Spirituality and compulsion...

There seems to be a fine line between a truly spiritual experience and the compulsion to exert that power through other means. It can be such a surge of energy, something new, something overwhelming, that the soul cries out for familiarity and is drawn to a compulsion that may have formerly been our undoing.

For example, sexual addiction, in whatever form, may be the outlet. When this surge comes, the temptation is great to take that power and wield it to obtain release, bypassing all restraint, every normal means to fight it, so great is the energy.

This is why prayer is so important, and so difficult. It makes no sense. There is "nothing" there, no tangible, tactile anything to provide us comfort. We direct our comfort to something, some One, we cannot see. Faith and prayer. So very difficult, so very different yet the two principle things by which a deeper life is lived.

I feel power surging through my veins. Is this a calling of God? Or is the power my resistance?

Time to pray...

Getting soft...

"When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I'm here a week now... waiting for a mission... getting softer; every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker..."

- Apocalypse Now

Wrapped up in the concerns of life, struggling to pay bills, keep up a house, maintaining an automobile in order to get around to get to work to be able to pay the bills, keep up a house, maintain an automobile in order to get to work. A perpetual motion machine self-perpetuated.



"Jane, stop this crazy thing..."

- George Jetson



Too much information, too much distractions, too much tevelision, too many movies, too much music, too much information, too much, too much, too much. Numb. Losing feeling. Can't even distract myself or numb myself; numb to being numb.

How do I get off?

Time to pray...

Reassessing...

Could it be that Christianity, as a whole, has collectively created Jesus as a projection of all that is within us or, another way, have projected on to Jesus all that is within us collectively? In other words, are we making this up as we go? It is quite possible. Perhaps, the person of Jesus is the perfect object onto which we project all that is within us. Perhaps he is that 'perfection' that we all seem to have some grasp of, loosely defined, yet that drives us or attracts us.

Yet there is something very real about the experience, a corporate body in unison on the same projection, if we say that's what it is, that is difficult to explain. Is it simply a collective madness, as many claim, group think on an unprecedented scale?

But from within (which, of course, cries out 'cult'), it just does not appear how this could so.

By what criteria do we judge whether or not it is all a delusion, wishful thinking, a cult? And who judges the objectivity of such criteria? Men? The Bible? Doctrine? How do we know?

Spirituality through secular music...

Can God use secular music to heal our wounds?

Sometimes Christian music is, well, annoying. And often not very good. I don't feel compelled to listen to it exclusively. Actually, I am often surprised when I do find some Christian music that I enjoy, that moves me, that elevates and transports me.

I suppose I am often more "comfortable" in secular music. While it rarely elevates my soul, it often stills the turmoil inside. It deals more on the emotional level, rarely, if ever, on the level of the spiritual. It can get the soul to a place where it longs for the spiritual but I don't view such music as a "spiritual" event though it comes close. Only after having had "spiritual" experiences can I render such judgment as prior to such experiences what I felt while listening to music was as spiritual as I had known to that point so I can't take that away from the experience. It was spiritual in that sense but it was not transcendent (escapist or elevating perhaps, but not transcendent).

I'm at work, again, listening to Deep Dish's Yoshiesque set, a set I've known about forever but only recently obtained. It is an incredible mix and it took me right back to the time when I discovered techno music. It's got a sweet sound, a few familiar tunes, and a dreamy soundscape that instantly transported me back to that time of deep searching when techno music was, to me, spiritual, salvific even, the trance sound taking me away, losing me in the beats, my head lost in the sounds of the mix.

I went right back to that time, a time of relative freedom, of experimentation, of the thrill of wonder and the freshness of the unknown. Those long nights of pondering, trying to figure out what everything means. Hard to imagine that this album (and most of my experience with techno) came after quitting drugs.

So it ends and bleeds into Moby's Little Idiot disc offered as an extra to his Animal Rights album. It's the sad, dreamy, melancholy music Moby excels at, turning electronica into emotional catharsis.

I am transported back to the time of self-exploration, when I truly began to face my demons, to really understand that I needed healing.

For whatever the reason, it internalized me in a good way, not as afraid to look inside as I was then, seeking escape, distraction, numbness, those things that all drove me to various addictions since a very young age.

Rather than run to the distraction, I paused, felt the presence of God, and was stilled. Stillness. So very, very difficult. No intention, no abstractions, no longings, just stillness. So very necessary to healing.

I must face whatever it is that seeks to destroy me.