from Jamaica says, I'm backed up. If I don't let it out, I get backed up, to put it politely. Yet in my approach to teaching/discussing these things, I often hear the term "on the fence" used in a derogatory sense. Have I not committed to anything? Or is my lack of commitment my only commitment? I've heard this used as well, especially with the "lukewarm" tag applied to it.

Am I delusional to think that I have some "higher" calling? Or is my fate to sit here on a Saturday morning, listening to Boozoo Bajou, drinking my 60 cent Frappio beverage with its 288 milligrams of caffeine, writing a blog that might be read by someone out in the anonymous compuniverse? Is this what I am reduced to? Is this enough? What is it that I want?

Well, I am in between. I am a Christian, certainly, because of Jesus, not because of the Church's theology to which I cling loosely, the proverbial finger pointing at the moon, to use a Zen/Daoist metaphor. And yet I am fascinated by Islam. So I am this Chrislamist with Daoist leanings. I am a mutt. I can distinguish between the various layers of this belief but from the outside I must appear confused. Or insane. Sigh...

My truth?

Music. It is the embodiment of the human experience, encapsulating the movement of history and the voices that carry it.

Jesus. The perfect human being, both repository and mirror of the perfection of our humanity, us and yet not us.

Daoism. No finer philosophy to explain the human conundrum.

Islam. In the sense of submission to One God.

Love.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Of course we can argue that philo, the Greek word for 'friends', is better rendered as 'brother' and is thus used in the context of fellow believers which thus makes this command very particular. However, if we stretch the definition of 'brother' to be that of the human race, it validates the point. Love is to be completely selfless and, more accurately, to be actively desiring nothing but completeness, telios, for all fellow human beings.

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love [is] the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:8, 10)

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Galatians 5:14)

"If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well..." (James 2:8)