The charm in tragedy, God and flesh, injustice

Sometimes I run up against a really bad, dark mood that I don't much want to get myself out of, and I always wonder what kind of masochistic streak in me keeps me here. At times it is fairly abstract - I don't quite know what makes me so depressed - and at other times it's a concrete sadness, for something relevant and real. I think, though, that there are a number of reasons I (I'll speak for myself - please let me know if you can relate) find these dark moods so appealing.
-First, I feel I deserve it: humanity sucks. I am bad. And even if I haven't done anything very bad recently, take a look at the world - there is obviously something very wrong for little me to have so much and much of it to have so little.
-Second, it feels very much real: humanity sucks. That is a fact that I am very much aware of, that I see every day in myself, in others, in the state of affairs, on the news, in pictures, in my conscience, in the direct contrast of my beautiful God. So I think that getting lost in that gives me a certain sense of stability; that is something I know I am reasonable in. (Of course, [to me] logically rejoice is also reasonable, when considering God's awesome-nicity.) So it's easy to feel sad, it makes me feel connected and not lost inside of myself and substantial, stable and tied down and not as if I'm about to float away in all of my ignorance.
These two points run together very much.

I don't think it's just me. Maybe I have my unique reasons (though I doubt that - I think many though not all can relate), but it seems that there is evidence of this bizarre appeal of tragedy and depression all over the place, at least in the world in which survival is not the only priority a person can afford to worry about. Looking at the States for example - why do we continue to produce movies and music and literature that make us cry? We love to prize on the relatability of tragedy to all humans; heartbreak and divorce and disappointment run as deep in the entertainment sphere (ironic the use of the word 'entertainment') as they do in the real world. More and more people are found sucked into themselves, with self-abuse and depression and drugs rampant. I guess it's also fascination with the abomination. Or perhaps this is partly the origin of fascination with the abomination.
It's interesting to me all the charm we find in tragedy.



Instinct lies in the gut. The most 'savage' (closest to animal?) of our human traits resides in our bodies. I find it interesting that also inextricably tied to our flesh is contrition, festering and eating away at our hearts and our guts - no doubt a God-borne sentiment if ever there was one. This to me is a distinct reminder of God as man.

And also evidence to His continuing use of material, Creation, flesh as tools in bringing us closer to Him. Which is, according to the Anglican perspective, what the Eucharist is. The lack of faith in the strange reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist seems to me to be based in an underlying perspective that downplays material and Creation and God's involvement in that, that ultimately doubts the man of Christ, the word made flesh, the skin and bone and heart and blood of our Almighty, corpus Christi. God tied himself so irreparably to the flesh and humanity when He made Himself man - why is it utterly unbelievable that He would do that still today in a continued effort to bring us to Him? I don't mean to open discussion as to the validity of the Anglican perspective on the Eucharist (though if you'd like to, I won't stop you), only to offer this as some sort of chipping away at the standard of reasonable doubt that seems to have been built up against it.



It seems to me that the most valid and true injustice in the world is the suffering of children - they are innocent, they are blameless, they have potential. Humans are evil, but adults are more capable of knowing better. And as our bodies age (and our hearts grow colder), it seems we are only fighting fate in battling physical pain or deterioration. If the bodies were meant to grow so old they wouldn't decay so.

The picture is from our 2005 trip to Viet Nam - I miss it very, very much right now. I also miss the clear and poignant perspective I had and had to share, right in front of me, in Viet Nam.



Currently reading:
Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta
The Count of Monte-Cristo
The Twilight Series

Currently listening to:
new Coldplay cd!
Abracadavers, The Classic Crime
this guy - jwoo. He's awesome!

light vs. darkness, light and rain, language of love, Jesus' death and life

I just finished a book, on recommendation of companionableills, called Story, by Steven James. It was very good. Highly recommend it. There were a few things I would depict differently, I think.

Anyway, tidbits:


James talks about light and darkness in this story a lot. They don't seem such opposites to me (fighting forces, though, yes), because darkness is the absence of light. Darkness cannot exist without light, it is not without light. It is not.
And light and darkness (as good and evil) work their wonders in such different ways.

At one point James says, "...i need some of your light to glow in my life/and burn away the darkness...i still have an echo of your image within me,/battling with this creeping stain upon my soul..."
I wrote notes:
"wash away
Rain. Leaves its own stain?
Washes in light.
Light can be heavy."
For a while I've been struggling with expressing the reason I enjoy rain so much and, specifically, Arizona rain and not necessarily any other rain. (I am determined to hate Arizona, so maybe this is why I have so much trouble.)
I have come up with this: Rain is substance.
I think I know what I mean now. I think that light can be heavy in the same way that rain can be heavy. It may wash away impurities, stains, but it also leaves a stain of its own. It penetrates and illuminates and leaves things raw and real. I am definitely blending light and rain now.
I'm sure I'm being completely incoherent.


I think that our fallen nature is not our desire to do evil, for that does not exist in that pure sense. It is our loss of touch with God and our weakness to Satan. It is our tongues and ears wrapping themselves around, becoming fluent in, the language of dark and sin rather than of light, of love.


There is so little focus on God becoming Man and I believe that this is a mistake. There is an implication, I think, that God's sole sacrifice/gift for us was His death for us but His life for us is immensely important. Because of Jesus' death, our sins can be forgiven and we can break through death, but only because of His life can we bring Him into ourselves. God became Man when we had fallen so far from the image He created us in, allowing us to don the Jesus persona. He gave us a model to mold our lives after but also made it possible. God wants us to be like Him. And so He became Man and somehow reconciled His perfect nature with our worldly, sin-stained one, making it possible for us to do the same. He found a means for cleansing our bodies so something as perfect as Christ can exist within them.
This is so difficult to explain.


These posts always form themselves at absurd hours. Not nearly as intelligible in the morning.



Current music:
Fallen Man, Relient K
Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright